Martin Jolly, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of IMG Asia Pacific, trackside today had the following statement to make in relation to IMG, the event and the partnership between the Queensland Government and IMG.
“IMG has been in partnership with the Queensland Government for the past 15 years and through this period has together created Australia’s biggest motorsport festival,” said Jolly.
“Annually the event has attracted on average 280,000 spectators to the Surfers Paradise circuit, beams images of the Gold Coast to a worldwide television audience and injects $60.9 million into the local economy each year. This event employs in excess of 25 permanent staff, who work year round on the event and furthermore generates just over 550 casual full-time jobs for contractors each year for Gold Coast and Queensland residents.
“In the early years of the event, prior to IMG’s involvement, the race had suffered considerable losses. When IMG assumed full responsibility for the management, commercial activation and promotion of the event, it resulted in the Queensland Government’s contribution being capped each year and for 2009 was $11.6 million,” he pointed out.
Mr. Jolly also added, “That IMG acts as the sole underwriters for the race.”
The Nikon SuperGP is Australia’s biggest motorsport event, it is also one of Queensland’s most successful major events winning a raft of awards including;
– 1999, Australian Tourism awards ‘Winner of excellence’ in the category of ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’ and Queensland Tourism Awards Winner – ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’,
– 2000, Queensland Tourism Awards Winner – ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’,
– 2001, Queensland Tourism Awards Winner – ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’ (subsequently the event was entered into the Tourism Awards Hall of Fame for winning 3 consecutive years – making the event ineligible to enter the awards again for the next two years),
– 2005, Queensland Tourism Awards Winner – ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’,
– 2006, Queensland Tourism Awards Winner – ‘Major Festivals and Special Events’, and
– 2007, Winner – Queensland Sports Awards – Major events and Highly Commended – Queensland Tourism Awards.
“Along with all the other stakeholders for the event, we are extremely disappointed that A1GP did not comply with their contractual obligations to the Partnership and we now look forward to working with the Premier on a review of the event, with the aim to have this completed as soon as possible, so that planning can commence for the 20th Anniversary motorsport festival to be staged on the Gold Coast in 2010.”
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IMG is the global leader in event management and talent representation across golf, tennis and fashion and has a significant presence in many other sports, cultural and lifestyle categories. Our media division is one of the world’s top independent producers of sports and entertainment television across multiple genres and is an emerging leader in video and interactive content creation for broadband and mobile platforms.