What would you change to help “legitimize” the sport.

Remove and replace half the broadcast team

Fire Bondo, remove agents and families from the pits, not allow DC to shut down the nationals for his money grab Loretta’s scam race, pay the riders significantly more. 

AMA and manufactures work together to establish riding areas around the regions.

AMA is supposed to represent the sport, pro and weekend riders, manufactures should be involved in providing opportunities to buy and use their products.

Production crew hands down the announcing is great without the likes of Carmichael and Duffey. However, the actual production is so sub par it isn’t even funny. The repeated simple mistakes, the lack of actual creativity, the graphics, the dumbing down of our sport. They really really do not help us. They put out a mediocre product week after week that has zero energy, and really don’t understand the audience. 

Leigh gets a lot of fla,k and he can be much better; but to have an announcer of his caliber on the broadcast is pretty huge. He's done NASCAR, F1, IndyCar, and multiple Olympics. The sport needs to progress to something bigger than FELD. Under them, the sport to outsiders will never be seen as anything other than monster trucks, a one-off event that's in town for the weekend. 

To grow the national series, it needs a major overhaul for spectators. Attending isn't for the casual fans. It's uncomfortable, exhausting, and not worth the money. 

Who cares about Leigh and NBC. I don’t need a special announcer from a large broadcast for our sport. We need to be shown in the proper light. Not dumb our sport down to the audience, show it authentically. Leigh is a waste for us. 

The nationals do not need an overhaul. The sport just needs the eyes on it to be viewed properly. Make the tv production better and more intriguing. Fans come for interest not stupidity. 

You don’t need big names or anything fancy. Just quality, which our production knows nothing about. 

Graphics taking up stupid amount of space that are cheap looking, microphones way out of place and sound awful, cameras panning to the wrong racer, constantly pushing interviews into the middle of a damn race or qualifying. It’s all a damn joke. Easy fixes could make it 10x better. 

Get a new SX broadcast team. MX is fine, in fact it is awesome. Weege and James are the "Dream Team" in the booth. The drone started out janky as hell and is now the go to shot imho. Put the raceday live show to better use. Make practice #2 the only qualifying session. Don't try any cheap gimmicks. The sport will appeal to people organically or not at all. 

Stupid ideas . 2 day program & race on sundays .  There should be a Profeshenal 2 series , races on Sunday now.  Factory riders not performing should be sent down like baseball.  And must win to get moved back up.  Enough of the milking a ride. 

Microphones and graphics do not prevent eyes on the sport. That big ass graphic isn't present on cable. We have prime TV spots now, and multiple hours of live coverage on a big network.  We do need big names. Look at F1 (apples to oranges), but the big names that attend those races, even for the 5-minute paddock walk, won't be caught dead at a supercross race, let alone a national. We live in a time where social media presence, popularity, and "clout" grow events and companies. Until we unfortunately get THOSE eyes on the sport, it will improve minimally each year.  

A lot of people hate Deegans antics, but he has drawn the attention of 1 million people to moto. 

I'm not downing your comment, just countering the dumbing down part and the audience. Believe it or not, there are casual fans that watch our sport. I have a neighbor who knows a lot of the names of our top riders, tunes in to most of the SX races and catches glimpes's of either the Nationals broadcast, or web content, but has never actually rode a motocross track.  Yes he's rode a few "dirt bikes" but to be totally honest, since he's never rode moto, he has no clue what we all experience with track conditions, ruts, chop, rocks, blown out ruts or berms, fear of cross rutting up a jump face, etc etc. 

We are a small group of "crazies" if you will in the grand scheme of things of people who actually ride moto. Whether we're former pros, to weekend rider and trophy racers, there aren't that many of us. Many get in, and don't last either because of risk or bad injury. ( I have countless friends I rode with through the years that have all gone by the wayside for various reason and no longer ride). 

So I don't mind the broadcast having to dumb it down somewhat, just to include those who are almost clueless to what it takes to even make a lap around a rutted or beaten track.

That said, I don't think our sport needs "legitimizing". The largest part of the dedicated audience is us, the guys and gals who actually moto, or used to moto. We know what the riders are dealing with, we understand the intensity, the real racing, and the other "general" audience is welcomed to be interested from a distance so to speak. Our audience is never going to be mainstream. 

Stop trying to appeal to a fictional audience that doesn’t care and just focus on a quality broadcast and race for the fans attending live.  No more 450s going first, no more idiotic simplifying of the most basic elements, just race and run it like it should be.

I believe catering to the casual fan too much is a bad idea and dilutes things.. Name me one other sport whether it be stick and ball or motor that they do this stuff. In my lifetime if I watched something and it appealed to me I would educate myself about it and that was way before social media and having all the info in the world online and at my fingertips. What usually draws people in and makes them stick around is the human element imho. Personalities, rivalries and great compelling competition are what have always done it for me. Nascar had this in spades in the old days, and it was one of the factors when the popularity exploded. Then they kind of jumped the shark and built to many identical tracks while at the same time the greats were slowly exiting the sport. It has to be organic, and you have to stick to your roots and what got you to this point.

Prep the tracks like Washougal yesterday so we can actually see some good racing.  No one wants to watch slot car boat racing which ends up happening often with the deep rut-o-fests.

The sport can not be legitimized. Any time I introduce my favorite sport to someone else so that they can see what I watch every weekend they unfortunately think it’s a joke. They associate the crashes and dangerous nature of riding dirt bikes over dirt jumps with reckless behavior and injuries and nothing else. Many times they can’t even fathom how difficult and physically demanding riding is. They think riders just sit on a dirt bike and twist the throttle.

I think that also is why mainstream sponsors don’t want to support the sport — they don’t want to be associated with riders crashing and flying through the air. 

It pains me as I’d always love for me people to watch it, but I’ve never been able to convince someone. 

That said, I think it’s a shame because it’s the best form of racing. It’s pretty much all rider skill, and has much more variability because of the different tracks, the ruts, and line options. Much more exciting than F1 where the winner is pre determined because of the car.

It's legitimate to me, and if most people prefer watching stick and ball, I absolutely can do without them.

Fun fact: whether they enjoyed watching or not, all my gfs through the years told me "It's impressive and seems difficult". Clever girls.

😏

I think that talking about ‘legitimizing’ the sport always sounds like a bit of an inferiority complex. 

The sport is plenty legitimate. I don’t mind the broadcasts trying to explain things to people who are newer to the sport. I don’t have any interest in somehow trying to make it compete with stick and ball sports or NASCAR. 

I wish that there were a magical formula to bring back local racing like the mid 70s to late 80s, but I don’t think that anyone has a truly good roadmap for that to happen. 

The Pro Motocross side of the sport is at a point now where any changes to legitimize the sport, might turn a lot of the traditional fans off.  For the most part the fan experience is camping and wandering the track watching the bikes, and I think most current fans enjoy that.  But there a lot of people who would rather uber to the race, have a designated seat, in the shade or AC, with a video screen, and concession stands near by.  Those are the type fans that the venues will need to accommodate to legitimize the sport.

Fix and rehab anyone who thinks it is illegitamate or if they are that stupid screw 'em. It's real simple, you're either into this type of thing or you aren't. No amount of convincing will change that

The iq of the fans 

Sell MX Sports to Dana White

A modern-day pro motocross racer is something like a blend of elite cyclist and UFC fighter - equal parts endurance, strength, and grit. There’s a better story to be told, and sold here.

He should own and control all amateur mx promotion as well. 

Get rid of every organization involved in running SX and the Nats. The riders in total are not compensated in a fair manner, and never will be. Based on that, give me cheap production(cost) drone coverage from the owners of the National tracks and they can stream it. Pay well and give fair distribution of purse monies. There, fixed. We'd also get Nats popping up in more places with out there being a monopoly on events. 

The clientele. 

Most of The people who go to the races. And most of the people who race. 
poorly educated, weed smoking fucking idiots most of them.

Find a way to keep children from dieing while participating would be my top priority 

I’d stop the gimmicky SMX crap and point reset crap. Telling dudes they can skip 5 races or more out of the year but only lose 2 or 4 whole points in the seeding? I wouldnt mind combining the points for a grand national type champion that would hold more weight than having one or the other (SX/MX)

This! 

DC seems like a good enough guy but the fact that one man/family has complete control of motocross from amateurs through pros is stupid. He's too beholden to manufacturers and others. While at the same time alienating others to the point we reach a stalemate (not having Glen Helen) the lack of a having a southern national. Lack of revenue generation and investment back into facilities. This could all be done better and it's not. The monopoly on pro mx isn't good for the sport. 

"Legitimizing" the sport of Motocross is not going to bring down the cost on new bikes, not going to help track owners get insurance. I doubt it will put more money into the pockets of privateers. The TV deal DC and Feld put together is the best it has ever been for putting money into the pockets of privateers. I hope NBC makes enough profit off this deal to renew it.

What era saw the most dirt bike sales and had the most tracks? The economics of the world we live in has changed radically from the 1970's and it's never going back. Sorry to say but true! The Technology of race bikes has limited the target market of buyers based on cost.

Maybe a different question: What's the upside to growing the sport of motocross?

The SMX is a joke, just delete it.

Award Grand Nation Champ by combined points, give them a Million and a Purple plate. Done.