For such a tarnished organisation, FIFA certainly knows how to rake in the cash: $14.5bn since 1999, reports Forbes, is factor-of-three growth in the years since Sepp Blatter took charge. Beat that, you can imagine him saying behind closed doors. No problem, says Bernie Ecclestone. Formula 1 has grown more than four times, in a shorter time period...
Where the money's at, quite literally
Yes, for all its global hoo-ha, the FIFA World Cup is shaded by Formula 1 for overall revenue. Between 1999 and 2013, F1 raked in $16.2bn. It now draws in $1.7bn a year, and as Bernie's savvy deals continue to grow, so does the value of a sport that's now watched by 425m globally.
Whether you think about such rampant commercialisation is a good thing or not it's still striking to learn motor racing is worth more than football. Particularly given all the front-page, breaking-news exposure FIFA's latest, er, wranglings have commanded. Compared with the World Cup you could be forgiven for thinking F1 is but a minority interest sport. Anything but. It's actually one of the most valuable sports on the planet...
Jamie Green's Audi on a charge...
Audi leaves BMW, Mercedes tyred out
Another under-the-radar Brit, Jamie Green, scooped a double victory in this weekend's DTM event at Lausitzring. The Audi driver beat another Audi challenger, Matthias Ekstrom, whose Audi team-mate Miguel Molina came third. Audi driver Timo Scheider was fourth and Audi driver Edoardo... hold on a minute! It may be DTM, but it's still touring cars - what about the other brands?
Nowhere, that's where. The closest Mercedes was over nine seconds behind - and that was after a safety car period that only left five minutes of open racing left to the flag. BMW's best finish in this second race was eighth. What's going on - has Audi discovered Schumacher/Ferrari-like dominance?
...Mercedes and BMW left playing catch up
Well, maybe. But, more likely, it's down to the Hankook tyres: they suit the Audi but neither Mercedes nor BMW can get them to work. It's so serious a planned test session this week has been cancelled, as the two challengers have said it would be pointless - they need to go back to base to crunch the data, rather than waste more time tooling round to prove how poorly the tyres suit them.
Many might say tough luck, props to Audi, try harder BMW and Mercedes. It actually looks like there's more to it than that though. A DTM statement about the cancelled test said "the reason is that the tyre currently being used is deviating in its handling characteristics from empirical values for a number of teams." It has, it adds, asked for a "detailed analysis and a prompt clarification" from Hankook.
Chaotic Euro F3
The third and final round of this weekend's Euro F3 meeting at Monza was called off by the race director yesterday - because he was incandescent at how poorly everyone was driving. "The drivers at this standard of series should be able to handle tracks like this," said stand-in race director Nils Wittich. After two races of chaos, stewards' reports of pushing on the straight and off-track overtakes led him to call the thing off.
Yes, that's a Le Mans car on the Coventry ring road
FIA Single Seater Commission president Stefano Domenicali is reportedly furious at the carnage of Monza, which sounds about as unprofessional as can be. We all like to see good, hard racing, but plain bad racing is hard to stomach. Let's hope they've learnt their lesson, because this isn't the sort of driving any of us want coming up the single seater ranks.
MotoFest 2015
The second Coventry MotoFest took place this weekend, for two days of slightly surreal 'did the council really approve this?' demonstration runs on the notoriously bonkers Coventry Ring Road, combined with motoring exhibitions, Ace Cafe burgers and PopBangColour dotted throughout the city centre.
Most surreal of all was the Falken drift team, happily getting thoroughly sideways and smoky between junctions 4 and 6. The local boy racers now have no end of best practice advice. Most memorable for me, though, was something more selfish: a drive in the wonderful Jaguar XJ13, the supercar that never was. A full story on this to follow tomorrow...
F1 and DTM photos: LAT Photo