Let’s throw some facts surrounding the $195m. NASCAR Hall up against the wall and see what sticks. Sound reasonable?

  • Admission prices for the NASCAR Hall are 10 to 15 percent higher than other similar sports halls.
  • The city of Charlotte will make royalty payments to NASCAR in exchange for use of NASCAR intellectual property. A racing merchandiser venture half-owned by Bruton Smith just defaulted on its royalty payments to NASCAR teams and may enter bankruptcy. In any event, a venture worth $250m. in 2005 is now valued at $36m.
  • As we predicted over two years ago, the Hall still has not sold a single corporate sponsorship as was planned as part of the financing package.
  • The NASCAR Hall still expects in excess of 800K visitors a year. Attendance at the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year was 196,231 and has topped 300K once — in 1973. The Sports Museum of America in Manhattan shuttered earlier this year after getting only 125K attendees. Backers expected one million.
  • NASCAR had predicted a fall-off in race attendance in the single digits this year. Yet NASCAR crowd estimates are famously dicey. If attendance falls 15 or 20 percent, how would we know?

As you ponder these issues, remember — always remember — Mayor Pat McCrory explaining things to you: “We’re building this to help the economy.”