The Indianapolis Business Journal has a great story that starts: "Indy Racing League founder Tony George dropped a bombshell in December when he told an industry group that he would shut down the open-wheel series if it didn’t break into the black soon."
You'll want to read this non-cheerleaderish story as a reminder that there is a business reality to racing. Check it out HERE.
Pressdog, Robin Miller mentioned this months ago, and he thinks TG is probably joking, because in his view there is no way the series will be profitable by 2013. Hopefully he doesn't close it down in a few years, that would make the whole split kind of useless.
Posted by: dylan | May 03, 2009 at 09:25 AM
nothing like a good old fashion D&G article to kick off the month of may!
Posted by: Meeshbeer | May 03, 2009 at 10:55 AM
I would think that at some point the IRL would have to at least break even. I mean, the George family can't continue to operate it in the red indefinitely, right? $25 million loss a year (for example) and pretty soon you're talking real money. Maybe they are in the black now. Maybe the target date got moved back a bit due to the switch to VS, which I would have expected to have some initial adverse effects due to the smaller possible audience if I were the boss. Hard to tell, since IMS never talks about this stuff willingly.
Posted by: pressdog | May 03, 2009 at 11:49 AM