NASCAR to cut purses in Nationwide Series by as much as 20 percent
NASCAR will cut the Nationwide Series purses by as much as 20 percent next year while the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series purses should remain about the same, according to sources.
Nationwide team owners were told of the cuts during their town hall meetings with NASCAR officials last week.
“The health and maintenance of the tracks is essential to the health of the entire industry,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said in a statement in response to questions about the decline in the Nationwide purses. “Like in all facets of our business we have made financial adjustments to ensure the long term strength of the sport.”
The exact amount the purses will be cut will depend on contingency awards and television money. The television money has increased at a rate of about 3 percent the last few years.
NASCAR gave the tracks a 10 percent break in what they contribute to the purse this year. According to the listed purses for each race in the weekly statistical books provided by NASCAR, Sprint Cup purses – including the contingency awards and television money – are down 2.7 percent (from $154.8 million in 24 races to $150.7 million), while Nationwide purses are down 5.8 percent (from $33.5 million to $31.6 million for 24 races) and truck purses are down 12.1 percent (from $9.3 million to $8.2 million for 16 races).
Every Cup race has had a smaller purse except for the April Phoenix event, which was 63 laps longer this year and had its purse increase 4 percent. The Daytona 500 was down 1.7 percent and the Indianapolis race had the biggest decrease at 4.6 percent.
In Nationwide, six races have had larger purses, including Daytona (3.4 percent) and Richmond (4.0 percent). The biggest drops came at Kentucky (down 14.1 percent) and Auto Club Speedway in California (down 13.7 percent).
No truck race has seen an increase, and the biggest drop for any race held at the same track was the 18.7 percent decrease in the Daytona purse. But races added to the schedule this year to replace those that were dropped showed significant decreases. For example, the purse at Pocono, which hosted the truck series for the first time this year, was 30 percent lower than the purse at Auto Club Speedway, which did not have a race this year but whose race also was 75 miles longer than that Pocono.
Darlington, which got the Milwaukee date, had a purse that was 19.4 percent less while Nashville, which got the Memphis date, was down 18 percent.
A large portion of the Cup purses comes from television rights. The television package is worth approximately $560-$570 million this year, with 10 percent going to NASCAR, 65 percent going to the tracks and 25 percent going to the teams through the purse.
When the eight-year television contract started in 2007, Cup purses received 93.75 percent of the television money, Nationwide got 5.75 percent and trucks got 0.5 percent, according to documents filed by Dover Motorsports. Figures for other years were not available but the allocation is not believed to have changed dramatically.
