Friday, March 7, 2008

It's Official - AMA Selects Daytona Group for Pro Racing

It's official, the AMA is selling virtually all the Pro Racing properties (everything but SuperCross and ArenaCross) to the the Daytona investment group led by Jim France of NASCAR and ISC, and Roger Edmondson, President of the Grand American Road Race Series. Here is a video of the Daytona press conference and here is a complete transcript.

I think this is good, for a lot of reasons, but I wonder how it will affect the National Promoters Group that has worked so hard to build outdoor MX into the first-rate show that it is today. I suspect they will be fine, but it's probably a difficult time for them right now. This is a big day. More later...

Update: The National Promoters Group has issued a press release in support of the AMA sale. The language of it indicates to me that they were pretty much left out in the cold on this deal. But I have to think the Daytona Motorsports Group will rely heavily on NPG to keep doing what they've been doing, which is work to better outdoor MX. One thing I don't think will happen – I don't think DMG will try to kill off outdoor MX which what it often looked like the AMA was trying to do.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

AMA About to Sell Pro Racing?

Cycle News is reporting today the sale of the road racing properties of AMA Pro Racing will be announced tomorrow. The reported buyer is a Daytona, FL investment group led by Jim France, president of International Speedway Corporation.

While the France family has its detractors, there is very little downside to this purchase if it happens. Given the state of the AMA, aligning motorcycle racing with arguably motorsport's most successful business model can only be a step up. Plus, the France family has shown a decided interest in and understanding of the need to maintain a healthy grass roots involvement through their "Come Home to NASCAR Dirt Track" promotion effort.

It was earlier reported that all the racing properties -- including motocross, supercross, ATV, and offroad -- would be sold as a unit. this no longer appears to be the case. Not sure if that's good or bad. Professional Motocross could benefit from a business model like NASCAR. For more on this topic see AMA Motocross Is Not NASCAR, The Cost of Inner Conflict, and The Nonprofit Professional.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Ducati Profile

Getting detailed financial info on motorcycle manufacturers is difficult. The Big Four Japanese are vertically-integrated conglomerates who make everything from bullet trains and ships to pianos and keyboards. They don’t usually break out motorcycle sales in their financials. Ditto for BMW – they don’t separate cars and motorcycles. The small companies – Ducati, Piaggio, etc. are often traded on foreign exchanges with limited disclosure rules or have large percentages of their stock held by private interests. US-based Harley-Davidson is about the only pure motorcycle manufacturer where we can track true financials. This makes it hard for someone like me to assess trends and get any real feel for what’s happening in terms of industry economics, so it’s really helpful when someone publishes inside data on a specific company.

Alan Cathcart had a brief writeup on Buell and Ducati in the January 23 issue of Cycle News that had some interesting data on Ducati. I record it here for future reference.

Outgoing Ducati President/CEO Federico Minoli engineered the talks between H-D and Ducati that had H-D looking seriously at acquiring the Italian marque in late 2007. The deal was squashed by the Bonomi family, who controls Ducati via a 30%-minus-one-share equity stake owned by their private equity firm Investindustrial.

According to Cathcart Ducati’s revenues for the first nine months of 2007 showed a 43% increase over the same period in 2006:

H-D's numbers have gone in the opposite direction, with sales mirroring the overall slump in the US economy and projected 2008 numbers being even worse. Interestingly, the two companies are apparently still talking and a future merger is not out of the question. As we have noted here before, big companies need to get bigger in order to remain competitive, and consolidation is the natural path in all industries. Big companies also have trouble innovating, and tend toward buying up innovation rather than developing it on their own. In the end this reduces overall choice in the marketplace, providing us – the riding public – with largely identical machines that are just branded differently.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Sarah Whitmore On the Racier Side of Supercross

Progress requires compromise. Advancement requires sacrifice. These time-honored platitudes are ingrained in most of us from childhood. To reach any worthwhile goal you often have to give up things you hold dear. Achieving mainstream acceptance is a goal for the motocross community, and the pursuit of that goal has caused us to gradually give up more and more of what we once held to be inherent truths about our sport.

In her latest blog post Sarah Whitmore shares her distaste for the racier side of Supercross.

Speaking of Supercross I am getting a little annoyed at all of the "main event" board and "30 second" board girls. Not to mention every energy drink company is in some huge competition to see who can have the most scantily clad girls on display. Its bad enough when these girls are getting paid to dress like this but then there are fans walking around wearing less than what I wear to the beach.

As a twenty-something woman and one of the top female motocross racers in the country Sarah speaks with some authority on this issue. Unfortunately, she has made one flawed assumption – that Supercross is a family sport. It is not. I wish it were, but Supercross is our (the industry, the racers, the broader MX community) shot at hitting the big time. And because we are all slavishly in pursuit of that magical, mythical pinnacle of fame and fortune we have pretty much sacrificed any tie we had to our past legacy.

The racy aspect of Supercross is much more likely to increase than it is to regress to any family values approach. As I wrote a few weeks back regarding the Leticia Cline incident, hotties are a part of getting mainstreamed. Sex sells. In the 18-34 male demographic for which Supercross has been manufactured sex sells supremely. And selling is what LiveNation is all about.

There may be one, perhaps even two, people inside LiveNation who actually care about motocross and Supercross. They are likely the guys working directly in the sport, managing the ground-level operations. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that there is any passion at all at the executive or Board levels. It's about money. Period.

If you want to see one possible future for Supercross watch an episode of NOPI TunerVision, or go to a NOPI Nationals event. They have racing. It's a backdrop to car shows, jello wrestling, soap suds dance orgies, and nearly-naked bikini contests. Not that I have a problem with any of these things. They just are. And if Sarah wants a glimpse of what her future may hold she can visit bikiniracer.com. Sex is what the 18-34 male demographic wants. Action sports and sex. It sells. Welcome to the mainstream.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Employees Revolt Over AMA Firings

Boy, things got pretty heated over the AMA firings last week. Cycle News reports on two separate, strongly-worded letters from interested parties. The first, from former AMA president Ed Youngblood (read the entire letter here) indicates Ed is really pissed:

[...]

In my opinion, the current regime is monstrous, and I am simply dumbfounded that the AMA Board of Directors seems tolerant of this style of management, if not complicit. It has caused me great pain to watch the deterioration of the AMA, but I expect my unhappiness is nothing compared to that of the employees, volunteers, and supporters who have been directly affected by it. There is very little I can do about this situation except cease to be a party to it in any direct or indirect way.

[...]

The second letter, from AMA Superbike Media Manager Larry Lawrence, says AMA personnel are in "open revolt" (read the entire letter here):

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