NASCAR admits “they lost millions and millions” on LA Clash at The Coliseum

The President of NASCAR Steve Phelps made some candid revelations about The Clash at the Coliseum to Kevin Harvick.

NASCAR admits “they lost millions and millions” on LA Clash at The Coliseum

NASCAR Clash at the Colosseum 2024 (Via IMAGO)

The NASCAR Cup Series has been hosting the unofficial season opener The Clash at the iconic LA Coliseum since the start of the Next-Gen era. It was an experimental move from the sanctioning body with the hopes of tapping into a new fan base. But the experiment has run its course and the sport will get to Bowman Grey Stadium in 2025 for the event.

Recently NASCAR President Steve Phelps sat down with 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick for the Happy Hour podcast and discussed about the clash alongside many new developments in the sport. He admitted that they lost millions and millions by hosting the event, but insists it was an important thing to do for them.

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I think so. … There are things that you need to do to scale it, right? So, there are costs associated with that we have to [analyze] over time. Because we lost millions and millions of dollars on The Clash. But it was an important thing to do.
Steve Phelps said via Happy Hour podcast.

He pointed out that it was important for the broadcasters to have good kick off to the season and that made them invest more into the unique event. The purpose of the venture was to make people think different about the sport, but these targeted populations wasn’t the longtime fans or stakeholders in the sport.  

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It was important for our friends at FOX, I think it was important to kick off the season the right way. It was unique, it was different, it allowed people to think differently about the sport. And when I talk about that, I’m not talking about people who are in the sport or stakeholders or longtime fans.
Steve Phelps added.
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Steve Phelps reveals the opposite is going to happen at Bowman Grey

NASCAR’s decision to move The Clash to Bowman Grey in 2025 was more about appeasing the fan base and to tap into the strong local support they have there. Phelps also hopes that this venture would also enable NASCAR to properly represent itself in the Netflix docu-series.

So, the converse is going to happen with a Bowman Gray, which is, you are going to get causal fans that we have now brought to the fold with a lot of the different things that we’ve done, Netflix shows and different pieces, where you have this massive new fanbase that’s here, and they’re going to look at this historical, crazy things at the Madhouse.
Steve Phelps said.

The NASCAR Chief has made a great point about the new decision and it seems to be the right one. It’s a win-win move with both the fans and sanctioning body getting what they want. But its success would depend on how good the Next-Gen cars are going to perform next-season. In case you missed it: