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Edited Date/Time
3/20/2014 1:30pm
Reading through Rocks thread about an SXoN's got me thinking......why doesn't Europe have an SX series? Seriously. This isn't one of my long winded posts of the night.......just a simple question here.
Does Europe in a whole have any ( or enough ) big stadiums to do SX events? You would think it could be a great revenue for the sport over there during the winter months.
You guys who live across the pond.....what's your theory on this subject?
Does Europe in a whole have any ( or enough ) big stadiums to do SX events? You would think it could be a great revenue for the sport over there during the winter months.
You guys who live across the pond.....what's your theory on this subject?
The flip side, football is year-round, so there isn't a real time to close them for supercross.
* the high regard with which they hold their soccer (football) stadiums. Throwing in a bunch of plywood and dirt would be frowned upon by a lot of rabid FC-[insert euro city] fans. Major hurdle there IMO.
*ROI. I'm willing to bet it costs a bit more to rent Camp Nou in Barcelona or Wimbley in England, than it costs to rent Ford Field or O.Co. Somebody smarter than us Vitards is probably doing some market research to determine if a stadium like that would fill up for a SX.
* Who would race? I doubt RV and Stewie are going to race a European SX series. So who will be your marquee guys? Who are you going to use in all your marketing paraphernalia? Some local French or German ArenaSuperCross specialists? Are they going to fill stadiums?
* Schedule. The first GP was this month (March). The series runs until the end of summer. The Euros have grown accustomed to a real off-season. So how do you schedule the Euro SX series? Oct - Feb? Who's showing up for that? The GP dudes will be resting and preparing for GPs.
* The EU. In addition to all the local regulations, there is a secondary level of bureaucracy in the European Union.
These are just my opinions. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are some hurdles, man. It's no slam dunk.
The Shop
Nevertheless, there is.MLS And people are showing up to games. And athletes are making money....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ce0UveQ7Zs&feature=player_detailpage#t=…
It`s just not as big as in USA and best guy`s don`t race it cause they are not getting paid to do it. Their job is GP`s. It might change if the right promoter comes along.
There is also the German SX series.
Nothing like ours but they dont have the network of venues like we do. The soccer stadiums will not let someone come in and trash the pitch. The grass is too fragile and valuable to the soccer industry.
And there in lies the other rub.
Here, Clear Channel has a lock on all the venues. The FIM/AMA simply has to only go thru one entity to lock down a nation's worth of stadiums.
Whereas in Europe I dont think their is some sort of conglomerate tying all the stadiums in the various countries together. Making a multi-round series a nightmare to organize for a sanctioning body.
Zzzzzz
Supercross is really only big in the US when it comes to participation, everywhere else motocross takes priority.
There are plenty of big stadiums but they are used for football, which is played in the winter so couldn't be used.
Pit Row
Because as much as the Bercy supercross has this aura around it and all the history, in reality it could never be more than a glorified arenacross because of the lack of space. And as much as they try to spice things up with all of the different racing formats, there is rarely any actual racing going on because of how narrow everything is.
I just hope that with the added income from all of the extra seats, the promotors go all out and get some of the top dogs from both sides of the pond.
The most awesome thing I could imagine is if they used used the Lille Supercross as part of the AMA series, kind of like they did in 2003.
Your points are valid, but I think it would be really cool to see a big time European SX series as well. I know it's not their fault, and I know the dudes across the pond haul ass, but in my mind, I give our guys the edge because they are able to ride both disciplines. Imagine if RV spent his whole life, year round, racing outdoors only. No SX. So all the time RV has spent on SX training/racing/etc he could have spent that on outdoors all year (sand,choppy,smooth,etc) I know it's not fair to AC222 but I tend to think RV would smoke him if all RV had to focus on was riding MX. In my mind RV is just as good or better than AC222 outdoors and that's with the half of the year RV has spent riding and training SX since 2006.
The skill sets required for racing Supercross has certainly benefitted American riders over the years and it gave them the edge over everyone else, throughout the 90's at least.
Makes it very hard to develop any tallent when there is not even the chance to practice apart from the handful of races in the winter.
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