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It’s widely agreed in the Supercars paddock that the current schedule is too thin, with the lack of regular racing hampering the sport’s market penetration.
Supercars owner RACE is known to have targeted 14 events for 2025, likely including returns to permanent circuits Queensland Raceway and Winton.
However, the current Teams Racing Charter is understood to require Supercars to pay its teams as much as $60,000 per entry for any additional events above 12.
Brad Jones, whose eponymous team runs four cars in the championship, admits the commercial realities may scupper any expansion for 2025.
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“I think that where we’re at and the deals that have been put in place, it’d be fair to say that we all want to grow and get the championship bigger but there are commercial outcomes that every time we put on another race, it’s very expensive for Supercars,” said Jones.
“I feel, and it’s just my personal opinion, that we’re probably in a position where we should stay at 12 next year and then when the business has the opportunity to get the deals in place that it needs to so it’s not really expensive for the business to grow, that’s probably the right time.
“It’s not that I don’t think we should do it, it’s just very, very difficult commercially.”
Dick Johnson Racing CEO David Noble is adamant the category needs more events in order to grow and hinted at ongoing discussions about how to make it a reality.
“We had one live (free-to-air) race in Australia in the first quarter of the year and we’re trying to compete as a sports entertainment industry at the top end of the market, we need more, in my opinion,” he said.
“We need to look at how we bring new demographics in, we need to look at how we are going to pitch our deal next year to TV, we need to look at how we can embrace a new partner in our data sharing from an app perspective, we’ve also talked around that.
“I’d like to see more racing. I think if Supercars are looking at a slightly different mechanism as to how they do that with more sprints, I understand the impact on the business, I get it, I look at the data every day, I understand it, but my opinion is I’d like to see more racing.
“I’d like to see us got to the market and be able to compete harder with other sports in the country.”
The “different mechanisms” referred to by Noble are thought to centre around cutting practice days and on-track running at current rounds as a way to make the expansion economics add up.
Noble, however, baulked at any suggestion that the teams should compromise financially in order to facilitate a calendar expansion.
“No. It’s a privately-owned industry,” he said. “Other industries are run as not-for-profit, they have a strong membership base, bigger platforms.
“We’re a private sector business, the category is owned privately, our businesses are all private invested, so I understand the implications from a financial perspective.
“But you asked the question, what would I like to see? I’d like to see, understanding that there are financial constraints, more racing.
“I’m not saying that we need to go to 18, that’s just ridiculous, Brad’s experienced that before, I understand the implications of that.
“But could we go to 13 or 14? Could we slightly manoeuvre around how we run the races on a Saturday, Sunday? I don’t know.”
Fellow team owner Tim Blanchard echoed sentiments around the importance of expanding the calendar, whether it be for next year or beyond.
“We’re all here because we like going racing, we don’t want to see our cars sitting in the workshop, we want to see them on the track racing against everyone else,” he said.
“Everyone wants to get out there doing some more races each year, it’s just how we make it work from a financial point of view is the big issue we need to resolve.
“Hopefully we can get that resolved and get to 13, 14, 15 races in the next few years.”
