Press Releases

TEUTSCHENTHAL (GERMANY), 28 June 2008 – Following the recent decision taken by the Motocross GP Commission, FIM Motocross World Championship promoter, Youthstream, announced further improvements for the series.

The common goal is to continue the growth which the World Motocross Championship has seen since 2004, the year when Youthstream started to take control over the series’ promotion on behalf of FIM, and to give better opportunities to the participants.

Over the last four years the FIM Motocross World Championship has made some significant developments, it has largely increased the exposure, the television coverage is impressive, venues have made many improvements with the race tracks and infrastructure, and FIM and Youthstream work closely together to make the right strategic and political decisions so that the FIM Motocross World Championship can blossom as the prime off-road championship in the world. Four years ago when we had to make some strong decisions we were criticized by many for our choices and today everyone realizes we made the right choices. Thanks to the Youthstream policy many international sponsors have entered into our sport supporting the majority of professional teams, this is very important because today teams live with the sponsors’ money and all this permits most of the riders to be employed by a team and not like before where the large majority of riders had to pay for their travel expenses and racing.

The most important issue that needs attention now is the essential fine-tuning and we will really reach the elite.

As you can see, the FIM Motocross World Championship is very well covered via television and media over all the five continents with 51.5% in Europe, 19.6% in Asia Pacific, 11.5% in Asia, 6.2% in Africa/Middle East, 5.8% in USA, 3.5% in Latin America and 1.9% in other. In 2007 we had 694,806,863 TV viewers for 901 hours and 41 minutes of TV coverage in 133 countries (58 countries received the live programme).

 With internet in 2007 we had 3.5 million visitors, 18.9 million pages viewed and 193.5 million hits.

The value of the television, internet and magazine exposure is more than €50 million for each manufacturer.

A true World Championship has to be covered worldwide not only by TV and media but also with events. It is fundamental to include events in the USA (the biggest motorcycle market worldwide), in Asia (the fastest growing motorcycle market worldwide), in Brazil (the biggest Latin American motorcycle market), in Australia (the biggest motorcycle market in the Pacific) and naturally in Europe and Africa where we are already present. Those who think it is enough to have only events in Europe have a very short vision or only look to their personal interest of today. A championship run in Europe does not deserve the ‘World Championship’ title but only a continental title and a continental title does not attract the same interest from multi-international sponsors. Big sponsors have started entering into the FIM Motocross World Championship for the simple reason that we are starting to go worldwide and because we have millions of TV spectators and fans. Fans living in the other continents have the same right as a European; to be able to participate and watch the best Motocross in the world taking place on their continent. Manufacturers are more than happy to use the ‘World Championship’ title to promote their brand all over the world and to sell their motorcycles and for this reason it’s only fair they can support the FIM Motocross World Championship worldwide.

Teams are becoming more and more professional and need to be guaranteed their participation to the Grand Prix, they need to be guaranteed to have television exposure and they need to have professional infrastructures, they can risk to lose their sponsors and automatically disappear. Youthstream does not want to only be based on the top teams but also on the semi-private teams because Motocross is and we want it to remain a very popular sport with a wide range of participation. Since Youthstream has managed the FIM Motocross World Championship the number of riders and teams participating in the MX1, MX2, MX3 and the EMX2 has doubled.

We need a wider exposure in order to gain more sponsors for teams and organizers and we need to increase the quality of the show at the Grand Prix to make it better value for money for the spectators, and therefore for the organizers and TV broadcasters. Our five improvement points for the future are:

1. To improve the quality of the show at the Grand Prix to provide more interest for the public and therefore aid the organizer.
2. To bring the Grand Prix events all over the world to gain more sponsors for everyone and to improve the value and credibility of the FIM Motocross World Championship.
3. To support the semi-private teams with rules that guarantee their participation and TV exposure.
4. To continuously improve the infrastructure at the Grand Prix to give more comfort to the teams but essentially to give easy and comfortable access to create interest from sponsors and a wider range of public.
5. To continue improving the media and television coverage around the world for the benefit of everyone involved in the FIM Motocross World Championship.

Youthstream will realize these improvements from next year:

A) Increase the number of overseas events, starting with USA and then with other important motorcycle markets.
B) 40 riders to enter and start in each class, MX1 and MX2.
In order to stabilize the MX1 and MX2, the factory and semi-private teams will have a guaranteed participation in the FIM Motocross World Championship of at least two riders per class.
In MX1 and MX2, all 40 riders will take part in the GP (2 x free practice + 1 race of 20 min + 2 laps on Saturday for the starting positions on Sunday. Sunday will remain with 2 races of 35 minutes plus 2 laps for each class).
Youthstream will enter 38 riders per class (MX1 and MX2) and the FMNR will enter a maximum of 2 riders per class. Teams/manufacturers can propose to Youthstream a maximum of 24 riders in MX1 as well as in MX2. The remaining riders will be selected directly by Youthstream as wild card riders.
C) Youthstream will improve the TV production with a live camera on-board and also the world wide distribution in markets where we are not already present.
D) Youthstream will install personalized manufacturer double floored pit-lane boxes. This will provide teams with a professional structure, very clean and visible to public and television where engineers and mechanics can freely work on the ground floor, and an upper floor for sponsors, VIP guests, etc so they can be part of the action without interfering with the teams’ work and to increase the value of the teams’ sponsors.
E) Youthstream will install personalized bike washing areas for each manufacturer to allow mechanics to work cleanly and to not have to wait in line to wash the bikes and this will provide more visibility to the teams.
F) Youthstream will film and edit a four minute programme on each officially entered MX1 and MX2 team and these programmes will be inserted into the FIM Motocross World Championship highlight programmes of each Grand Prix.
G) At the end of the season Youthstream will supply to each officially entered team a 15 minute DVD of the best images for free of rights.
H) Youthstream will improve the sport and technical staff to guarantee better services in the paddock such as better performing and cleaner sanitary services, better security controls on the ‘hot-spots’ (such as pit-lane and waiting-zone) and professional blue flag marshals on the race track.
I) Youthstream will continue to develop and to professionalize the FIM Motocross World Championship without touching the soul of our sport. We will continue with two races per class, we want to have fans as near as possible to the show and close to riders, we want to keep the popular festive spirit and we want to increase the show and activities on the Saturday to permit fans to enjoy also this day and for this reason we have included the Women’s and Veterans’ first race and the MX1 and MX2 grid position races on the Saturdays’ programme. The secret of our success is finding the right balance between the professional, the amateur and the fans.
J) Following a meeting between Youthstream and the media, the media confirmed their contentment with Youthstream for the improvements made to the media infrastructure and the general organization of the FIM Motocross World Championship. After the already significant evolution and with the continuous growing number of media present, together we found an agreement on the following developments as of 2009:

a. ADSL lines will become more powerful.
b. As there are now more than 250 journalists present at every Grand Prix, the press room will be made bigger.
c. A reserved area in the press room will be created for the permanent journalists who follow all the World Championship.
d. Security control will be tougher on the hot-spots, such as the press room, the podium and pit lane area, and less media passes will be issued.
e. The passage around the race track will be made wider and more gates will be in place to facilitate the photographers’ work and allow them to easily pass from one side to the other.
K) After the important evolution of the FIM Motocross World Championship MX1/MX2, the FIM MX3 World Championship and the EMX2 European Championship, Youthstream has decided to bring more infrastructure and television coverage to the MX3 and EMX2. From 2009 there will be a highlight television programme of 26 minutes of each MX3/EMX2 event broadcasted worldwide on the television channels currently partners of Youthstream. This programme will be broadcast one week after each event separately from the MX1/MX2 programmes. The programme will be divided into equal time for the MX3 and for the EMX2, and on top of the practise and race highlights the programme will also include a big part dedicated to the teams and riders. Organizers will benefit from a one minute postcard with fine images and promotion on their infrastructure. Youthstream will install a permanent press officer, photographer and paddock manager, and we will install a personalized pit-lane with 20 separate tents (two riders each) each with a live-timing screen. In fact from next year a staff of eight Youthstream people will be present at every event in order to increase the quality and standards of these Championships.

After consulting with each manufacturer Youthstream will publish the provisional 2009 team list by the beginning of August 2008.

“The development of the FIM Motocross World Championship since Youthstream is the promoter is simply a demonstration of great success,” stated Dr. Wolfgang Srb, President of the FIM Motocross Commission. “We work constantly with Giuseppe Luongo to improve the level of the Championship having in mind that the FIM Motocross World Championship is the leading off-road series in the world. As a matter of fact, we strongly support all efforts to stage more events all over the world.”

Mr. Giuseppe Luongo said: “All these changes are made especially for the semi-private teams who currently live in the shadow of the bigger factory teams, we strongly think those teams need to be guaranteed their participation and to have the same (if not more) exposure as the factory teams because factory teams have a large amount of financial support from their manufacturers and the semi-private teams have to live with their money and the money they find from sponsors. It’s Youthstream’s duty to give the tools to all these teams so that they can create more revenue, therefore Mr. Guido Becchis (Youthstream’s marketing director) and I are at the disposal of all those teams to help them with marketing programmes, sponsorship research and to advise on how to reach certain sponsors. We have heard that some teams were worried to be excluded, this will not be the case, all teams who have worked seriously and professionally over the past years and who have always carried out their duties with their riders, mechanics and team managers will have their place in the future. Clearly, teams who want to use the title ‘World Championship’ have to understand the world is much bigger than Europe and we are sure that in four years time everyone will be very happy with our choices and still more sponsors will enter our world.

“We want to continue to dialogue with the manufacturers, especially concerning the technical regulations linked to the market, but for everything concerning the policy and the future developments of the FIM Motocross World Championship we strongly believe it’s the duty of the FIM and promoter to decide the direction.”

PROVISIONAL 2009 FIM MX1/MX2 CALENDAR WITH WOMEN’S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP AND VETERANS’ WORLD CUP

LINKS
Youthstream
FIM

Information, photos and results are online at www.motocrossMX1.com, the official website of the FIM Motocross World Championships.

MediaZone Moto is the leading global online broadcaster of Motocross and SuperMoto events. Fans worldwide can watch the thrills from this and every race of the 2008 FIM Motocross & SuperMoto World Championships LIVE and On Demand exclusively at www.MediaZoneMoto.com.

Youthstream is the company that manages the exclusive television, marketing and promotional world wide rights of the FIM Motocross World Championship, the FIM Motocross of Nations, the FIM SuperMoto World Championship, the FIM SuperMoto of Nations, the FIM Snowcross World Championship, the UEM Motocross European Championship and the UEM SuperMoto European Championship.

www.MotocrossMX1.com