Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

FIRST PERSON/OPINION

Via e-mail:

In my layman’s opinion, it seems the single biggest problem with professional motorcycle road racing in this country is that there is just no money in it for competitors. It’s a debit sport. A privateer could win an AMA Supersport race and not make enough prize money to even cover his basic travel and lodging. The manufacturer contingency money helps, but even that is not enough to make much of a dent in a good race program. Besides, contingency money has no show appeal. All pro single combat competitions must have a meaningful prize to galvanize fans.

Such poor economics relegates the sport to hobby status. By that I mean, most promising riders depend on benefactors to finance their efforts, and benefactors are typically just spending entertainment dollars. There is no future in that. Unless one is employed by a commercial effort, it is impossible for even a top competitor (rider or tuner) to make a living in road racing for very long.

Maybe the sport should to take a page from the past and provide riders with a share of the gate. It would constitute reallocating event revenue, but it’s a proven method of building a meaningful show. NASCAR shares part of their TV revenue with their drivers, and individual promoters provide a significant purse derived from their individual gates. That way, whatever fortunes their sport earns, competitors participate proportionately. All parties end up working to grow the show. While professional motorcycle road racing will not likely support a six figure prize for a win, a lowly $2k for winning a Supersport National is an embarrassment to the notion of being a professional event. It says a lot about the value of the sport to a lot of people. Something has to change in that area to gain any status, let alone make it feasible for few talented souls to commit to it full-time.

Along that line, I think the new AMA class format is constructive for the longer run. The racing needs to be among machines that drive the most potential revenue for the most commercial stakeholders. Stakeholders include motorcycle and component manufacturers, service providers, race promoters, track owners, media, and of course, the privateers who make up most of the show. In today’s world, that pretty much leaves 600 and 1000cc sport bikes as the only viable racing platforms. In its simplicity, I think that’s a good thing.

My guess is that AMA Pro Racing is hopeful of further simplifying it by herding the factory teams into the two Superbike classes (SBK and FX); thereby providing privateer teams a chance to prosper in the other two. SBK and FX offer manufacturers the best place to showcase their production motorcycles at the highest level of development, and these teams should have the budget and desire to compete there. Meanwhile, the two real production classes provide privateer teams with lower cost racing and a chance to win financial support for their efforts. From a strategic perspective, I like the new AMA format a lot.

While the ‘herding’ of factory riders to the right grids didn’t materialize this season, I think they will gather there eventually. Manufacturers get no value from their racing unless they compete against each other in the most challenging forum. The notion of having a million dollar rider beat up on a guy with a 12 foot Haulmark and EZ-up is preposterous. Worse…what if he doesn’t! Perhaps the grid quality problems in 2004 have more to do with product availability among Yamaha and Kawasaki then anything else. Regarding Formula Extreme, maybe it’s just the name. The whole motorcycle world knows what Supersport means. Few know what FX is. In any event, I think Yamaha and Kawasaki do not want to remain outliers in Superstock, and I hope they all jump into FX with Honda for their middleweight battle. In my notion of a perfect world, I’d like to see Supersport preserved for factory satellite teams and the best of the privateers. The class has legacy commercial value for front runners, and might be a good place to jump start the economics for non-factory contenders right now.

If there is a glimmer of promise for privateers (and therefore, the sport), I think it’s in the new TV coverage. Every professional sport needs TV to be financially viable, and motorcycle road racing seems to be getting its chance. With SpeedTV and OLN dabbling in it, maybe the programming gets some dependable traction. The compactness of the new AMA format certainly makes it more efficient to cover, and likely enhances programming to boot. If privateers can get some of that TV time, they’ve got something significant to sell to big consumer brands, and for very short money.

As an example; in the first two rounds, Team Prieto Racing got tremendous TV exposure through the remarkable performances of Mike Barnes and Geoff May. The coverage they got on TV was worth many thousands of dollars to any consumer brand that spends big for TV exposure. In a way, their coverage was ‘lost revenue’ because nobody was there to benefit that could. If Prieto can make a strong case for similar TV coverage in the future, they’ll probably have buyers. Of course, one might argue that the coverage they got only happened because the factory grids were thin. That may or may not be true, but my point is that if a team has TV coverage to sell, I think they will get cash buyers.

In summary, I think the problem with grids is directly related to economics. I say carve out some gate money for racers, and work hard to get them a shot at TV revenue. It works for the NCAA.

Bob Holcomb
Lincoln, Massachusetts


(Bob Holcomb is a motorcycle racing enthusiast with a son participating in F-USA and club races.)