-So what is the spending situation surrounding F1?

For that, we bring in Alan Snel, a sports business reporter and the publisher of LVSportsBiz.com.

Alan, welcome back to Nevada Week.

What has Clark County spent to put on F1?

-Well, what Clark County did was basically allow a private sports promoter, Formula 1, Las Vegas Grand Prix, to basically privatize 3.8 miles of public roadway.

That is an incredible asset.

They did not demand any compensation for that.

I was really surprised.

I've covered major sports business events and projects around the country.

I've never seen a local government just say, take over 3.8 miles of our public roads and privatize it, and you can take all the money.

What's really important is that there was no compensation to Clark County.

-So when this gentleman says that Clark County should stop spending money on F1, they haven't spent money, per se.

You're more talking about what they could have earned money on.

But there was an issue of Clark County being asked by Formula 1 to pay $40 million for the road improvements that were necessary.

Where does that stand, did Clark County ever agree to that?

-So back in March, there was this, quote/unquote, debriefing report.

And Tick Segerblom, the head of the County Commission, he's a chairman, he did say, apparently, the $40 million are off the table right now.

So the 40-- I mean, you can ask anything you want.

I mean, it's negotiations; you can ask anything you want.

People should understand that another level of government, the LVCVA, which is our government tourism promotion agency, they signed a deal of almost $20 million for 30 years.

They gave almost $20 million to F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

-From that perspective, then there is someone who is paying F1-- -Exactly.

- --for this race.

The other aspect, that debriefing part that you brought up, what did we learn from how much money was garnered by this event that benefits Clark County and other entities?

-Right.

That's a lovely question, Amber.

It's a very simple question.

It's a question that provokes all kinds of ire among economists.

And you had actually several different responses to your question, depending on who you spoke with.

You had F1 who came forward, and their statement after the debriefing report was presented was $1.5 billion in economic impact.

I have no idea how they came up with that number.

We've heard 1.3 billion.

MGM Resorts International had a representative who spoke at that meeting.

He gave a figure more around 700 million.

The County itself had their figure.

It was around maybe $800 million.

We have no explanation about the methodology, and we also don't even know what the definition of "economic impact" is.

And that's why the numbers are all across the board.

I will theorize that F1 is maintaining that they're using a number of 315,000 people that week.

What they did was they looked at the capacity of 105,000 daily and simply tripled it because it was a three-day event.

And so if you multiply 105,000 by 3, you come up with 315,000.

And then there was a number thrown out that these folks are spending per capita, $4,000 each.

So if you extrapolate the 315,000 times the 4,000, you come up with this $1.3 billion.

We don't know who the money goes to.

Obviously, mostly the hotels, they're keeping the money.

And how it's affecting you-- it was great that you interviewed the people.

I saw the clip.

You know, the question is like: How does this help that guy who asked, you know, Why are we, why are we funding F1?

It does appear like we are funding F1, only because they're just garnering so much money from the deal.

-And then from your reporting, you took that debriefing from the Clark County Commission--their report of the financial impact--and within that breakdown, Clark County actually ended up losing money?

How does that work?

-So F1 had to submit all these applications and the permits, and I think if you multiplied out the fees and also, you know, what Clark County got in terms of the fee amounts, they came out to about $3.8 million.

So they got $3.8 million.

-That was what Clark County got?

-Right.

But then Clark County went and looked at all the staffing hours to process all this, and they realized they actually spent more than $4 million worth of staff time.

And when you computed out how much was made or lost, Clark County actually lost $462,000 internally in their government process of accommodating all the F1 permits.

What's really fascinating at that meeting, Amber, was that the county manager referred to this whole issue as, quote, challenges.

I mean, I think we should be a little more up front and say this is more than just challenges.

I mean, a lot more was just happening than challenges.

But I was surprised that the county commissioners, not a lot actually spoke about the debriefing report.

And the one comment that really stuck out was from Michael Naft.

And Michael Naft said there were big winners and big losers.

And it was the first time that the word "loser" was actually included in some of the conversations, because we have to acknowledge what happened.

This was an event that had profound impacts on a lot of businesses.

One business has already sued F1 and the County.

There's another group of businesses that are poised to sue.

And this was a mixed result situation.

-And those businesses, according to your reporting, are asking the commission to help them get some money from F1?

-To make them whole.

I mean, there's businesses that lost revenues.

They lost-- -Because of?

-The access.

Again, people have to understand the scale of what the County allowed Formula 1 to do.

They privatized like a 3.8 mile circuit.

And with all the fencing and the light mounts, it was very difficult to gain access to a lot of the businesses.

And so these businesses are saying, We lost a lot of money from what we usually generate from that time period.

Make us whole.

-There were Las Vegas Strip workers who also had restricted access to getting to work.

A lot used the monorail.

What's being done to address that situation ahead of November?

-Well, you're leading to the next topic, and that is F1 submitted a traffic report.

That's a great, valid question.

F1 submitted a traffic report.

They met the deadline of May 1.

Lvsportsbiz.com and I think other media asked Clark County, Can we see this public record?

They refused to hand over a public record.

They called it a "draft report."

And because it's a draft report, somehow that gives it legal standing to be denied to the public.

I have covered this topic for like 25 years, Amber.

No one has ever denied me a report because it's a, quote, draft report.

The draft report is important to look at for this one reason: It gives you a sense of the starting point for the traffic report.

So F1 is saying, Last year we had to disrupt things nine months leading up to the November event.

They're saying things will be better this year, it will be only three months, which I think three months is like kind of sizeable-- -Publicly saying, but you can't gather that from the report, because it hasn't been made available to the public.

-Right.

And I will, again this week, go on record and go before the County Commission and say, Give us the traffic report.

It's a public record.

-And I'm counting on my hand the number of months we have until F1 is back.

That's five months.

Last question, very quickly, Monday marked the start of free agency within the NHL.

Among the many, many moves within the Vegas Golden Knights, I imagine Jonathan Marchessault going to Nashville is the biggest storyline?

-Huge.

He's kind of the heart and soul of the team in many ways.

He's an original, quote/unquote, misfit, dating back to that day in June 2017, more than seven years ago, when all the players were picked from all the other teams.

And now the Golden Knights are down to three players.

-And the reason for letting him go?

-Players can get better deals with other teams, and there was a difference of opinion.

The Golden Knights were not willing to comply with Marchy's request of five years.

He ended up getting five years with the Nashville team, and Vegas Golden Knights and the general manager, Kelly McCrimmon, said no.

He, quote/unquote, The numbers show that players are just not productive when he's going to be 37 or 38 at the end of that five-year contract.

-Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com, thank you for joining Nevada Week.