99% of riders that ever hit the track don’t do it to make money. They do it for other reasons, hopefully among these reasons is simply the love of the sport and competition. Big outside money infused has been our downfall in some ways, or at least may be leading to it. Because money is the holy grail, everyone aspiring to be professional feels like they must have access to large sums of that money in order to compete. Maybe being competitive these days does require huge amount of cash, I don’t know for sure. Do you really need a million dollar effort put 1 rider on one production based motorcycle to race 12 races? A semi? A large staff? A $200,000 a year trainer? Private supercross and motocross tracks and all of the expenses associated with that? I contend that you do not. Ryan Dungey, Ran Villopoto and James Stewart would be at the top if they showed up in a box van with 2 bikes each and publicly available engine and suspension modifications. As they made their way around the country they could stay and ride at any number of tracks, both public and private. They could sleep in hotels or have some combo bike hauler/camper to keep them in comfort while on the road. Heck, you could even fly from home to each race and back for a pretty nominal cost. If most riders are doing that, they could do it too and win races. Some guys just ride motorcycles faster than other guys. It’s the same at your local track.
If escalating costs are the reality today, it is because 20 guys have access to top notch "programs" due to the money infused by factories and outside sponsors, probably mainly the energy drink companies at this point (I won't even get into the unhealthy nature of these energy drinks). If those 20 riders are adorned with advantages that make them unbeatable by those outside of that fortunate club, then the call for “more outside money and sponsorship” is a natural response from the “have-nots”. The majority of the guys on the starting line at your favorite national are not making much money or any at all. They are not buying huge houses and getting set up for retirement by racing for 5 years. They are feeding on scraps, making some money here and there and spending a ton of money week after week. They naturally don't think this situation is fair.
Maybe worse than feeding on scraps is pretending to have the money that the fortunate others do. Spending $500,000 or $1,000,000 on fielding a team each year while losing the majority of that money is unsustainable. The money footprint that people are laying out to put a small team on the track is astonishing. Unfortunately motocross looks to be playing a little game of dress-up. See, we want so badly to be like NASCAR and the NFL that we pretend that our little niche sport can support the same lavish lifestyles. If you do the math, there just isn’t anywhere near the kind of money in motocross as there is in the major teams sports or even motocross. A single athlete in football, basketball, tennis and golf can make $40m-$60m per year. It is not uncommon for major league baseball teams to get paid $150m per year by TV networks to air their baseball games. As I understand it, MXSports pays TV networks to air motocross and supercross. See? Big difference there.
We’re trying to market a sport that, in the end, just isn’t marketable beyond the core group of us that loves it so much. Others may stop by on occasion, but most people don’t even think motorcycle racing is a sport. These casual viewers may be drawn to a motocross broadcast for a few minutes to see some crazy guys doing big jumps. Tuning in for a 30 minute moto, or 4 of them in one day, is a lot to ask for someone that doesn’t know the difference between a Yamaha and a KTM or a 4 stroke and a 2 stroke. Many of our 30 minute motos settle into a pace where there is not much passing after about 10 or 15 minutes. Certainly this is not always the case. Even still, is Joe Schmoe wearing a Chicago Cubs jersey on a Saturday afternoon very interested in Ivan Tedesco passing Nick Wey for 9th place at a race in Minnesota? Probably not. Is trying to make our sport more accessible the right answer? Can we even be more accessible? Despite all of our efforts to be mainstream, it appears to me that many we had many more racers in 1982 than we do in 2012. Watching motocross live on TV all summer is awesome—I love it. But, is it the answer to making the sport better for you and me?
I think we could make a case that TV coverage can damage the very foundational aspects of the sport that attracted many of us. Of course I love watching motocross on TV. This is something I wouldn't have dreamed of as a kid. Still, should TV and the expectation of capital as a result be the goal of all motocrossers? Do we risk changing our sport because of the potential for this money? Enormous jumps and over-prepped tracks have become the norm over the years. There is no question that the tracks are smoother than they used to be (see my other blog entry on this topic) and in some ways unrecognizable from the tracks we rode on for the first couple of decades. They are ripped so deep, as though every race began as a mud race, that they get rutted, form very few lines and allow for very little passing. Just listen to some of the riders after EVERY race. I can’t honestly think of a race where someone hasn’t commented that the track was one-lined and hard to pass. Part of that is probably just excuses by guys that got beat, but, having ridden some of these tracks, I think they are right. The huge jumps, while maybe exciting for 10 minutes for the casual baseball fan that stops by the telecast, have really changed the nature of motocross. They’ve made it a jumping exhibition and at the same time made the tracks much smoother. The first impression of our sport today is one of an “extreme sport”. Whether you like it or not, the average PTO mom and dad that see your motorcycle in the back of your truck think you do backflips and have tattoos on your neck. They are not very likely to be open to the idea of getting little Johnny involved in that. Hell, they are afraid he’s going to get hit by a 35 mph pitch in playing little league.
TV coverage must be moving the ratings needles somewhat if the outside sponsors are still interested in spending a little money, very little to them, on motocross. But to what end? What have we really accomplished? Some very, very small group of riders and associated team members get a few years with high 6 figure and low 7 figure incomes. Does that change the amount of fun you will have at your local track this week? Does it change the experience of the 25th place guy at a national motocross event? I don’t think so. That guy has struggled to pay his expenses for as long as I can remember. The only difference is the amount of money people are paying to finish 25th. Not so long ago you could show up in a box van or even a cargo van and finish 25th. You could go to some of the motocross nationals, get your name in the magazines, pursue your dream for a few years and, with the help of family and friends, break even or at least not break the bank in doing so. This reality hasn’t changed much. Maybe the real difference is how much money people think they have to spend (and make) to finish 25th. The picture is distorted when a few guys make north of $1m. I’m a died-in-the-wool capitalist. More power to those that can bring in that kind of money. Every one of them from team owners, managers, tuners, etc. that can find their way to that big money gets a tip of the hat from me. We just have to be realistic and realize that the money will not trickle down very far. I can’t stand to hear people say that “our athletes deserve more money because they work so hard”. People will only pay motorcycle riders what they are worth. Sponsorship is about return on investment. The return on investment in this sport is on the shoulders of a precious few.
Again, we are not baseball. We put 40,000 people in the stands 18 times per year for supercross races. On any given day of any week from April to October there are 40,000 people in 20 different stadiums watching baseball. According to Sports Business Daily the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series had record attendance of 831,600 in 2012. Less than a million. Compare that with Major League Baseball’s attendance in 2012 of 74,859,268. So, baseball enjoys 90 times the spectators as we do. That doesn’t count all of the fans at home that keep up with their teams via newspapers, radio, sports TV recaps, etc.
TV coverage must be moving the ratings needles somewhat if the outside sponsors are still interested in spending a little money, very little to them, on motocross. But to what end? What have we really accomplished? Some very, very small group of riders and associated team members get a few years with high 6 figure and low 7 figure incomes. Does that change the amount of fun you will have at your local track this week? Does it change the experience of the 25th place guy at a national motocross event? I don’t think so. That guy has struggled to pay his expenses for as long as I can remember. The only difference is the amount of money people are paying to finish 25th. Not so long ago you could show up in a box van or even a cargo van and finish 25th. You could go to some of the motocross nationals, get your name in the magazines, pursue your dream for a few years and, with the help of family and friends, break even or at least not break the bank in doing so. This reality hasn’t changed much. Maybe the real difference is how much money people think they have to spend (and make) to finish 25th. The picture is distorted when a few guys make north of $1m. I’m a died-in-the-wool capitalist. More power to those that can bring in that kind of money. Every one of them from team owners, managers, tuners, etc. that can find their way to that big money gets a tip of the hat from me. We just have to be realistic and realize that the money will not trickle down very far. I can’t stand to hear people say that “our athletes deserve more money because they work so hard”. People will only pay motorcycle riders what they are worth. Sponsorship is about return on investment. The return on investment in this sport is on the shoulders of a precious few.
Again, we are not baseball. We put 40,000 people in the stands 18 times per year for supercross races. On any given day of any week from April to October there are 40,000 people in 20 different stadiums watching baseball. According to Sports Business Daily the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series had record attendance of 831,600 in 2012. Less than a million. Compare that with Major League Baseball’s attendance in 2012 of 74,859,268. So, baseball enjoys 90 times the spectators as we do. That doesn’t count all of the fans at home that keep up with their teams via newspapers, radio, sports TV recaps, etc.
Maybe we are lucky to have the money in the sport that we have today. I hope it stays with us for a long time, but we can’t change our sport just so a small group of people can make big money and raise the stakes on what everyone else spends just to sit at the table. See, we chase the money by making the sport more accessible to non-racers. We think that helps. Making motocross more accessible makes motocross more “extreme” and even more dangerous than motocross was originally. Giving a few riders at the top large dollar contracts is great for them but leaves us in a sort of financial envy situation. Guys that finish 10th through 20th feel cheated if they can’t make a load of money and be a part of a multi-million dollar effort. These guys are ultimately driven out of the sport because they are convinced that you have to spend a fortune to put a race bike on a track 20 times every year. Or they are driven from the sport because the 2nd tier teams actually do try and keep up with the 1st tier teams in terms of spending. It is simply unsustainable and probably not worth pusuit. Baseball generates enough money to pay its heroes $20m a year and still have enough left over to pay tons of guys you’ve never heard of $1m or more. We don’t have that kind of money and I don’t think we ever will no matter what we do to make motocross more “accessible”.
