Four months have passed since Formula 1 fans from around the world watched F1 cars race down Las Vegas Boulevard.

Now a new report details the multiple impacts the event had on Clark County, the positives and the negatives.

And here to share some of those findings is Mick Akers, a Sports, Business, and Transportation Reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Mick, welcome.

(Mick Akers) Thanks for having me.

-So this report, what were some of the findings that stood out to you?

-Obviously, they kind of highlighted some of the, you know, financial impacts: $1.5 billion in economic impact, 300 some-odd-thousand people attending the race each, you know, throughout the week, $77 million in tax revenue generated, which they said was the largest from any event ever.

Superbowl might surpass that, but, as it stands now, that's the largest.

Worldwide attention, millions of hits on online and on social media, giving Las Vegas, not that it needs it, but a worldwide platform to kind of show off, hey, we're open.

They've been talking about bringing, international visitors back since the COVID era.

So I think they were kind of relying on this.

Obviously, drawing a pretty big international crowd as well.

So they're hoping that on top of showing it on TV and social that, hey, we'll bring some more people from overseas over.

So those are kind of the highlights on the the positive side.

-Yeah.

-Negative side, obviously, a lot of it focused on the transportation angle, nine months of work altogether from when they started repaving, when they did the set up, and then teardown.

Obviously, the Flamingo bridge got a lot of the focus as well.

Some of the business owners around that weren't too happy, saying, hey, we lost a lot of money.

We had to cut hours, and we're lucky we made it out.

A lot of focus was paid on, hey, this infrastructure work has to be kind of condensed and not be so long.

And I think F1 has responded to that as well.

-Will you explain about that Flamingo and Koval temporary bridge.

How did it impact businesses and people in that area?

-So they built it over 760 feet long, obviously a massive temporary structure.

It had one lane in each direction going east and westbound on Flamingo over Koval.

And you also had one surface road on each side and one lane on that.

So they had these convenience stores, Jay's Market, and then we had Stage Door and Battista's Hole in the Wall restaurant, obviously, a big restaurant here in Las Vegas.

It's been here for a long time.

So that kind of cut off access to them.

They said, we're right at the end of the bridge, the restaurant and casino.

We also had Jay's Market pretty much in the middle of that intersection, right?

So if you didn't take that side street, you weren't getting off there.

So they-- the owner said, Hey, I had to valet my car next door at the Westin because I couldn't park at my own business.

-Wow!

-So they were saying, Hey, we lost a lot of money.

We had to cut staff.

We had to cut hours.

So they're hoping that bridge is not coming back, but Clark County and F1 both already have said this bridge is coming back this year.

-And Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, at the meeting where this was presented, suggested maybe some of those people who were impacted negatively could get some form of compensation.

-Do you foresee that actually happening?

-You know, I'm gonna say not if-- if they set something up, maybe.

I'm assuming it's going to have to take some legal action.

I know that's being kind of thought over right now by some of the businesses.

They're going to try to get some money back, because some were talking about millions of dollars.

Obviously, some of them are smaller businesses, and they can't really take that hit.

There's gonna be some kind of way they figured out, but that was Tick kind of saying, hey, maybe we should set something up.

But I think as far as this past race, I don't know if anything outside of legal action will take care of that.

They might want to see if that bridge is going to be a mainstay, because there is talk about maybe looking at that as making a permanent bridge over there.

They did a traffic study.

They left it up several weeks after the race was done to kind of-- not just the race day and race week traffic, but also regular day traffic on that as well.

At some point they're going to have those findings.

And that will lead to maybe, hey, we do want to put this bridge there permanently or we don't want to have that there.

-Speaking of Tick Segerblom, he made some headlines when he said that the county, which was maybe going to pay for part of the improvements, the road improvements, the infrastructure, when he said maybe Clark County doesn't have to pay after all, I think it was $88 million that F1 invested in infrastructure and improvements.

Where does it stand on whether Clark County will pay a portion of it?

Yeah.

So all the work they carried over those nine months was a lot of repaving, obviously to make it grade-ready for the race.

They did some other infrastructure things, adding some communications, some other things for the broadcast and some stuff for the racers themselves.

So that took a long time, $88 million they said.

So F1 started that, and they started paying it by themselves.

Then they eventually came to the County and said, hey, we want you to pay around half of that, $40 million.

So that was an ongoing thing.

And they kept saying, We're still deciding.

The last time I talked to them, they said they haven't made an official decision but believe it's off the table now.

So I think F1 might be putting the brakes on asking them on that.

So they might be in the clear on that, but everyone I talked to with the county since day one since I asked pretty much said they're not going to give them anything.

-Wow!

So F1 may have to pay all of that.

What does F1 say in response to this report?

-They were receptive.

They came out before this meeting and said, hey, we're going to condense the work.

Obviously leading up and after, we don't have to do repaving.

They said a major repave will have to occur between six and eight years.

So, you know, out of the woods on that end.

So they'll just have to mainly start building the temporary grandstands.

Closer to the race, setting up the track, barriers, wall, and all that kind of thing.

So they said, we'll take that from nine months last year and condense it down to three months.

People said that's still a pretty long time, especially when you're dealing with the resort corridor, the big moneymaker.

We got a lot of complaints last year from people saying, we came to Vegas, and this whole setup kind of ruined our experience, blocking some of the marquees and blocking the volcano and all that kind of thing.

People wanted that real Vegas experience, and they said, we couldn't get it because of all the F1 work.

They had to do some kind of setup, obviously.

They just can't open it out of thin air and say, Here.

The race is ready to go.

So they are trying to make some changes.

They're taking it in.

They're listening.

They want to do some more community involvement.

Also, the locals are saying, hey, we want some more affordable tickets.

So starting this week, they'll be able to buy some of those.

They added 7,000 more general admission, which are the lower tier on the scale as far as price.

So they'll start at $500 for the three days.

Obviously, people still looking at that and say it's pretty expensive.

If you look at a Raiders game, if you look in the secondary market, they're about $500 for a game.

So this is three days.

You kind of spread it out through there.

So they say you're kind of paying for the experience, but we can't really get lower than that.

-Kind of a common theme, locals getting outpriced from these professional sports in Las Vegas.

Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.