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399
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4/29/2013
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USA
Edited Date/Time
8/15/2022 6:55am
Like the title says, name another professional sport where the athlete is required to pay the sanctioning body or league to compete. SX and MX will always be considered a niche sport until the athletes are treated as the professional’s that they are.
But there's big differences between mx and a lot of other sports.
Most motor racing your have to pay entry fees. Dakar is pretty expensive to enter. f1 cost 200mill for your 1st year and like 1-5mill every year after.
Individual sports like golf and tennis. You have to pay to enter the smaller tournament then the higher level events there is no fees.
Mx could be similar to them but the amount of pros, semi-pro and non pro riders isn't enough. For mx to be like tennis/ golf, they would need either a couple levels of mx then once on the pro tour there's no fees, but the pro/am level guys would still be paying.
Or the top 20 riders be on the tour and a few weeks before each round there's a qualifier that the riders have to pay for and then the top 20 would qualify for that round to make the 40 rider gate.
Coz if entries were free you may get 200 guys trying to enter to race some rounds.
Most team sports like football basketball etc have collective bargaining agreements and they get a percentage of the pie.
Those teams are in deep with stadiums and costs. But without there sport they do not exist.
Where motorsports manufacturers will exist without the sport.
That being said, it is not without precedent.
Further to MX313s post, F1 drivers have to pay yearly fees to maintain their superlicense.
It is something like €10,000 per year and €2,000 per championship point earned.
So Max Verstappen paid €791,000 last year.
I think it is jacked up financially penalize drivers for performance, saying that, given their salaries, I don’t think we will have to start a gofundme for them 😆
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Over 50K in entry fees alone for each angler with only 10 regular season events on the schedule.
You must enter register and pay for all events(cant skip paying for any even if injured etc..
However,MLF Major League Fishing has done away with all entry fees - all sponsor money pays the purses.
If they have 80-90 entries in each class now. When it's free that pops upto 120+ riders wanting to enter? They can't have that many free entries. No other form of racing has near that amount of entries.
So they would have to be qualifier races or a qualifier series. And those races would require entry fees. Maybe top 25-30 in points from the year b4 gets auto entry.
Then have regional qualifiers top 20 get to fill the other spots. Then most guys turning up will make the main.
It's kinda like a tennis or golf system where the top guys are automatically entered into tournaments and the rest have to qualify.
Edit after seeing mx313s response. If they started getting rediculous numbers of entrants then maybe charge anyone outside the top 20 in points, if you qualify you get your money back and the amount of money owed for whatever position you finish (if any).
Eli Tomac isn’t paying his own entry fee. Yamaha is or his agent or someone in his group.
Just doesn’t seem like a big deal….
Also, pro riders paying an entry fee is 0.00% of the reason that motocross is a niche sport.
Im pretty sure Eli Tomac comes out net positive each weekend. Along with every other "professional".
I think there needs to be a come-to-jesus moment for all the entitled privateers in which someone let's them know they're not professionals. Moto is not their career. It is their hobby. And they're fortunate to get the opportunity to line up with the pros because all the other grown up sports (F1, MotoGP, NFL, NBA, etc) do not allow privateers anywhere but in the bleachers.
You're not a "pro" until it's paying your bills. And in the case of moto, the guys are getting paid handsomely so that their entry fees are covered. It's a cost of doing business no different than hiring a trainer.
Nothing will change until the teams organize and when they do, the privateer is a goner so be careful what you wish for.
Imagine telling someone who doesn't know the sport that a top 15 professional in the world in his class is driving himself around in a van to save money.
You have the sport split up 6 different ways.
MXGP, MX2, SX 450, SX 250, MX 450, MX250
By that math he's maybe top 90 in the world.
And very soon there will be WSX further diluting the resources in the sport.
If you want the #15 guy to make a living, you need the sport (especially the media exposure) funneled into ONE single championship where it's actually the top 20+ guys. Like F1 and MotoGP. And in that case, Deano might not even be racing at the pro level.
Last place at the DP World Tour event today (having made the cut to qualify to play on the weekend) earned €10k in prize money. Players not making the cut earn nothing.
The winner today won €247,000. Last week first place earned $300k.
Out of that prize money the player must pay his caddie and all travel, accommodation, subsistence expenses for both of them. My mid-field friend is on the road virtually full time.
Big stars will get appearance money but that’s all kept confidential generally.
As the standings are now, anyone who’s earned less than €300k to this point this year is looking at losing their card for being outside the top 100 on the prize money list.
Pit Row
It sure seemed like the days when the local hero were to show up at their local national and flirt with the top 10 were much more exciting and interesting in many ways. Riders cycled through their rides somewhat faster (Rich Coon, anyone?) and there were more new guys every year.
I guess every era and every situation has its positives and negatives, though.
Entry fee for Sx is $225 per round. Add $225 to each paying position in the top 40 and then that’s your free entry fee. That way your not technically charging the riders to be the show but your also weening out the riders that are 20 seconds a lap off 40th that are just out there because it’s free
Entries are from $700+ for the limited classes and can climb to $4000 at a SCORE or BITD race for the top classes.
10.000 euro for the full season
1.000 euro if you do a wildcard
You also need a license from your national mx org, which is 300 euro per event or 1.100 for the full season. This is not the same license that you buy when you do EMX.
So if you want to do 5 wildcards it would cost roughly 6.100 euro.
Then again, the trip these guys are making in 3 weeks (Sweden, Finland, France) is 6.000-7.000 km minimum for most. It's just an expensive sport. And if you are from eastern europe and add Lommel you are doing 12.000 km in 4 gps...
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