A taxi driver at Assen station has a precise answer to that question. He doesn’t reach for charts or press releases: he speaks with the voice of someone who knows exactly how much a race weekend weighs on his year-end bank account.

“If it weren’t for the Grand Prix at Assen, I might as well close up shop.”

Those were the words David Emmett — the reference journalist for the two-wheel world at Moto Matters — heard during a transfer from the train station to the circuit. A few words, clear enough to explain something that academic studies and economic analyses take pages to demonstrate: a MotoGP Grand Prix is not just sport. It’s economics.

The Valencia Study: The Numbers Behind a Race

The only rigorous academic analysis available on this subject is by Maria Luisa Martì Selva and Rosa Puertas Medina, published in 2012 in the Spanish Studies of Applied Economics. The case study is the 2010 Grand Prix of Valencia — the last race of the season, held in front of approximately 80,774 spectators.

The figures are clear: over €5 million in tickets, around €14.5 million in hotels, restaurants, transport and merchandise (of which over €8 million in hospitality alone). Total: nearly €20 million generated in a single weekend — equal to 0.24% of the GDP of the Comunitat Valenciana, one of the most tourist-competitive regions in eastern Spain.

These are 2010 figures, at a time when MotoGP had considerably less international reach than it does today. The real impact of a contemporary Grand Prix — driven by the growth of television audiences in Asia, the Americas and the Middle East — is presumably higher.

Why Circuits — and Regions — Pay to Host MotoGP

The sanctioning fee — the annual fee a circuit pays to host the Grand Prix — is a considerable cost. Yet historically, demand to join the MotoGP calendar exceeds the number of available slots.

The logic is simple: the economic impact outweighs the cost. Hotels, restaurants, local transport and retail move in lockstep during Grand Prix days, with a multiplier effect that extends well beyond the track. It is no coincidence that many regional administrations choose to co-finance circuit costs: they see the GP not as an image expense, but as an investment with a measurable return for the territory.

The best-documented case is Assen. Arjan Bos, long-time president of the Dutch circuit, formalised this principle by concluding an agreement with the province of Drenthe for a structural renovation plan, completed in 2021: new grandstands, expanded catering areas, dedicated entertainment zones and a completely redesigned internal road layout. An agreement made possible precisely by the institutional recognition of the economic value that the Dutch TT generates for the entire region — year after year, weekend after weekend.

It is worth noting that the Assen Circuit pays the sanctioning fee out of its own pocket, without direct state funds for the race itself (unlike, for example, the Valencia GP). Yet the provincial administration co-invested in the circuit’s infrastructure — a subtle but significant distinction: this is not about subsidising sport, but investing in an economic multiplier recognised as such.

The Value of MotoGP for Those Who Choose to Sponsor It

For companies evaluating a MotoGP sponsorship, the economics of a Grand Prix is not a marginal data point. It is part of the conversation about why investing in this sport produces returns that other disciplines rarely replicate.

A circuit that invests because the GP generates value — and that is supported by local institutions for the same reason — represents a solid activation context: a concentration of high-spending audiences, direct media visibility across more than 200 markets, and a hospitality ecosystem built around a weekend that for the local community is, literally, the most important event of the year.

That taxi driver’s remark at Assen describes more than just his livelihood. It describes the economic structure of an entire sporting season — and explains, better than any slide deck, why for over thirty years RTR Sports has advised its clients to see MotoGP not as a sport to follow, but as a platform on which to build.