I'm no golf afficionado so forgive me if I get some details wrong. But the LIV Golf Tournament, which is financially backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, was only started a couple of years ago and ever since it has been giving the PGA Tour a run for its money (and a lot of hell).
Just this morning, they announced a merger with the PGA Tour, which seems pretty stunning. It appears that there are some parallels with WSX e.g. the Saudi funding and competing with an American based sporting series for talent.
For people with more knowledge, is this what WSX is going for? Are there things that are different in the moto sporting/business world that would prevent this from happening? I don't think anybody in golf thought the PGA would roll over so easily.
MXGP & Supermotocross merger tho? Would never happen but would be epic for the fans
No
yes, if the money gets to a certain amount... you can bet your ass it will merge... anybody who thinks otherwise is looking for a grass roots perspective and doesn't want to see the usa potentially fall to a second rate series.
Bullshit talks, Money runs the marathon!
also people are forgetting about the third player in this and thats the mxgp, if they start working with each other for a sx/mx series like we have here. then eventually we may see a mega merger of our sport.
Not likely , the smx series have the support of the manufacturers for their biggest market in the world
how many dirt bikes do you think they sell in Singapore ?
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That would be cool and hopefully they can merge with motocross tracks like Glen Helen, and make sure Davey Coombs isn’t involved.
Money talks...could one buy the other out?? Anything is possible.
I posted about LIV Golf vs the PGA and the similarities between that and WSX/SX, I believe it was prior to SMX being announced too.
Everyone has their price. Values, culture, morals...all can be bought. Really no longer suprised at anything organizations and people do, actaully a pretty sick world, with a little good stuff thrown in to give some hope, but deepdown you know its just that...hope. and i try to be a glass half full kinda guy, lol
I can't see it happening because Feld and MX Sports don't want to be associated with FIM Anymore I would imagine
you would be surprised. WSX mentioned America covers like 30% of bike sales or something.. with a large market % covered by other unexpected countries.. hence why WSX has the funding and support for this series.
pretty sure Asia Pacific dominated the off-road motorcycles market in 2021...So Singapore is probably a good selection. wouldn't be surprised if that stadium fills up more than A1.
heck, I mean India just started its own supercross series! and think of the population of these countries.
America is hands down the face of our sport.. but moto enthusiast globally is much larger. that's the audience WSX is aiming for.
If WSX gets starts getting more of the better riders by paying them more you best believe someone will link up with them.
I think the jury is still out on the WSX season being sustainable... This is going to be their first real season, just a few weeks from the first event and it does not seem as if there will be a way to watch live in the USA. The money is made in media right and streaming, with out that I dont see how you can compare WSX with MXGP or Supermotocross
More top riders will go to "sx" only contracts, and that will be more of a shift, rather than competing racing series. IMO
With the lineup wsx is running out this year I highly doubt the ama/smx are worried about them anymore.
I don't know if it's going to air live or not, but FOX Sports have the exclusive rights and it's going to air on FS1 and FS2 in the US.
Is WSX.TV not available in the US to stream the races online?
LIV golf brought in many of the top golfers in the world; outside of Kenny Roczen, there aren’t any other huge names on the WSX series, so not an equal comparison at this point. If WSX lured a bunch of the top 10 SX riders, they could draw a parallel and maybe see a similar merger.
Exactly. Mav downvoted me but WSX isn’t a factor at this point. Maybe that will change in the future. I’m still gonna watch wsx and it’s more racing but it’s the minor leagues at this point.
how many years have we all been complaining about the media and streaming of AMA haha
At the end of the day it’s Felds business so the manufactures don’t have a say if they sell. The PGA was a nonprofit and didn’t have any owners and still did this after preaching to their athletes how bad LIV was.
Pit Row
Yes it could happen because Kenneth Feld 100% has a price. Not sure how much backing the Saudis involved with WSX have but I’m sure If they wanted to they have the money. Big difference is LIV and PGA were in a lawsuit and the LIV backers were prepared to spend unlimited money to drag that out as well as outbid the PGA for players. The PGA was saying they were using the sport of Golf to wash out their cruel lifestyle but now they say they’re doing it because they want to change the game of golf.
Interesting. Good find
Feld doesn't pay the riders the big bucks, The manufactures do,
WSX started badly from the beginning, they went to Anaheim to show their project to the official teams and to show Feld how to run a championship.
First of all: The official teams that compete in the AMA championships only have national jurisdiction, that is, their main goal is to win in US championships in order to sell bikes in the US. Winning AMA championships increases sales in the rest of the world? I buy it, I'm seeing a lot of YZ450F's in Spain lately and that bike hasn't won an MXGP championship since 2015, but selling in bikes in Spain was not Yamaha's main goal in signing Tomac.
If your championship is a "global" championship, with races all over the world, where, according to WSX is 70% of the offroad market, they should have gone to talk to the "Global" racing departments, i.e. HRC in Tokyo, Yamaha Racing in Hamamatsu, Kawasaki in Tokyo.... Which is where they make the decisions regarding the number 1 motorbike racing championship in the world, MotoGP (and in Kawasaki's case the number 1 production motorbike championship, WorldSBK).
2° Feld Entertainment may not be Liberty Media, but they know a lot about running motorsport championships, if when you go to talk to them you tell them that they have no idea how to run a championship, that they organise it badly and that your objective is to dethrone them, well what can I say, they are going to put you on their blacklist.
In other things we have to give credit to WSX, because they have managed to sell to TV channels and stadiums all over the world a championship with riders who, with all due respect, are one step below Tomac, Webb, Lawrence, Anderson, Barcia...Something that Ama SX could have done.
WSX is funded by UAE, not Saudi Arabia.
Do you know they didn’t go to “global racing departments “ or are you just assuming?
Feld is a fraction of what the PGA is and they’ve had to give in already so absolutely it could happen , money talks
Doesn't matter where they went....they didn't get the support they thought they would. I'm not against WSX I'm just against the time of year they decided to hold their championship and as I've said before there are not enough good racers to split between series and it is showing to be true. Both the US outdoors and WSX are showing weak fields. Can you imagine how weak WSX would be if they didn't pay Kenny?
Right. American MX/SX in large part staved off WSX with their own merger/partnership and SuperMotocross series. I see WSX as being more like the XFL or USFL is to the NFL than LIV was to PGA up to this point.
I’m thinking Adam Bailey is grinning his teeth this year because of how depleted 450 mx is this year.
Asia has the highest motorcycle sales in the world
The biggest threat stateside would be WSX and Infront merging, with Mubadala money-whipping names like the Lawrences, Shimoda, Sexton, Deegan, etc. to race both FIM series.
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