THE Australian Racing Group has undergone a significant shift within its ownership ranks.
Barry Rogers has confirmed his company, Motorsport Events Pty Ltd, has acquired the bulk of the Boyd family’s remaining 28.5 percent stake, with a small portion picked up by fellow ARG co-owner John McMellan.
Brian Boyd was among the founding figures of ARG; he sold out in late 2020, at which point Rogers’ shareholding amounted to 47.5 percent.
Now the 28.5 percent that had belonged to Brian’s nephew James has followed suit, giving Rogers a 75 percent majority stake.
ASIC documents further show James Boyd ceased his position as a director of the business on October 28, 2022.
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“The Boyd shareholding is now owned by a company called Motorsport Events, which is us,” Rogers told V8 Sleuth.
“That transacted in the last month to six weeks.”
There are now just three owners in ARG, the others being John McMellan (20 percent) and James Warburton (five percent).
Warburton of course is the former Supercars CEO who now heads up Seven West Media.
Rogers paid tribute to the Boyds’ involvement.
“ARG was obviously established by Brian Boyd, who has been a tremendous supporter of Australian motorsport,” he said.
“In recent years he had other family involved in the ARG side of the business but they’re focusing more back on their property side of the business.
“Brian continues to support Australian motorsport and really we’re fortunate to have people like Brian involved.
“You get people out there with their ability to invest in sport; many might buy racehorses and many might buy yachts and do Sydney to Hobart and those sort of things, but someone like Brian who lurks around in the background and doesn’t chase any profile out of it, for the support he has given Australian motorsport we should all be very thankful for it.
“We should embrace people like that.”
Barry and father Garry still own a slice of Supercars ownership consortium RACE, and have pledged their commitment to ARG in the wake of the latest shareholding shift.
“We’re committed to growing what we have got,” said Barry.
“Our arrangement with Stan and Channel Nine, we understand the talk around subscription TV or pay TV, but it’s the same as when Supercars moved to Fox in 2015… it’s evolution.
“There will be some positive news about free-to-air viewing of our series next year, which will come out soon, so I think the fans will be able to certainly see enough of what we do on free-to-air.
“But to get the full component, yeah, you will need Stan Sport – that’s the cost of broadcast sport these days.
“We would like to grow our calendar. We certainly know our place in the marketplace.
“Supercars is Supercars, they’re the king of the jungle if you want to call it that.
“We believe that bang for your buck for a motorsport event, come to a SpeedSeries event – most of our events we have up to six categories, it’s non-stop action.”
