What sells more bikes worldwide for Honda - a Dakar win or a SX title?

Hollywood007
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Hollywood007 1/17/2021 11:19am
1/17/2021 11:19am
Motorsports creates bran awareness, and when you do well that attracts customers to your product. as far as noth America is concerned, SX is the most popular form of motorcycle racing, and easily sells the most bikes for honda in north America. Worldwide, I dont think SX has the exposure that other forms of motorcycle racing like MXGP and MotoGP have, even rally racing seems to be more popular.
kage173
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kage173 1/17/2021 1:28pm
1/17/2021 1:28pm
SX. It's not even close
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Beeby
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Beeby 1/17/2021 2:08pm
1/17/2021 2:08pm
Do people really buy bikes based on recent results?

It feels like people become pretty brand loyal and buy that brand a lot of the time. There are a lot of Hondas out there considering their lack of supercross success
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LungButter
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LungButter 1/18/2021 5:55am
1/18/2021 5:55am
kage173 wrote:
SX. It's not even close
WorldWide? You sure? You seem sure, so give us some basis for it.

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Falcon
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Falcon 1/18/2021 12:16pm
1/18/2021 12:16pm
Falcon wrote:
You said, "Worldwide," so I'm going to go out on a limb and say Dakar. The US is big and very important, plus a Supercross title...
You said, "Worldwide," so I'm going to go out on a limb and say Dakar. The US is big and very important, plus a Supercross title is impactful here and in Europe. But Dakar is known in Europe, Africa, South America, India, and most Asian countries. They moved this race to South America for fear it would be a target for terrorism in the African desert. You don't hear about Joe Terrorist threatening A1. (H1, this year.)
hanzhongluboy wrote:
There is some faulty reasoning in here. The terror threats were not because the rally is a 'big deal' but because any travel in these zones...
There is some faulty reasoning in here. The terror threats were not because the rally is a 'big deal' but because any travel in these zones, especially travel done by western foreigners is very dicey. If you had westerners doing lawn mower racing in Aleppo, Syria or many places the old route went, it would get shot up/ raided. Now, by your definition, lawn mower racing is very important.

The whole region is geopolitically unstable and this is why they moved not because some terrorist hates Dakar because it is too popular.
But also because in regions where terrorists commonly operate, Dakar is known at all.
Terrorrists would love to detonate a bomb at a Supercross race; they have probably never been anywhere near one and may not even know it's a thing. See what I mean? I'm talking about the reach of the two sports. SX is mostly a North American and European thing.
bigk218
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bigk218 1/18/2021 12:31pm
1/18/2021 12:31pm
I’ve never watched a single race outside of the us. Maybe catch some highlights on YouTube but other than that nothing.
RichieW13
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RichieW13 1/18/2021 12:46pm
1/18/2021 12:46pm
Zaugg wrote:
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that based on Statista data, more on-road motorcycles were sold globally that off-road motorcycles. This is...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that based on Statista data, more on-road motorcycles were sold globally that off-road motorcycles. This is of course an extrapolation of US data globally and only a guess.

"In 2019, approximately 300,800 units of on-highway motorcycles and more than 100,000 units of off-highway motorcycles were sold to customers in the United States" -Statista

Keep in mind that Honda sales were down in 2020 for the first time in 5 years.

That being said, Dakar or MOTOGP most likely have a larger impact on sales than MX/ SX in the US and Globally.
"Keep in mind that Honda sales were down in 2020 for the first time in 5 years."

Not sure if it changes what you are trying to evaluate, but were Honda sales down due to demand or supply?

Used dirt bike prices are a bit inflated right now due to increased demand from COVID. Surely that demand would also be for new bikes as well, but maybe COVID caused a bottleneck in the supply chain, so Honda just couldn't make enough bikes to meet demand?
LungButter
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LungButter 1/18/2021 1:04pm
1/18/2021 1:04pm
Some food for thought, notice the world Billion, with a B.

Screenshot taken from the Dakar website


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Mr. Afterbar
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Mr. Afterbar 1/18/2021 1:25pm
1/18/2021 1:25pm
quadzrulebro wrote:
It would be almost impossible to guess since we have nothing to compare it to. No one is old enough to remember the last time Honda...
It would be almost impossible to guess since we have nothing to compare it to. No one is old enough to remember the last time Honda won a Supercross title. #curseofthebambino
Spode wrote:
I am
I can remember 9 of them that I was old enough to know what was going on and I'm only 35. He must be a noob. Laughing
Donkey Kong 1/18/2021 1:27pm
1/18/2021 1:27pm
Relative to their total marketing budget it's not a large amount of money being spent on these things.
kage173
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kage173 1/18/2021 3:08pm
1/18/2021 3:08pm
kage173 wrote:
SX. It's not even close
LungButter wrote:
WorldWide? You sure? You seem sure, so give us some basis for it.
Ricky Brabec, the 2020 Dakar champion has 81k followers on Instagram. Conversely Max Vohland, the KTM 250 rookie who has only raced one SX race in his whole life has 84k. Want to look at a more popular Dakar guy? Let's look at Toby Price. Toby has 452k followers. That's a lot. Ken Roczen has 1.4mm.

Supercross is a scale that Dakar isn't. Additionally, all these dumb stats about how broad Dakar is don't matter. Yeah they show the event across the world, but their showing every single class from buggies to bikes to those gnarly Kamaz trucks. Bikes are one small little blip in the coverage.

And who cares if Dakar is followed more heavily in....Kuala Lumpur or whatever. Developing countries buy 125cc mopeds because they never breakdown and don't use any gas. They're not buying it because some gnarly Chilean desert dweller sent a massive whip across a 300 foot dune in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, don't take it as me not respecting the discipline. I totally do. It's just not as valuable as supercross. It's not.
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cable
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cable 1/18/2021 6:08pm
1/18/2021 6:08pm
Whats the top selling unit? crf50, 110? or side by side?
LungButter
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LungButter 1/18/2021 6:54pm
1/18/2021 6:54pm Edited Date/Time 1/18/2021 6:55pm
kage173 wrote:
Ricky Brabec, the 2020 Dakar champion has 81k followers on Instagram. Conversely Max Vohland, the KTM 250 rookie who has only raced one SX race in...
Ricky Brabec, the 2020 Dakar champion has 81k followers on Instagram. Conversely Max Vohland, the KTM 250 rookie who has only raced one SX race in his whole life has 84k. Want to look at a more popular Dakar guy? Let's look at Toby Price. Toby has 452k followers. That's a lot. Ken Roczen has 1.4mm.

Supercross is a scale that Dakar isn't. Additionally, all these dumb stats about how broad Dakar is don't matter. Yeah they show the event across the world, but their showing every single class from buggies to bikes to those gnarly Kamaz trucks. Bikes are one small little blip in the coverage.

And who cares if Dakar is followed more heavily in....Kuala Lumpur or whatever. Developing countries buy 125cc mopeds because they never breakdown and don't use any gas. They're not buying it because some gnarly Chilean desert dweller sent a massive whip across a 300 foot dune in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, don't take it as me not respecting the discipline. I totally do. It's just not as valuable as supercross. It's not.
Alright, I'd say that's all fair.


You had me at "gnarly Chilean desert dweller" HA! .... gnarly they are
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TriRacer27 1/19/2021 8:11am
1/19/2021 8:11am
#1 by a wide margin is MotoGP

If you go by pure viewership, then second is Dakar, but in terms of marketability and sales translation, I think second is Supercross, followed by MXGP.

A ways down the list is Dakar. It used to be pretty famous but that was decades ago (when it actually had something to do with Paris and Dakar). It's coming back in the last few years, especially now that they have better live tracking and daily videos. My guess is Honda's investment is at least as much about R&D as it is marketing. Honda is making a BIG push into off-road and ADV bike markets (see Africa Twin). Taking down KTM two years in a row is great marketing, but they wouldn't have been able to do that if not for all the hard years of DNFs.
LungButter
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LungButter 1/19/2021 8:19am
1/19/2021 8:19am
TriRacer27 wrote:
#1 by a wide margin is MotoGP If you go by pure viewership, then second is Dakar, but in terms of marketability and sales translation, I...
#1 by a wide margin is MotoGP

If you go by pure viewership, then second is Dakar, but in terms of marketability and sales translation, I think second is Supercross, followed by MXGP.

A ways down the list is Dakar. It used to be pretty famous but that was decades ago (when it actually had something to do with Paris and Dakar). It's coming back in the last few years, especially now that they have better live tracking and daily videos. My guess is Honda's investment is at least as much about R&D as it is marketing. Honda is making a BIG push into off-road and ADV bike markets (see Africa Twin). Taking down KTM two years in a row is great marketing, but they wouldn't have been able to do that if not for all the hard years of DNFs.
The R&D budget for the Dakar bike has to massive, but where is that trickling down to?

The HRC Rally bike is a 100% Works Bike and they don't sell a bike that really shares anything with it. The Africa Twin isn't even close and the CRF250 Rally might look like the bike they race but I'd be surprised if it shares any parts aside from common bolts.

Obviously the R&D they get is important but it doesn't seem like it's a big factor for them in doing Dakar since they don't even sell that bike or anything like it to the public.
Natester551v
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Natester551v 1/19/2021 3:02pm
1/19/2021 3:02pm
kage173 wrote:
SX. It's not even close
LungButter wrote:
WorldWide? You sure? You seem sure, so give us some basis for it.
kage173 wrote:
Ricky Brabec, the 2020 Dakar champion has 81k followers on Instagram. Conversely Max Vohland, the KTM 250 rookie who has only raced one SX race in...
Ricky Brabec, the 2020 Dakar champion has 81k followers on Instagram. Conversely Max Vohland, the KTM 250 rookie who has only raced one SX race in his whole life has 84k. Want to look at a more popular Dakar guy? Let's look at Toby Price. Toby has 452k followers. That's a lot. Ken Roczen has 1.4mm.

Supercross is a scale that Dakar isn't. Additionally, all these dumb stats about how broad Dakar is don't matter. Yeah they show the event across the world, but their showing every single class from buggies to bikes to those gnarly Kamaz trucks. Bikes are one small little blip in the coverage.

And who cares if Dakar is followed more heavily in....Kuala Lumpur or whatever. Developing countries buy 125cc mopeds because they never breakdown and don't use any gas. They're not buying it because some gnarly Chilean desert dweller sent a massive whip across a 300 foot dune in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, don't take it as me not respecting the discipline. I totally do. It's just not as valuable as supercross. It's not.
Methinks there is more to the story than that single metric. Brand awareness and reach goes way beyond social media numbers (although they are certainly part of the story)

You may be right, but I can't say I'm completely convinced by this argument. And I'm usually not a contrarian...lol.

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