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Right or wrong I think they are talking about a small percentage of the users.
I'm glad Rider X went out on a limb for us, sorry to see him being gobbled up by the sharks though. The point of the write-up was for him to go off on something that bothers him. No crap it's going to sound like whining, we all do it and it feels damn good sometimes! To call the guy a cry baby is ridiculous. I hope other potential Rider X's don't see this topic and we can get some more good gossip out of them.
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Chad
James
Hansen
Tedesco
Ferry
Millsaps
Lawrence
Wey
While I believe wholeheartedly that everyone should make as much as they can from their chosen profession, I think professional athletes of any discilpine must never lose sight of the fact that they are being paid to participate in what for the rest of the population is a recreational activity.
They don't create wealth (directly), and they don't provide services to the community. It's a bonus that the public want to pay to see them participate in a game or sport.
Yes there is risk of physical injury (and even fatalities in some sports), and in most professional sports careers are relatively short, but their career is a choice and if it doesn't suit them for whatever reason they can choose to leave, or to do something about it.
And like it or not, the gap between the have's and have not's exists in every professional endeavour. If you're good enough people will pay for your services, and if you are freakishly good people will pay a whole lot more.
choices include:
stewart (out)
reed (out)
short
tedesco (out)
byrne
millsaps (out)
alessi (are they on speaking terms yet?)
ferry (out)
villo
wey (out)
others that don't really fit the descr (not vet/prime)
hahn
grant
brayton
goerke
hill
lawrence (out)
hansen (out)
k-dub
short, byrne and villo seem the most likely but would you really describe those guys as "top ten guy most times"? you wouldn't say short/villo finish top 10 most times, more like top 3 most times. Maybe burner but the rider sounds american for some reason.
By clever deduction it must be JT$. He's definitely in his prime and is pretty much a guaranteed top 10 every time out. Plus he's matthes' mini-me. Hang on, strike that, nobody fits the mould so Weege is right and the bastard made it all up. j/k
Thanks, Matthes.
Now if he's talking about those few riders that are borderline as far as getting paid a large salary and not showing results, different story. But even so, we're just spewing on what we perceive, not facts.
I think I wouldn't mind the expenses I'd pay out to be a top guy. Then again, I doubt I'd be so generous with the money I've earned to pay some clinger ons/posse people, nor some of the other expenses he's listed.
Pit Row
Not just riders, mechs, manangers, trainers, whatever.
Kinda like Peter Griffins, "you know what grinds my gears."
The mechanic 'tell us a story' from pings fmf stuff was gold too.
Brian Berry from dowds boyeson days would be a blast.
The do deserve alot of money - becasue the sport is very hard to to at that level, and the skill they have is phenomenal, motocross is a small sport and that is why the money is ill divided.
Saying you have to buy two houses isnt really a great arguement either until the last year I bet riders ulitimately made money have 2 homes with house prices increasing... i'm sure many people would love to be able to own two homes.
At the end of the day it is the fans that ultimatley pay for their salaries, if the fans didn't show up to the races or buy product or magazines there would be no professional racing because companies would have nothing to sell.
A good insight and it is a fair point about the expenses but a top 10 rider in the US series or the GPs has a far better life style than a regular man working a regular job otherwise the said rider would quit and get a regualar job... but I do agree that riders are totally underpaid in comparison for what they do and endure to top sports like the NFL or premier league footballer. but those sports start earn so much it isn't even right...
All sports are overpaid compared to regualar jobs but if you work a regular job you comare you income to the Pro motocross rider.. and the pro motocross rider compares his pay to the NFL, footballers etc not a regular job hence the division in opinions.
Pro riders are lucky but at the same time it has to be one of the hardest sports in thw world to do ... so they deserve what they get... but all the money ultimately all comes from the fans/consumers working regular jobs...
What I really don't get is, why are all these guys are so worried about what is written on a message board? I mean REALLY?
It's mostly BS fishing anyway, or sarcasm, or just (sometimes poor) attempts at humor.
Who cares...
But it's just as mind numbingly stupid to hear some of the things that come in the push-back (which I guess goes to show that it's sometimes better to first count to ten).
When someone chooses to make a living (or at least pursue one) based on the quality of his public performance, he's made himself an object of public attention and expectation. In fact, his livelihood depends on that public attention. And within that constituency runs the full spectrum of human behavior. There is going to be some fair criticism from time to time. And there's also going to be some amount of unfair criticism, and some amount of fair criticism expressed poorly or rudely. There's no getting away from that. That's just what he signed up for, like it or not. How you deal with it matters.
The L&M team decision not to race the outdoors puts this into focus as that's played out with respect to Reed and Stewart. It's a legitimate decision for that team to make. At the same time, they can't expect people to be happy not to see the sport's best talent at the races. Those are the highest profile riders in the sport. Of course people aren't going to be happy about that. The premise of those guys making top dollar is that people want to see them race; that's only value the riders have. Is it realistic to think that everyone is going to react to that with charity of understanding? Absolutely not; it's naive to think that.
Where the problem takes off is when the riders or team managers think they are exempt from expectation or criticism altogether and lump the fair and unfair criticism in one stinking pot of personal offense and act out by engaging at the same level as the worst, most unfair troll on the net. Rather than vetting the issues reasonably toward the reasonable people (or ignoring it altogether as just part of the the deal), they accept the challenge from the few idiots and fight it out on their level. And that's really dumb, because what sticks to the larger audience isn't that joe motoboard is an idiot, but that the rider who plays joe motoboard's game is an idiot.
I don't have any issues with the rider's comments in Matthes' interview. Some of it's on point and some of it reflects how insulated the riders can become through a youth pursuing a successful career, and some of it reflects how we're all just human trying to figure it out or bluffing that we have.
Anyone catch the terrible double negative in the original? Oooooff!
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