{"id":936349,"date":"2026-10-22T01:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936349\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T01:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T01:52:10","slug":"triple-eight-boss-jamie-whincup-blasts-supercars-business-model-compares-to-f1-nrl-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936349\/","title":{"rendered":"Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup blasts Supercars’ business model; compares to F1, NRL, AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

TRIPLE Eight managing director Jamie Whincup<\/a> has labelled Supercars\u2019 business model as \u201cpoor\u201d and revealed the lack of revenue sharing teams enjoy relative to other sports.<\/p>\n

Whincup delved into detail via a recent episode of What I Learned in Business (That Didn\u2019t Kill Me!)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn sport, the majority of the revenue is going to come from either people coming and watching the event \u2013 so bums on seats \u2013 or people watching on TV, media rights basically,\u201d began the seven-time champion driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where the majority of the income for any sport is going to come, from those two elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the teams are the clowns in the circus. We own the cars, we own all the infrastructure, and we\u2019re literally putting on a show at the track and then the governing body pay you to put on that show.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026So 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AFL do it really well. About 60 percent of the teams\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupercars are in the teens. Like we\u2019re talking 17 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have got this model where we\u2019re not getting any money from the media rights or bums on seats, we\u2019re heavily reliant on internal sponsorship per team that they generate themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re 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\u2019s the most recognised sponsorship in the country. There\u2019s more QI media value from our Red Bull sponsorship than on any other sponsorship for any other sport in the country, which is amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re trying to milk that cow as hard as we possibly can, and all the teams are doing the same thing, we\u2019re all like crows on a party pie grabbing whatever we can, only because the business model is pretty flawed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our biggest challenge. We\u2019re trying to correct that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unpacking an Epic Bathurst 1000 | The Undercut<\/p>\n

THE Bathurst 1000 once again turned out an all-time classic race, with all of the winners and losers put under the microscope in this episode of The Undercut!<\/p>\n

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<\/a> regarding putting on a 14-round calendar for 2027.<\/p>\n

The standoff has delayed a schedule from being released as yet.<\/p>\n

Whincup pointed to F1 as proof that change can be enacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go back before Liberty bought into Formula 1, it was flat, it was the same model as Supercars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe teams were struggling to make money, it was highly reliant on sponsorship, they were just plateauing away \u2013 Bernie (Ecclestone) was making plenty of money, the governing body was making plenty of money \u2013 but the teams were absolutely struggling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Liberty came in and said \u2018hey, we can change this\u2019. They\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve recognised that they need the teams to be successful for the sport to be successful and we all win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TRIPLE Eight managing director Jamie Whincup has labelled Supercars\u2019 business model as \u201cpoor\u201d and revealed the lack of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-936349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}