Is it good to make money with diecast racing or not?

Well, there's a lot to unpack there but as someone who has a few expensive hobbies (RC vehicles, model trains, bicycles, ice hockey, sailing etc) I have to say that diecast drag racing is waaaaaaay less expensive than real drag racing. I love muscle cars and drag racing, but can never be more than a spectator. With my diecast cars, I have dozens and I can own scale representations of every car I could only dream of owning.

I have about $500 into my track. It cost relatively little for materials but took time. Which brings up the issue of recouping your time invested in the form of monetary compensation. Personally, none of my hobbies pay me anything and I never considered doing any of those things as a means to enrich myself financially. But what benefits I attain mentally, experiencially and the relationships I built among other people who enjoy my hobbies with me make me feel like I have immeasurable wealth. I believe the moment a hobby becomes technically a job (doing it for pay) it can quickly become a burden because the focus has changed from fun to a means of sustenance. 

When I show you all pictures and videos of the track I dreamed and built and I log on here and read your comments of praise, it is the same to me as opening my online bank account and seeing a balance of a million dollars. My advice about hobbies and life is borrowed from the great philosophers, Ben & Jerry who once said, "If it isn't fun, why do it?"

My two cents

If the overriding goal is to make a profitable YouTube channel, diecast racing is among the hardest ways to go about achieving such ideals

EVERYTHING about how YouTube functions is a roadblock for us in this hobby. The platform is already crowded with content, its own algorithm does not see the genre as profitable and buries shows, and making one channel distinctive is a difficult road

Hosts, racers and fans have a tremendous enthusiasm that I say outshines many other forms of content but we are small in number compared to the audience that just loves diecast generally. I point you to Reddit and the gulf between r/Hotwheels and r/Diecastracing. Grandmother knows Hot Wheels exist, she's buying them every year for gifts, but how many people collecting know that RACING is also a thing? A much smaller percentage. 

Let's switch gears to the potential audience. One must bring a show worthy of watching, this takes skills and resources. YouTube is now the field of the professional, not the independent learning as they go. No room for that "diamond in the rough" in the minds of the average consumer, no patience to marvel at how a host may grow

Yes, we have those channels "winning the game" today and seeing income for their efforts, but only after years of diligent work, honing a clear resonating vision for their channel, and bringing a skill set across many disciplines. I have seen but ONE channel achieve the advertising partnership on YouTube within a month of starting out, and this man did his homework to craft a quality show from the very first, before ever picking up a camera. This story is the outlier, the exception. 

I have also seen channels with clearly defined skills and superb quality suddenly vanish. It is quite the risk in life to devote such resources to producing content, pushing the limits of that which is sustainable. One misstep in life outside of racing can indeed derail a show in its prime of health. Here is a lesson for all not to over-extend, to have reserves if surprises happen. If a camera fails, a computer for editing crashes, or a start gate malfunctions, where is the backup? How does one recover? Missing a scheduled show is harmful to a channel in the algorithm, leaving the host to make up lost ground. Some never bounce back. 

For the overwhelming portion of diecast racing, it really will be passion not profit that fuels a show, and for a long time. 

Your hobby is not supposed to be a cash cow ..... your hobby is doing it for fun. If you CAN make money off it, like 3dBotmaker, cool. Diecast racing and putting out videos is literally his job--that's why he pushes the videos, pushes the merch. When it stops being fun, then it become a grind, a side hustle, doing it all for the money. Where's the enjoyment?

As for the host that had cancer and had to stop the tournament, a simple note to us saying, "Look, I'm sick, I can't continue the tournament" would've been nice. Okay, we can deal with that. We can work around that. The guy communicated, let us know what was going on .... now we can cut him some slack, because we know he's going through a hard time. We didn't get that. We got silence. Uncertainty. Questions unanswered. We got NOTHING. So of course people were upset, because they had just spent $20-$40 for a car to be raced at this guy's track, and then nothing happened. "Here, I'm going to send you this custom car I built to race on your track. I expect to see it on YouTube." And the promised date comes and goes in silence. Wouldn't YOU wonder why there's been no contact, no communication? Wouldn't you want to know what's happening, good or bad? Or are you just going to go, "Oh. Whatever."?

Look through the recent posts. One of the track hosts is going dark. He's got other stuff going on, and can't dedicate the time to the hobby, racing as he does. Then look at the responses--they're positive, supportive, encouraging. We got a fellow racer down on his luck... it happens. But he communicated with us, let us know what's going on--he didn't just take our cars and money and ghosted everyone. Communication is key.

Sure, I build cars for racing, and send them off. I like seeing them race on different tracks. It's competitive, cost effective, and quite bluntly, a hell of a lot of fun. Am I making money doing it? No. Are the hosts making money? Maybe very little, if at all. Are we going to stop racing, because it looks hopeless through the money lens? No.

Time?  I will of course lose time for hobbies, but the trade offs for the brain to be active and/or competitive is worth that trade off.  I have looked at my hobbies, as my entertainment expense for fun.  The goal is to keep me entertained, engaged, and to get a new experience for some amount of time.  I have done bowling in the early 80's, r/c car racing in the later 80's, BBS in the 80's/90's; and I mixed up some golf in the 90's for a few years.  Other than skipping many hobbies in the early 2000's while I build a life for my future, I started playing poker.  Play locally and did well in tournaments, and since around 2010 been going to the WSOP each year.  While poker is an expensive hobby per tournament, the reward for good play is worth it.  Because I have won more tournaments for cash than what I have put in, this is the one hobby that is actually profitable.  I can tell you that all of them took money to do these activities. 

In doing these hobbies, I forego a lot of other things that some people did.  I didn't see a lot of movies at the theaters as I may have wanted to get a new speed controller.  I didn't golf all the time because of the expense, would have taken money away from the 4 phone line bill coming into the house.  And don't even get me started on drag racing.  By the time my car was ready, all of my family who raced were having trouble financially (because of their hobby?) to where they ended up selling their cars.  I too eventually just sold mine without ever getting down the track.

Hobbies cost money, but if you can get a monetary reward for running some kind of operation; go for it.  The time lost is actual income, and to me, that means a job.  I have thought about monetizing my hobbies during the course of their role in my life, but never took it seriously to the point I wanted to 'work' to make it a reality.  I chose just to keep it a fun 'waste of time' that entertains me.

Time and money go hand in hand for hobbies, but so does having a job.  If one can make money at a hobby, they have fun, and are not bored after some time; then good for them.  But the right mixture might be a carrot that is dangled just out of reach for most in an endeavor where competition will be everywhere.  The market ahead for paying customers will be something that will forever be changing, so longetivity can be an issue.  As people enter the hobby and exit the hobby, is there enough excitement and advertising to bring in new customers, while still keeping the doors open?

Your time and your money are both valuable.  

Is it good to make money with diecast racing? I think it depends how you are making that money. If you're making advertising money, merch sales and sponsorships etc from a successful YT or other social media channel then I say yes. If you're making money from charging people to enter your races, then I'd say no.

I have seen little evidence of tracks that could rightfully charge people entry fees as a way of making income as the final product doesn't justify it. There are only a couple of events I've ever charged entrants for, our Mustang Memorial charity races and that entry fee goes direct to the charity, I never see it, and for our international series, like the DIRS or the recent Gravity Chaos Rally Cross tournament as a way to cover the postage to NZ (and/or multiple other tracks) and returned (which can cost $150NZD to $300NZD one way depending on tracking and size of package etc). It was never as a way to make money from those events.

I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on my tracks over the years, including things like multiple cameras at $800NZD+ each, lighting, track materials etc, let alone the hundreds of hours building the tracks, then the 8+ hours a week filming, editing etc so races come out regularly. I do get paid from YouTube for my channel and a huge than you to my members who pay additionally for extra content and BTS extras. On average I make a couple hundred dollars each month, which as an hourly rate is not great. There are a lot of other things I could be doing in a fraction of the time that would earn me much more money, but I really genuinely enjoy the hobby so i keep doing it because I like to share my passion with others.

If you can get to a level where your videos are generating hundreds of thousands of views each, then you can start making ok money, such as 3D, Ghostjerker and a couple of other limited channels do, but it is hard to break into. Most of my videos only get around 3k views and then stop, so you don't end up with a lot per video for that.

There seems to be a real insistance in the last 5-8 years that you must have a side hussle and you need to be productive and making money out of everything you do, which I think is a shame. It's nice to get extra money, but making your hobby into a must make money situation is a lot harder than it looks. For every 3D, there are hundreds of others that burn out. The demands on you have to put out races, dealing with negative comments, time involved can take a long time to get to a level that it can support you. At the end of 2019, 3D had around 20k subs, then he launched his new properly themed rally track at the start of 2020 and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. He makes a superior product, well shot etc and it struck a real cord and his growth exploded to where he is now close to 1million subs. I started in March 2020 and have got to 24.5k subs and hit a wall, no matter what I do, I can't seem to grow any more. GTR is doing really well and continues to grow and is now around 45k subs, same with EP Videos. But there are plenty of other tracks that were good that have burned out and disappeared who all made just as good a content as we do.

If you want to chase it as a way to make money to live on, then your focus needs to be quite different to it just being a hobby. So really, the choice is always yours. Enjoy the hobby and maybe make some extra money or make it a job and possibly not enjoy it as much in the future.

an interesting, and very good point of thought.
I (as many) hoped that I could get some "costs offsets" eventually, but never banked on it.
(when you realize the $$ available, it's a fools errand)

the amount I have spent to make nice scenery, and a feeling of being somewhere (Goat Hill) takes time, and care.
lack of either is obvious.  then there's the equipment. Chaos in some long forgotten post said something about dead camera issues.
then, knee deep, the infamous "crap gopro 8's" bit me, 2 bricked upon updates. (I only had 2)
lucky I was a nothing trying to figure this out.

what if I am a 1/3 of the way thru a race/season "cameras get updates" and are bricked.
I use only 2, so replacements is only $600, Out Of Your Pocket!

so quite the race or figure out how to buy 2 gopros, along with mortgage, electric, and real (1:1) life issues

it is not cheap to do this.  shipping prizes, returns, and maintainence issues (cameras, track repairs, on and on)

Blueline made mention of costs to race, and was spot on.

then there's respect.  someone spent XXXXXXX hrs to send this to race
if you respect them, you do the best you can to run an honest, fair, timely race.

any less, you don't respect the builders/racers,
and even worse, think our cars we build are "props" for a video

I am at a point, if you want to get me to send ya' cars,
bring it to the table first
that means building a track, buying cars, running Organized Events (RIO is a good start)

the easiest way to not love something is do it for a living

diecast racing will never provide a living (get a job for that...lol)

for fun, not a grift

dr

For me diecast has always been about enjoying myself and having fun, and while I'm not as raring as I was when I first started, I still enjoying modding cars, as someone who doesn't have their own track, Ive  spent I wanna say well over 300-500$ at this point with the collection of cars I have now, and when you consider the tools I had to buy to actually mod in the first place, ive spent 600$ in this hobby. I don't enter tournaments with the idea that Im gonna get monitary gain out of it, I enter tournaments simply for the love of the sport, to me it's never been about the money in this hobby and I honestly I like it that way, because it means that everyone who is here and mods and speaks, they are here because they genuinely want to be here.

Nobody is going to make money on YouTube with bad videos. Also, no one is going to send you money to race if you're a bad host. So, as with YouTube, if you don't have a good product, you won't make any money. If you're one of the best to do it, you can make money doing it. Otherwise, it's a hobby. I'd love to make money with my hobbies, but it's called a hobby for a reason. I look at it as something I can do in my spare time that I have fun doing, not something I can cash in on. The ones who make money do it better than anyone else. If you get to that level, make all the money you want. If you're not that good, you can't. That's no different than anything else. If you enjoy playing Quarterback, but suck at it, you're not getting any NFL contracts. But no one is stopping you from joining a recreational league and playing in your free time. You won't be getting paid for it, but you can do it if you're passionate about it. 

I (still!) haven't yet broken ground with making my own track, but have spent hundreds of GBP "getting ready" by purchasing accessories, vehicles, paints etc. 

Why? Well, not because I want to make money. It's because the hobby is something I'm passionate about, and hopefully I'll have something to share with a wider community in due course. 

I have (and will continue to) support makers and content creators that I admire, as I know from previous YouTube experience that videos don't make any real money by themselves, even if adverts are plastered all over as per YT recommendations! 

TLDR: Come for the fun. Stay for the community. Don't count on making financial profit. 

I think I'll echo what everyone else has already said...but in short, NO, diecast racing is not a good way to make money. It requires a lot of investment in time and money, and the returns just aren't there.

Like some have said, producing videos can get you money, as can some merch, but I put those in a skill category beyond racing. I can put on a good race but I can't make a good video, thus my ability to make money is diminished. The only way I made money was selling merch/products and even that was pretty minimal...nothing I would consider "income." However, I also had the benefit of having a brand that people have known and trust over more than 10 years, so it was not a hard sell in many ways. 

But again, like others have said, I think for 98% of us, this is a hobby. There's no expectation of making money, but if it happens, cool. But a hobby allows you to come and go as you please without worry. That's a hobby. If you take a break and start to worry about what happens when you do, that's no longer a hobby, it's a job. And I already have a job.