Mario Theissen says "Keep Canadian GP"

[Gregster]

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=9ade530d-4c6b-44bf-8890-327c0fe4c736

I wonder if corporate pressure will help get the race back...

Button's answer was great though


"I love the city. It's a great city and it's one of the best races to go to for the nightlife," said the Briton.

[bmwqc]

Thiessen is right. It makes no commercial sense for the manufacturers to bypass Canada, but what about the sponsors? Are their interests being well served? Ad or no ad, people will smoke regardless.






http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=9ade530d-4c6b-44bf-8890-327c0fe4c736

I wonder if corporate pressure will help get the race back...

Button's answer was great though

[Andrei]

Thiessen is right. It makes no commercial sense for the manufacturers to bypass Canada, but what about the sponsors? Are their interests being well served? Ad or no ad, people will smoke regardless.

Didn't Formula1 decide to phase out tobacco sponsorship completely? It should be gone by now.

BMW Sauber get exactly zero dollars from tobacco sponsorship.

And sponsors spend their money to get on TV. The crowd at the race is inconsequential. What is not inconsequential is the atmosphere at the race. Sponsors do bring a lot of their people to races and there are a lot of North American based or involved sponsors. I don't think they would prefer Turkey or Abu Dhabi to Montreal.

[LagunaM3]

Didn't Formula1 decide to phase out tobacco sponsorship completely? It should be gone by now.
Definitely not. Marlboro still gives Ferrari $150M/year. What has happened is that Canada, USA, and Europe have outlawed tobacco ads in sporting events. So in those countries, Marlboro (or whoever) cannot display their logos on the car. In the Middle East and Far East, such restrictions don't exist. Ferrari does not display tobacco logos on their cars at any race, though. Marlboro does have Ferraris on their cigarette boxes in some markets instead.

[bmwqc]

Not completely gone. The biggest single sponsor, Marlboro is still in the game. They were able to show their logo on the Ferraris in China and in Monaco, but now they just display their barcode prominently on the sides of the Ferrari airbox.



Didn't Formula1 decide to phase out tobacco sponsorship completely? It should be gone by now.

BMW Sauber get exactly zero dollars from tobacco sponsorship.

And sponsors spend their money to get on TV. The crowd at the race is inconsequential. What is not inconsequential is the atmosphere at the race. Sponsors do bring a lot of their people to races and there are a lot of North American based or involved sponsors. I don't think they would prefer Turkey or Abu Dhabi to Montreal.

[Andrei]

F1 did promise to ban tobacco advertising by 2006. Then they went back on their word http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/3020348.stm

I never realized they went back on their word.

It actually does look very sinister on their part. Spread cancer stick propaganda by holding events hostage and forcing countries with nothing better going for them to loosen their tobacco advertising laws.
Proper countries like France, Canada, USA, Germany can't be bullied by this stuff as they can deal with a loss of the F1 race just fine. Less "evolved" countries either don't care about public health or are too vain to let the opportunity of having an F1 race pass.

I am definitely not going to make an effort to watch F1 anymore. I might follow the results and watch the race if I happen to be awake at the time but I don't give a crap anymore.

I am proud of Russia for letting the F1 race pass them buy. Bernie came to Moscow to sign the deal but the mayor of the city realized that the only thing Bernie is leaving to the city is exhaust fumes. So they told him to go screw himself. Bernie grumbled and found other suckers (China, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, etc.)

[blacksheep]

the GP was fun up to the early 90's cause you could get cheap "general admission" tickets and still find a spot with a good view.

then they got greedy and all those spots became fenced-off or intentionally blocked by billboards to sucker everyone into paying more $$.

Anyhow was fun to go and watch the cars once or twice but I always found the GP to be a mediocre entertainment value. I don't know what the big deal is about losing the race.

Pay hundreds of dollars to sit on a wooden plank in the blazing sun or pouring rain, and get bossed around by overzealous rent-a-cops? ummm ... no thanks

it's ridiculous for the government to pay a ransom to millionnaires and billionnaires just to attract an event (which mainly benefits more millionnaires). It's not 1976 anymore with Montreal struggling for recognition in the world stage.

[bmwqc]

I gave up attending the Montreal GP years ago. The tickets prices were getting way too expensive and as Eric points out, trying to get deals on general admission tickets is no longer viable because the organizers have managed to fill in all the visual loopholes with partitions and fences.

The 1st GP attended was in 1982. My seat was right at the starting line about 10 rows up (the gold of the gold). The price then was $70.00 for the 3-day pass. I doubt that $70.00 can even buy a general admission ticket these days.



the GP was fun up to the early 90's cause you could get cheap "general admission" tickets and still find a spot with a good view.

then they got greedy and all those spots became fenced-off or intentionally blocked by billboards to sucker everyone into paying more $$.

Anyhow was fun to go and watch the cars once or twice but I always found the GP to be a mediocre entertainment value. I don't know what the big deal is about losing the race.

Pay hundreds of dollars to sit on a wooden plank in the blazing sun or pouring rain, and get bossed around by overzealous rent-a-cops? ummm ... no thanks

it's ridiculous for the government to pay a ransom to millionnaires and billionnaires just to attract an event (which mainly benefits more millionnaires). It's not 1976 anymore with Montreal struggling for recognition in the world stage.

[Turbo_Bimmer]

I gave up attending the Montreal GP years ago. The tickets prices were getting way too expensive and as Eric points out, trying to get deals on general admission tickets is no longer viable because the organizers have managed to fill in all the visual loopholes with partitions and fences.

The 1st GP attended was in 1982. My seat was right at the starting line about 10 rows up (the gold of the gold). The price then was $70.00 for the 3-day pass. I doubt that $70.00 can even buy a general admission ticket these days.


A co-worker here at work has the best deal of all.
He can see the GP from inside for free! He is in a flagger association, but he works on safety, and regulation. When there is a protest, he is part of a team that measures wings, brake ducks etc, and makes sure no team go in the garage after the cars have been officially checked. During the race he can just walk around in the paddocks or whatch the cars go by on the track.!
Personnaly, I would prefer to do that instead of watching the race from the $eat$.

[johnmdanskin]

...
Anyhow was fun to go and watch the cars once or twice but I always found the GP to be a mediocre entertainment value. I don't know what the big deal is about losing the race.
...

I don't know about the world stage, but every hotel in the city is booked at 3-4X rates for the whole event. Holiday Inn express is $350/night. If I owned a hotel or a restaurant or a club in Montreal I'd be pretty upset.

[Andrei]

I liked the seats and I had a good time. It's great that some of you know a guy that knows a guy that has that special job to be in the middle of it all or that when the glaciers that created Mont St Bruno left there were great views form general admission.

The event was fun for 110,000 people on race day. That's a lot more people than at Monza (60k) or Spa(50k). With a grandstand ticket I didn't have to show up to the gates at 6:00 am and then guard my place with a bayonet. Somehow I never got bullied by the rent-a-cops and liked not having to travel for 3 hours to get to the event.

I am sorry to see the event go. It was something Montreal could be proud of unlike our roads or the fact that the city was the premier city of Canada but now is overshadowed by an overgrown rail yard in Ontario.

[Gregster]

I liked the seats and I had a good time. It's great that some of you know a guy that knows a guy that has that special job to be in the middle of it all or that when the glaciers that created Mont St Bruno left there were great views form general admission.

The event was fun for 110,000 people on race day. That's a lot more people than at Monza (60k) or Spa(50k). With a grandstand ticket I didn't have to show up to the gates at 6:00 am and then guard my place with a bayonet. Somehow I never got bullied by the rent-a-cops and liked not having to travel for 3 hours to get to the event.

I am sorry to see the event go. It was something Montreal could be proud of unlike our roads or the fact that the city was the premier city of Canada but now is overshadowed by an overgrown rail yard in Ontario.

Not to mention the flush toliets we had and quick access to the support races paddock area.

[blacksheep]

I don't know about the world stage, but every hotel in the city is booked at 3-4X rates for the whole event. Holiday Inn express is $350/night. If I owned a hotel or a restaurant or a club in Montreal I'd be pretty upset.

it's ridiculous for the government to pay a ransom to millionnaires and billionnaires just to attract an event (which mainly benefits more millionnaires).for everyone who enjoys going then it's a shame the race is going away

but my point is, why should the government use public funds to bribe Bernie and his fellow zillionaires, to attract an event which mainly allows (rich) business owners to make a fast buck off the out-of town visitors?

What is that, some reverse Robin Hood move?

I understand there's some trickle-down tax revenue but that's far from the main benefit

[Andrei]

I agree 100% that government money should not be spent on such events. Or any big league sporting events.

Montreal would still have a baseball team if not for all those American cities tossing money at owners. And it would still have an F1 race if not for all those other countries robbing their taxpayers for the sake of the vanity of the people in power.

[Emre]

Montreal would still have a baseball team if not for all those American cities tossing money at owners.Wait a minute. Let's not go overboard here. Montreal didn't lose it's Major League baseball team because of rich Americans. Montreal lost it's team because no one gave a crap about it.

I attended a few Expos games in 1995-1996 (don't ask). Besides myself and my two dopey friends who dragged me along, there were probably 2 dozen people in attendance (players included). The entire stadium was empty. We used to buy cheap-o tickets in the nosebleed section and then sit down right behind home plate. Even the premium seats were empty. It was like some creepy zombie movie where the entire population of the city suddenly disappeared.

[Emre]

Theissen, whose team took their first win in Canada this season, told reporters at the Japanese Grand Prix. "The North American market still is the biggest one, not just for BMW...

"The intention should be not to step out of this market but just the opposite - to use Montreal as a door opener for a future U.S. race as well," said the German.That's what I was thinking as well. I would think that the manufacturers would be mighty upset to have no representation in North America considering the USA is the single biggest car market in the world for all manufacturers (including Ferrari).

Dropping all North American events makes little sense to me. If I were a car manufacturer investing hundreds of millions into an F1 campaign, I'd be livid to lose representation in the biggest car market in the world.