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In Part 2, we discussed ALMS Television Costs, and began our discussion of Television Revenue. We continue that in this conclusion of our series on the Revenue and Costs of the American Le Mans Series.

We ended Part 2 with a look at actual ad distribution of ads in ALMS broadcasts, and the nominal revenue that might yield. We call that revenue “nominal” because for the most part the American Le Mans Series does not get most of its revenue from selling ads directly to the general advertising market.

In Part 1 we reviewed the income and expenses directly associated with IMSA’s conduct of races. Included were entry fees, credentials, and sanction fees for the ALMS and the support series races for which IMSA provides sanctioning, race management, and rules enforcement.

After costs detailed in Part 1, IMSA’s net for those activities was between $4 million (2009) and $5 ½ million (2008).

Part 2 deals with revenue from American Le Mans Series partners and sponsors, and income from the Series’ television package; on the cost side, series management, television operations, and purses paid to ALMS participants.

For those who have been following our analyses of the economics of sports car racing in North America, these next articles will seem both familiar and a logical next chapter. We presented race team costs in the ALMS (with one part devoted to Grand Am Daytona Prototypes) in The Cost of Racing, Parts 1-4. Here’s a link to Part 1 if you need to get started with those (and if you haven’t, you should). We followed up that with Paying for Racing, a two part analysis of how a team might be able to pay its bills (or not) Here is Part 1 of Paying for Racing.

Interspersed have been our own and guest commentaries (for example, this and this) on just what it all might mean to the sport, its participants, and its fans. 

In these next articles we’ll be looking at the revenues and costs of “the series,” a catch-all for what are really two entities, IMSA, the sanctioning body, and ALMS, the racing series.