North West 200 motorcycle races "are running at a loss, despite attracting a global TV audience of 800 million viewers," event chief Mervyn Whyte revealed on the eve of another race week, according to Jim Gracey of the BELFAST TELEGRAPH. Audited figures revealed by Whyte show a "significant annual boost to the north coast tourism economy with an estimated total visitor spend" of £4.5M in the area in '15. The wider media and PR value to the area, in terms of local, national and int'l exposure, "as independently measured by Nimms Media Evaluation," increased to £10.3M in '15. Whyte said that the country's "biggest attended sporting event," attracting up to 85,000 fans from home and abroad over race week and over 50,000 on race day, "has been running at a loss in recent years." And that has led the man known as Mr. North West to call for "increased financial support for the event, both from government and tourism agencies, and local business interests." Whyte: "But over the past few years we have been left with a shortfall when the figures are added up, simply because we are not bringing enough in." Whyte stressed the event was "not in danger of downsizing, or even disappearing, and acknowledged the support of existing backers." He said, "To be fair, a lot of local business interests do chip in and we are grateful for all of that. But there are also business people in the area who are making a lot of money out of the North West and putting nothing back in" (BELFAST TELEGRAPH, 5/3).