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Edited Date/Time
7/21/2025 10:29pm
I understand why teams have gear deal but…
if I was in charge of marketing I’d have each rider in different colorways. You honestly can’t tell you who’s who. It boils down to green bikes and blue bikes. Lessening each riders brand value.
The more the riders can create an identity the better it is for the sponsors
Riders talk about branding themself but just blend in.
The sport talks about getting new interest in the sport but my wife can’t tell deegan apart from Jmart or Ty from kitchen.
don’t have a marketing major but geez. As someone who isn’t tied to a brand, I’d buy hymas’s or jujus gear (which I couldn’t get their gear anyway) because of how sick their one off stuff is.
I
You don’t know who’s who’s, but you know they’re are all PC riders.
Well there aren’t any other Kawis in the top 10 so it’s kinda assumed but I used that reference as a generalization I do know who’s who because I follow the sport but when you have someone who doesn’t know it takes away from the gears value because everyone looks the same.
Grew up in the era where everyone had custom gear (another discussion on how energy drinks have ruined helmets) but when I saw lusks and Langston helmets had to have them (yes they were junk)
When was the last time you saw NFL or MLB players all wearing different uniforms? Or hell, how about McDonalds employees? You know just by looking that a guy rides for PC/Star/Club, etc. That's what branding is.
The casual fan will likely assume all the liked uniformed riders will be on the same team and remember that team because of the familiarity of the uniform.
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Now the sport needs team riders in different gear to grow? "How to grow the sport, how to legitimize the sport." We go over this stuff until we're blue in the face. Its a niche sport and its always going to be that way.
Well I don’t watch either of those sports and haven’t had McDonalds in 20 years…. Ohhhh wait are you referring to team sports? It ain’t helping the riders……. We could have a discussion on branding but that’s a topic for tor another discussion board. Actually it’s the opposite of branding
Exactly! A gear brand dumping money into a team isn’t going to move the needle
Maybe in bizarro world it’s the opposite of branding, but not on planet earth.
I don’t know man….i like it and think it looks uniform and cool. Everyone knows the PC boys are gonna be decked out in Fox head to toe. It’s excited to see what PC will be wearing when FOX drops new LE gear and stuff.
Same with Star.
Yeah, no…that’s what the number plates are for
It's simple really.....
I have a team, I need money to operate said team all year. Said company offers me X money to operate said team wearing their X brand gear. I need 7 figures, they agree. Cool. I have demands, as do they. We come to a happy spot, all is well for X amount of months/years. Both parties are thrilled, happy to be in bed together. Hopefully, all blossoms, nobody has stubbed toes along the way, we stay in bed together some more to continue our relationship. You pick your crew, we pick ours. We all help one another..... to be the bestest we can be, in front of the entire planet. You show the world yours, we will also show the world ours........ just with your help. We will just make them all look as how you want them to be seen......
See? Simple if you think about it.....
I'm surprised that Degan doesn't have his own individual Thor colorway at each event. The way Brian markets every detail its surprising he hasn't.
Jett and Hunter each wear different Alpinestars colorways at each event. I don't recall them ever matching.
It's not a team sport but the team concept is great for marketing gear.
It's funny how this largely blue collar and super macho fan base gets so spun up by the shape of front fenders and rider fashion trends.
Now the gear is skin tight and the riders are dressed up like a bunch of brightly colored gay peacocks.
Pro Circuit Kawasaki was still wearing matching gear back then. The way I’ve always heard it was Mitch wanted a team look so he had all his guys wearing the same gear like a true team. It wasn’t about selling different colors of gear.
Personally, I like the team look on 250’s and individual look on 450’s.
Oh and I had one of those m2r helmets back then. I never had an… wait what was I saying? Where am I?
I agree with you 731.... The 250 teams all the same look on point. 450 guys, kinda all on their own, with all their deals. Formula seems to work.
I don't see the problem with having different colored gear if it's all the same gear set. I posted about this about 1-2 months ago on here. I stated that Geico, and possibly PC, used to do this for practice around 15 years ago. They would send riders out in the same gear set but different colors. Not sure when it stopped, but I thought it was cool and it helps market all their colorways quicker. If I was running a team I would probably do this just to make it easier to know who is who early in the race.
How would it make it easier to know who’s who if there all wearing different colors every weekend? Not like these guys would wear the same gear same color every weekend. The casual fan wouldn’t be able to pick up who’s who any easier either.
It doesn't matter if you watch baseball or football, or eat at McDonalds, you know that all of the players/employees are dressed the same. Uniformity is exactly what branding is. Imagine walking in to the grocery store and every Coca Cola can looked different..now that's the opposite of branding.
Comparing motocross to McDonalds is an accurate representation
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This isn’t a team sport or a franchise restaurant sully. Are you a manager at McDonalds or something?
If I was at fox I’d want each rider in their “own” gear. Builds the brand, builds the rider, grabs attention.
@JJ376 Can you chime in on this?
Well other then deegan, everyone’s number changes each year
That’s what I said in the original post. Not criticizing the teams, criticizing the gear companies …I get why they have team deals. i agree that team gear deals are great.
All I’m saying is that I can’t understand why the gear companies dont want to showcase their products while creating the identities for the riders.. they’re missing an opportunity. It’s as simple as kitchen, your wearing orange, Adam’s, your purple, man child, your red…. That’s your color for the year.
You think marchbanks wants to blend in with the team? It lessens his worth. Nothing stands out other than his size. But if each rider had had their own color it would be a win win
Exactly
, you don’t know who’s who…… not talking about it from a team. (There’s only one team with Kawis in the top 10 and we know it’s pc).
I’m talking about it from a gear and rider perspective. They’re just marketing it wrong.
At this point, you're just being obtuse (notice the second to last word).
Based off of your posts in this thread, I totally see why you're not at Fox...
Happy to, this came up on another thread recently, so apologies if this is a re-hash for some.
We (THOR) tried putting each Star 250 rider in a different kit at every race a couple seasons ago - the riders liked to be individual and their mechanics / families liked being able to identify their guy more easily. It’s great in theory, but the labor for artwork setup, production, scheduling and tracking this stuff week in and out (in that season - nine riders x 32 events = 288 possible combinations) made this a cumbersome effort on our end. Not to mention rider changes due to injury and gear adjustments due to weather or special events - we had to swap High Point and Southwick kits on the riders just this season.
From the branding perspective, we need to promote the +/- 40 different graphics that we produce in given year, so it makes sense to do everything individually. But that reality of the workload to get it done is pretty steep.
On the marketing side, the team look (all in the same kits) is way better for branding as a whole, and easier for the less-granular spectator to follow along. Remember that holeshot with five Star riders all in our electric blue / acid kit a few years back that became a big FMF campaign? That was a powerhouse look for sure.
For Haiden, we’ve done quite a few custom projects with him over the years, but we need his considerable reach to sell what we actually make for consumers as well.
Have you ever noticed the riders often wear different colored boots, gloves and goggles? Those are the items they are free to choose. Not a huge level of individualism but a differentiation nonetheless.
Wat???
Deegs wore a bright yellow chest protector over his jersey at a couple of rounds. He mentioned on the podium that it was so he looked different from the rest of the team
I like team gear deals IF the team gets its own signature look in the gear, something that isn't just stock off the shelf. PC has been doing this well for years, and I really like what Triumph is doing with FXR.
All the points have been made already. I will say Thor needs to step up their gear game. The Star bikes at Millville looked bad ass but the gear was black?
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