A decade after ‘Project 100’ delivered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a $100 million facelift and four years into Roger Penske’s stewardship, track officials say the IMS’ local and state-wide economic impact has more than doubled, reaching more than $1 billion, according to a 12-month study performed by the Indiana University Public Policy Institute.

More than half of that, the study says – $566.4 million – can be tied to events around the Indianapolis 500 and the 14 days of on-track activity in May. Indy 500-related spending, from IMS’ operations to visitors’ tickets, transportation expenses within the state, food, hotel stays and merchandise, as well as team expenses, more than doubles the estimated economic impact of the 2012 Super Bowl Indianapolis hosted It puts the Greatest Spectacle in Racing on-par with this past February’s Super Bowl held in Arizona ($600 million).

IMS president Doug Boles said the track believes these numbers to be a conservative estimate of the annual impact of everything that IMS does over a calendar year – from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, meaning this latest estimate doesn’t include IMS’s fall IMSA sportscar weekend.

“That doesn’t benefit us if we say ‘$2 billion,’ because we’re not trying to get other cities to bid on this event,” he continued. “Others (events) may want to make it feel like the impact is even bigger.

“The Speedway’s not an Indianapolis asset. It’s an Indiana one, so when I’m out talking to (fans around the state), I want to be able to feel comfortable that this is a real number that impacts the whole state. This isn’t an inflated number, where we took $10 out of Allen County and had it spent in Marion County.”

In addition, Boles said, the increase in impact from $510 million in 2012 to $1.058 billion reflected in this study is something he can take to the Indiana Finance Authority, which governs the loan and bonds involved in Project 100 – the three-year infrastructure project IMS undertook ahead of the 100^th running of the 500 in 2016.

“We want them to feel good about IMS and what we’re contributing to the community,” said Boles, adding that IMS pays $2 million each year in an effort to pay back their responsibility, on top of the tax funds raised from the motorsports investment district. “I think this validates the loan the state gave us and shows that the investment we made together is paying off.”

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In attempting to best estimate IMS’ true economic impact – spending that wouldn’t occur within the state but for the existence of IMS – the study’s analysts did their best to separate in-state visitors and out-of-state visitors by classifying race fans as either living within or outside a 100-mile bubble from the track. That includes residents of Ohio and Illinois, and some out of it may live in Indiana’s most northern or southern communities, those from IU’s Public Policy Institute felt it was the most round number that could as best and most easily delineate those groups.

Why is that important?

“If these (in-state) residents choose not to attend an IMS event, it’s likely they would attend other entertainment-related events in Indiana,” they wrote in the study, listing other possible alternatives to time and money spent at IMS including dining out a couple more times a year or going to Colts, Pacers or college sports games. “While this spending may be new to Indianapolis, it’s not new to Indiana.”

When leaving out that direct in-state visitor spending, the study said the 12 months of events at IMS generated $972 million of economic impact. To generate its findings, the study analyzed IMS’ own expense and revenue data, combined with the results of ticketholder surveys to capture a full picture of the spending. IMS’ operation spending included facility maintenance, the Brickyard Crossing golf course, the IMS Museum and track management personnel.

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Also important to note: team-related spending only took into account expenses that directly touched the Indiana economy. For IndyCar teams that call the state home, it appears the study took into account large chunks of their operating budgets – including the wages they paid employees who are Indiana residents, construction projects and other Indiana-related expenses. For those with headquarters elsewhere – like Team Penske, for example – only those teams’ expenses that drove economic impact in the state (like lodging costs for May for those based out of North Carolina) were included.

In all, it amounts to methodology that veteran marketing professor Dr. Daniel McQuiston, who has taught at IU, Butler and Purdue, felt went above-and-beyond the necessary measures to make this latest study commissioned by IMS is reputable and accurate.

“The first things you look at any time a study like this is done are, ‘Who did it? Where did they get their data?’ and ‘How did they do it?’” said McQuiston, who IndyStar provided a copy of the study to analyze. “This comes from a very credible source … and this software is very well-known.

“What I see here, in a nutshell is they used a very credible source and the most sophisticated analysis out there to do it.”

While admitting there’s certainly an amount of trust that has to go into taking studies like IMS’ at face value – after all, what’s preventing anyone in these positions from fudging some numbers here and there? – he said of his previous work and interactions with IMS in the past: “They’re pretty sophisticated in how they collect their data and what they do. They’re a world-class organization and very intentional.”

So … does that billion with a B number sound reasonable, IndyStar asked?

Said McQuiston: “I think that’s a very realistic number. (The Indy 500) is an event unlike any other in the world.”

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How IU study reached IMS’s estimated $1 billion impact on Indiana

At a roundtable event hosted by Charlie Brown’s in Speedway last week to unveil and talk about the study’s findings, Boles boasted that at its latest count, IMS’ current annual calendar includes 150 days of on-track activity – 14 related to the 500, when accounting for testing, the GMR Grand Prix, practice, qualifying and race day. Three more come from IMS’ second-biggest weekend of the year: NASCAR’s Brickyard weekend that in 2024 will celebrate its 30-year anniversary and return to the oval.

It means that those other 133 days of on-track action, whether it be the Indy 8-Hour, private track rentals, various series’ and manufacturer test days and other smaller events like the SCCA Runoffs – along with IMS’ other expense and revenue-generating arms – account for $375 million in economic impact in the state.

Here’s a breakdown, with data pulled from the study, on the different pools that make up IMS’s nearly $1 billion in economic impact on the state (when not factoring in in-state visitor spending):

MONTH OF MAY ($480.1 million)

∎ Indy 500 visitors: $248,484,947 (or 52% of all IMS May-related economic impact in Indiana)

∎ IMS operations: $111,936,579 (23%)

∎ Carb Day visitors: $40,154,946 (8%)

∎ GMR Grand Prix visitors: $36,905,428 (8%)

∎ Practice and qualifying visitors: $20,507,498 (4%)

∎ IndyCar teams: $19,640,308 (4%)

∎ Indy NXT teams: $2,491,237 (1%)

MONTH OF AUGUST ($117.2 million)

∎ IMS operations: $39,936,143 (34%)

∎ NASCAR visitors: $36,115,409 (31%)

∎ NASCAR teams: $16,613,687 (14%)

∎ Gallagher Grand Prix visitors: $14,762,171 (13%)

∎ IndyCar teams: $9,820,154 (8%)

REST OF THE YEAR ($375.1 million)

∎ IMS operations: $164,139,035 (44%)

∎ IndyCar teams: $108,021,696 (29%)

∎ Other visitors: $64,409,899 (17%)

∎ Indy NXT teams: $24,912,371 (7%)

∎ IMS Museum operations: $9,585,271 (2%)

∎ Brickyard Crossing operations: $4,004,871 (1%)

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IMS’s impact on the Indiana labor force

In addition to the financial impact on Indiana, the study also broke down labor impact – in terms of full-time equivalent jobs and labor income – related to IMS’s general existence and the events it hosts. In total, the study stated that IMS took a hand in generating an estimated 8,440 direct and indirect full-time jobs – meaning that for part-time or seasonal roles related to the track, the combining of those part-time ones into the full-time roles those would amount to.

When split into the three different portions of the year (May, August and the other 10 months), the split included:

∎ May: 3,783 full-time equivalent jobs…$155,231,673 in labor income

∎ August: 1,275 FTEs…$46,353,698 in labor income

∎ Rest of the year: 3,382 FTEs…$158,369,090 in labor income