What racers have successfully started a business during or after racing that is actually a real viable business?
Got me thinking after AJ Catanzaro’s last video. He was a good privateer, but at best was probably only making $60-80k in his racing days.
Now he’s got the MotoAcademy. This year he has launched a world tour, and visiting 120 tracks across the world. I think his classes average 50 riders, at about $275 a class.
50 x 275 x 120 = $1,650,000.
His members only app/training program I believe is $20 per month and I would assume has a few thousand members every month between repeated and new subscribers.
Then according to social blade his personal youtube generates around $70k per year while the Moto Academy channel generates about $50k per year.
All in the moto academy would probably gross in the range of $2-2.5m per year at the minimum. This is a small business, but being a service based business the margins are higher and it’s impressive considering this was a guy probably making $60-80k per year as a racer.
If he’s taking home 12% of gross revenue he’s still making close to $300k coaching kids on how to safely ride a dirt bike. Not a bad deal!
Who else in racing has created and scaled their own business?
Stewart founded Seven.
RD Coffee (RIP)
Wagemans Jerky?
RV started a bit of a asphalt business in the pacific northwest I thought too?
What else
…But I wonder if any of these are profitable at all.. It’s easy to start a business and create revenue. It’s hard to scale it to a level where it is profitable
Most pro racers couldn't organize a root in a whore house after living very routined lives all about them
Agree, that’s why it’s a fun topic.
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It is easy to start a business, half of them even survive more than 5 years!
https://www.unitedcapitalsource.com/blog/businesses-failure-rate/
Business ownership… the only thing that DOESN’T get easier with time.. I think we all enjoy it.. every other day 😂😂
Jeff Herlings has a huge property portfolio and makes way more money through that than racing MX.
I’m in the same business, it is a great earner.
There are more than a few pros that have taken that path.
Every other day?
I've owned a business owner for over 20 years, I'm happy if it's once or twice a week!
Troy Lee
Agreed
I just filled out a stack of independent contractor paper work here in Chicago. I won,t be making mx training academy money. But I hope to get paid. lol. The boss & I went through the 53 ft curtain side trl stuff real quick. A ton of work involved. Long day my older sister text me late Fri. That my dad broke his femur off the hip joint in the assisted care nursing home. The fall & surgery was mon. He had surgery & is in a nursing home now. I drove s. To the town to see him. He has dementia, they were eating in the cafeteria. I sat with my dad & another old timer I figured out pretty quick than he has dementia too. So it was an interesting visit & kinda cute. They would say oh you work here too. Hv to b patient when they say oh look there’s children here now. When there is none. There haulitionations pass. Then it’s back to chi chat again. After that drive north fill van with trucking stuff & race to Chicago. In the last few yrs more people started buisnesses than ever b4, it’s easy anyone could do it. My phone face will not lt up, can’t really see what I,m typing. Super beat
John Dowd has or had a few. One was concrete. Chad Johnson took the family buisness ovr after his dad passed making concrete not sure if there doing const also. Broc Sellards might hv took ovr his dad’s buisnesses after he passed.
Doesn’t he have over 50 paid off investment properties?
How does a pro athlete have time to manage something like that? Obvious property management company but still, seems like it would take up a huge amount of time and attention
He hasn't spent his time driving a Ferrari!
Herlings did a post on his insta like a year or something like that ago where he thanked the father for Bas Vaessen (ex gp rider) for all the help. I think Vaessen has a big property management company, so he got help/advice from them.
And i'm no expert but i would think if you have 50+ properties there is some cashflow to hire someone to manage that.
Pit Row
I wonder if Herlings rides around thinking about interest rates or shit tenants
Not a pro mxer but there’s a former desert racer named Mitch something or other. I think he did pretty good with the little business he started.
It was a good idea to diversify rather than focusing on one brand.
2 years ago he had 60 houses.
What I found weird was that he mentioned they are all houses and said he bought them all outright which isn’t a usual investment strategy if you have that many “houses”. Lets say all made $2500 per month, it’s only $1.8m per year. Meanwhile if they costed $500k each, it costed you $30m up front. Many many years to return on the investment. Usually you’d do this with apartments and not houses (investment cash purchases).
Obviously he’s making money every year on each property increasing in value but at the rate they increase where he’s at, go invest in berkshire hathaway and double your yearly returns.
In my above scenario his returns are less than the S&P. And the initial investment is much harder to liquidate.
I’m not sure how it works where he’s invested but here ( I’m in San Diego ) rule of thumb is buy apartment complexes ( triple nets if you really want cash flow) for cash flow, homes for appreciation. You are correct as far as investment returns after expenses on houses goes - right now it’s around T Bill interest rates - not including depreciation.
He’d have been better off leveraging the super low interest rates the world was seeing for so long and borrowing as much as possible and diversify his portfolio some .
That said though, the guys what 30? and owns 60 + investment properties. Very nice indeed.
100%
No idea where a majority of his properties are. Where I am, properties appreciate similar to where you are. My comment was assuming they are mostly in the Netherlands and surrounding area, where for the past 30 years houses adjusted for inflation have typically either been a net zero, or depreciating asset.
Upon some research, it looks like the trend has been broken a bit the last 10 years however.
https:/www.globalpropertyguide.com/europe/netherlands/price-history
But point remains. I’m curious his strategy behind being so heavily invested in 1 type of housing. One could assume with the limited single family dwelling capacity in those areas, and the increasing population they will be an extremely hot commodity in the next 10-15 years and more similarly match our markets.
now im curious on how many racers got into the real estate biz , theres a whole lotta UFC fighters & some MMA fighters in other promotions / organizations I kno personally thts into real estate
Nick Wey started a pickles brand.
DV12 bought a night club in Carcassonne.
Profitable.
I believe both are out of business.
I have a lot of respect for someone who grew up in the Moto bubble, but is making a living outside of the sport. It's not easy to get out of your comfort zone and start from scratch in a new industry, especially if the only thing you cared about growing up was racing. It seems most go for the low hanging fruit, like being a trainer or riding coach.
Every racers time racing ends so it is a great idea to start business when the racing $$$$ is still coming in instead of pissing it away.
O'mara and Jim Holley put most of the money they made into real estate back in the 80's and in So Cal...
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