Why in the heck does Bernie need $15MM to run a race at your track. Good grief no wonder F1 is in trouble.
Because that is what the promoter and Bernie agreed to. There were insufficient ticket sales, Bernie wants paid for bringing his circus to town and GPF1 got caught with their pants down.
The stupid thing is, the core value of the races is in the television rights. 10s of millions of TV viewers (or possibly 100s) and the advertising revenue and exposure generated by them versus the 75-100K heads that pass through the gates on raceday. He should back off the amount he charges since it's peanuts to him anyway. Especially when a race that's as prominent as Spa is concerned. I mean, suppose about 50,000 show up for the race, which can't accomodate as many grandstands as most tracks. That means the first $300 from each goes to Bernie. Over the weekend that number may double or possible triple, but even so that means that the first $100-$200 from those attending is going to Bernie. Ecclestone needs to assess how he's going to share the massive wealth his sport generates, because he's speeding towards a showdown with the teams, without whom he has nothing. And since he seems to enjoy alienating the best tracks on the circuit, soon he'll be left with nothing but flat, boring racing malls.
