TRIPLE Eight managing director Jamie Whincup has labelled Supercars’ business model as “poor” and revealed the lack of revenue sharing teams enjoy relative to other sports.

Whincup delved into detail via a recent episode of What I Learned in Business (That Didn’t Kill Me!).

“In sport, the majority of the revenue is going to come from either people coming and watching the event – so bums on seats – or people watching on TV, media rights basically,” began the seven-time champion driver.

“That’s where the majority of the income for any sport is going to come, from those two elements.

“Generally what happens is, the income from both of those go to the governing body, so the AFL or Supercars or the NRL or the NBA or Formula 1, and then they distribute the money to the teams equally.

“And the teams are the clowns in the circus. We own the cars, we own all the infrastructure, and we’re literally putting on a show at the track and then the governing body pay you to put on that show.

“…So when the majority of revenue is going to come from bums on seats or media rights, you need a decent percentage from the governing body to have a successful business model.

“The AFL do it really well. About 60 percent of the teams’ operating expenses are covered by the AFL, via their memberships and seating and their direct money. NRL is similar, about 60 percent. Formula 1 is about 50 percent, so 50 percent of Formula 1 revenue goes to the teams, it actually makes up about 50 percent of their operating costs.

“Supercars are in the teens. Like we’re talking 17 percent.

“So we have got this model where we’re not getting any money from the media rights or bums on seats, we’re heavily reliant on internal sponsorship per team that they generate themselves.

“So we’re busting our arse trying to sell real estate on cars and trying to provide a QI (quality index) media value, and we do a very good job of that because we have to, to survive. Like our Red Bull sponsorship, from a QI media value, that’s the most recognised sponsorship in the country. There’s more QI media value from our Red Bull sponsorship than on any other sponsorship for any other sport in the country, which is amazing.

“So we’re trying to milk that cow as hard as we possibly can, and all the teams are doing the same thing, we’re all like crows on a party pie grabbing whatever we can, only because the business model is pretty flawed.

“That’s our biggest challenge. We’re trying to correct that.”

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The comments come at a time when Triple Eight is one of five teams that have been standing firm on the need for Supercars owner RACE to meet its full financial obligations to charter-holders regarding putting on a 14-round calendar for 2027.

The standoff has delayed a schedule from being released as yet.

Whincup pointed to F1 as proof that change can be enacted.

“If you go back before Liberty bought into Formula 1, it was flat, it was the same model as Supercars,” he said.

“The teams were struggling to make money, it was highly reliant on sponsorship, they were just plateauing away – Bernie (Ecclestone) was making plenty of money, the governing body was making plenty of money – but the teams were absolutely struggling.

“So Liberty came in and said ‘hey, we can change this’. They’ve changed the model and done such a good job that the value of Liberty and Formula 1 has gone through the roof as have the teams as well.

“They’ve recognised that they need the teams to be successful for the sport to be successful and we all win.”