The F1 Paddock Club operations have been struggling of late because of the economy and new corporate governance rules that make hospitality much more of a problem than it used to be. the business was taken over last year by catering firm Do&Co, which has long done a good job, but it seems that ticket sales have not much improved and there has now been an announcement that Match Hospitality AG is to be the official distributor for the Paddock Club. no doubt this will involve making sizeable payments to the Formula One group, but it will mean that sakes will now be in the hands of a specialised organisation that is used to dealing with big sporting events.
Match Hospitality AG is a subsidiary of the British pulic company Byrom plc, which is run by entrepreneur Jaime Byrom. The company has long links with FIFA but was caught up in last year’s scandal over World Cup tickets.
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joeblogsf1 
“was caught up in last year’s scandal over World Cup tickets”
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Hi Joe
I am not in the least bit surprised at their appointment, regretfully they, I am sure, will fit in extremely well with the rest of the organisers,all having similar backgrounds.
It is high time that a clean brush came along and restored confidence and respectability back into a sport we would all love to see operating without any shady dealings always going on in the background.
Unfortunately until the teams can act as one this is unlikely to happen, perhaps they should take a leaf out of Ferrari’s night of the long knifes last year and sort our sport out?
Best wishes
Chris
Joe, when you say “taken over by” does/did that mean, the “running of,” or the ownership? Or maybe it is leased.
So actually owns it now? The Distributor? or Do&Co or FOM?
Is there any sign of a rival venue, “Bernie’s bar” perhaps, coming into existence?
Presumably it is only the hospitality function and not the full business of the paddock that is involved.
They have taken over the right to sell tickets.
I’m guessing you meant “sales” will be in their hands, and not that the VIPs are swanning around sipping sake? Great mental image though!
Maybe soon we’ll see Jack Warner at a Grand Prix. He’s a big customer.
Always curious. How subscribed is the Paddock Club?
Not very much these days
Joe,
I can fully understand the lack of sales for the VIP – Paddock Club. As you touched upon, we have this thing called the Bribery Act – 2010. It started life under New Labour – Jack Straw, way back in 2002. As per a lot of the new laws that “New Labour” – Blair & Brown brought in, it was wasn’t very well drafted.
So currently we have a number of test cases going through the court system, to try and set a bench mark on what is acceptable and what isn’t.
For example if you gave your Postman, at Christmas time a card with £10 in it and he/she accepted it, then they would be done under this Act, which was highlighted and is still going through the court system.
A large global company – GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) is currently been sued by the UK government, as they gave out free hospitality tickets to Doctors in Poland, at an event which GSK was the main – only sponsor. So this badly drafted law has very far reaching arms.
Not sure how we, the company I work for, gets around it, as we do sponsor a lot of sports. Golf for example, the amount globally we spend, per year would keep one of the smaller back of the grid teams happy for a few years. But it is one of many reasons why we are not in F1 right now, given that in the past we were.
You also have touched upon, Value for Money, and we or I should say the outside – third party marketing company we use, stated that F1 doesn’t give the same amount of value for money, plus of course a number of other problems, which again you have highlighted in your blog postings.
Bribery act only covers corrupt payments to public officials, it shouldn’t stop a bloke from HP taking a chap from Google, for example, to a sporting event.
It does
As you say it certainly does and does so in an increasing number of areas of business.
Maybe that will impose additional pressure to make the whole ticket/entertainment side of F1 cheaper in the long run.
Given all the pressure being imposed on all sides (not least in your blog articles) it seems incredible that they are not getting on with sorting out the reduced cost formula with the knock-on this will hopefully have to prices circuits have to pay et cetera et cetera.
Looking forward to the travelogue (assuming you’ve driven to Barcelona?)
Hi Joe,
I’ve always been curious about the exclusive paddock club. What does it entail you to? What’s changed that has gotten the headcount down? I’ve read the quality of service has dropped et al. but that can’t be the only reason, can it?
Recession and new corporate governance. I don’t know about the quality but it used to have really good people running it, today I don’t even know who’s in charge.