Organisers of the Las Vegas Grand Prix claim that the 2024 event generated $934m (£725m) in revenue.
Of course, the organisers and promoters of the event are F1 itself, which owns the facility and its surrounding buildings. Indeed, from the end of this month, the Grand Prix Plaza, which makes up the pit and paddock area, will open as an “immersive fan experience”, featuring an interactive museum, simulators, and a kart track which includes part of the Las Vegas Strip circuit.
A report just released claims the 2024 event brought in $45m (£35m) in taxes, of which $15.5m (£12m) will be spent on schools across the state of Nevada.
“Grand Prix Plaza represents a significant investment in the future of Formula 1 in Las Vegas,” said Emily Prazer, president and CEO of Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc. and chief commercial officer for F1.
“These new attractions will offer unprecedented access to F1, giving many fans their first up-close look at a Formula 1 car before stepping into a racing simulator or even karting on a portion of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit.
“As part of our steadfast commitment to Las Vegas, we are thrilled to offer significantly discounted pricing to locals so that Grand Prix Plaza is an easily accessible community asset all year long.
“Grand Prix Plaza is one of the jewels of F1 in North America, and we know it will provide access and experiences that will grow the sport’s fan-base.”
While the state and its schools will be celebrating, the second Las Vegas brought little cheer to F1 itself. Liberty Media’s chief accounting officer, Brian Wendling, admitting that ticket sales and hospitality targets were missed.
“The Grand Prix did miss expectations, primarily on ticket sales,” he admitted, during a conference call. “This was offset by softness in certain hospitality offerings at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.”
Indeed, as a result, F1 brought in The $1.16bn in the final three months of 2024 – compared to $1.23 in 2023 – much of the drop put down to Las Vegas, and while team payments were up 4% from $1.21bn to $1.26, as a proportion of operating income, they shrank from 62.6% to 61.5%.
“The majority of the miss that you guys are calculating based on the team payment was Vegas-related,” admitted Wendling.
“The economics for Vegas missed internal expectations on revenue and OIBDA,” added Derek Chang, Liberty Media’s new CEO. “The team has moved very quickly, however, to enact changes that will benefit 2025 and support a financially successful race for F1 and continued growth and positive impact for the Las Vegas community.
“We are making further revisions to the ticket product and pricing strategy, leveraging this data, and as importantly, we are actively managing our cost structure,” he explained, subsequently revealing that the operation would now be run out of London, with ticketing brought in-house.
“This change leverages the strong organisation we have in London today across commercial, finance, and more,” said Chang. “At the same time, we are bolstering certain parts of the local Vegas team.
“To put on an event like that in the short amount of time that our teams in Denver and London were able to do over the last couple of years has been pretty impressive,” he insisted.
“We’ve talked at length about the benefit to the F1 ecosystem as a whole,” he added. “I think we all here were disappointed by some of the financial metrics in the early going here. But those, in my mind, are all durable and fixable.”
