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they had homes, healthcare, stable ok paying jobs and families
Man…where do you all live? I’m surrounded by middle class people who own homes, drive decent cars, go on vacations, have some toys…and have great lives…where do all you doomsdayers “middle class is non-existent…the sky is falling” people live? In the ghettos? Or are you trying to live in the most expensive places in the country on a middle class salary?
the sky isn’t falling…still plenty of opportunity in America…middle class isn’t going away…they system isn’t rigged against you…hard work, risk, networking, and a bit of luck still turn ordinary Americans into financial success stories, and “they” (whoever that is) isn’t out to get you…
Filthy is right
They weren't making 80k-100k+ either.
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As would the median, if you've got a data set ranging from $0 to $500,000 that would put the median at $250,000, that's not a very good indicator of average income at all. My point is without knowing the background of the data in that graph it's impossible to say how accurate it really is, but I have a very hard time believing that real purchasing power has increased in that timeframe since every other metric would tell you that it hasn't. You can take economic data and manipulate it into whatever outcome you want it to have depending on what factors do or don't include, or even how you weight them.
Median income doesn’t tell the whole story. The lower paid workers are making comparatively less, higher paid workers are making more.
The carpenter job I had in the mid 80s through the mid 90s paid about $20 an hour, rental houses were $750, buying that house was $100k. I lived modestly but was able to ride and race regularly. Today that same job pays about $25 an hour, rental houses are $2500 minimum and dirt bikes are not on the menu.
A lot of guys I worked with in those days were riders. The guys doing that job today aren’t.
You’re absolutely right, but the difference is that a few decades ago a regular joe dad who wasn’t a career climber could give his kids a bike a lot easier. Today, that’s not near as common.
Location has a lot to do with it too, but as I look for a place to retire I’m not finding places where property is low priced anymore. There’s definitely a change in the economy that makes riding (and living) less affordable.
That is only half of the imfo, now show the ae erage income, duri g those ti.e periods and see if wages kept up with inflation.
I love how people always bring up TV coverage like there are so many options and have no idea how TV broadcasting works . Big Networks are not going to fill their prime time TV slots with a niche sport. MX and SX is a niche sport. It will always be. Cost, riding areas, and the dangers of the sport will detract many. This is not like. Kid wanting to start skateboarding and just going to buy a skateboard. Also is the fact while we think it’s the coolest sport in the world, most of society could care less. What pays for TV coverage is commercial and advertising $$, and the dirt bike demographic is very small in comparison to most sports.
Racing is a business. Everyone in ANY job wants to make as much money as they can. Not sure how old people are on here complaining about the TV coverage but it’s the best it’s ever been. It wasn’t that long ago that we had to wait a week or 2 to maybe get 30 minutes of coverage, at 2am only if the rerun on a college basketball game didn’t run long.
These promoters are trying to grow the sport as much as they can, because bigger growth means more $$ for them.
I don’t know that you understand what median is…
Median eliminates the outliers of the extremely low and extremely high (where an average can be manipulated by extreme outliers).
median is you’ve got 100 earners…put them in order from low to high (doesn’t matter how low, or how high the income is) the lowest earner being 1 and the highest earner being 100…the 50th earner would be the median income.
in the example above your “$250k would be the median” would only work out if you have 500k data points, starting with earning $1 and increasing by $1 each data point all the way until the 500k data point earning $500k….but that’s not reality at all…
Today we all get a good lesson in what is a mean median and mode. JM485 is right, median isn't a very good indicator of the average
But median and averages of large data sets end up being remarkably similar in many cases !
There is also a difference between simple averages and exponential averages
But the graph I posted above just showed real median incomes after being adjusted for inflation. The median is not difficult to understand at all. The graph was from the US census bureau and says that real median incomes have increased $2k over the last 40 years.
Now quit making excuses for yourself and blaming the beaorgoise for your shortcomings !
I can remember setting my VCR to records the race that was on ESPN at 1:30 am on a Thursday. Coverage is so much better now. And over the summer there were so many people begging for the races to be on Peacock. I think a lot of people just like to complain. I do think that it could be possible for Pro racing to become more popular though. I wonder how many people that go to a SX race live are racers themselves? People can enjoy watching and be fans of a sport and never do it themselves.
I think it is possible for Pro racing to become a popular sport to watch without more people going out and racing themselves. I think that a lot of the ideas thrown out are not fully thought out as to how to execute them. But more of a rough concept of if they could do this , then it could help point of view. A survey asking detailed questions about how current fans started watching Pro racing. Why they enjoy watching it? How did they start watching it? Etc. Might be a good way of seeing how to bring in new viewers. Instead of copying other sports with higher viewing numbers, that other than being a sport, share little or nothing with MX/SX . A lot of the great things about SX and MX are so different from other sports. So why are people always trying to copy other sports.
Boxing , Wrestling, MMA , have all been very popular spectator sports at times, I know many many more people who watch or watched a fight or match, than people who went out and tried to get into said sport. I think Pro racing can grow without Am racing growing. A larger number of locals riding around in the trails is not going to guarantee big viewing numbers for Pro racing. And big viewing numbers do not always translate to big sales of bikes They are slightly related. Did the larger sales numbers during the past 2 years of Covid impact Pro racing ? The more people that are watching the sport , the more outside money could be pumped into Pro racing.
It would very likely make it turn into a harder sport for a local to try and break into the more money gets pumped into pro racing. It could turn it into something like F1 , Nascar, NFL etc. Where your local Pro is not going to be able to sign up and give it a shot at the local round. I love that part of MX . That some kid who is really fast can go out and try and race with the best in the world. With a much lower cost of entry in terms of time and money than pretty much any other motorsport at the top levels. I just hope that if MX/SX ever gets to the magical levels , that it keeps that part of it alive. Maybe other motorsports do not have entry fees. But you have to be on a team that costs millions to build.
Yes coverage can always be better, But its pretty good these days! and with people putting out their ideas and criticising the current broadcasting it should keep getting better. For those of you who remember 1900 Prorace , Motoworld and Cycle News as being the quickest ways of finding out race results. If somebody told you that in 20 years the races would ALL be live for $4.99 per month, and you could see live results and timing for free. That even practice would have live video. That many racers would have their own shows that would be available to watch for free, that instead of buying a tape or DVD for $20 1 or 2 times per year , that people would be giving away videos on a weekly basis. How many of you would think that any of that would become something that not only happened , but that people also complained about?? Who knows what the future holds for the sport. It is on a great upwards trend overall as far as the coverage of pro racing , bikes are much more reliable.
What were your last 4 usernames?
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