The Melbourne Lord Mayor wants to can the A.G.P.
<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #dedcd7; COLOR: #dedcd7" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->
Melbourne should drop Formula 1 after its Australian Grand Prix deal ends in 2015, reckons the city's lord mayor Robert Doyle.
While praising the contribution F1 has made to the city since Albert Park first hosted the GP in 1996, Doyle believes the amount of public funding now required by the race is making it unviable.
"In 1996 when the race was a combination of a four-day event and corporate sponsorship was far more generous than it is today, the race still needed to be underwritten by about $1.7 million," Doyle wrote in an article for the Herald Sun newspaper.
"Last year it was $50 million."
"Fast forward to 2015, the year the franchise ends."
"Though the documented benefits for the city may include hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising value, tens of millions of dollars of local revenue, an event that will draw between 250,000 and 300,000 people over three days will come at a cost that will approach 70 million taxpayer dollars."
"It is the old argument: pay up front but get many times the value of the upfront payment in downstream economic benefits."
"For most events that formula is persuasive."
"But $70 million?"
Doyle suggested that Bernie Ecclestone might want to take the grand prix away from Melbourne after the current deal anyway - either to a new nation, or to a track that could run the race as a night event.
He believes $8-9million of upgrades would be required for Albert Park to secure a new deal, but reckons the healthiest option might be for Melbourne to accept that its F1 days have to come to an end, despite everything the race has done for the city's profile.
"The final possibility is that we decide that it has been 20 fantastic years, the benefits to the city and the state have been enormous, but the cycle has run its course," said Doyle."
The Victoria state government will have the final say on whether Melbourne should continue paying for F1, but Doyle believes the politicians should prepare to let the GP go.
"My judgement would be: Get ready. Time's up," he said.