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I don't care what he does, but part of his job is moderating the forum. Don't think he will be shooting from the floor and Im sure lots of other digital creators are in the same boat.
No, I pay my way like everyone else but when one of the most popular things to do on vital is shit on FELD every week makes its pretty clear why FELD wants control of its own media like most major motorsports.
It'll be interesting to see what this about; curious what is now perceived as over the line that they feel needs to be nipped in the bud.
Feld always has had control who gets credentialed (as does MX Sports), and it's aways, even before Feld bought SX, been more limited than the access to shoot outdoors. It's not easy to get on the floor at SX, and the floor has been restricted in terms of where shooters can go for a long time.
Pretty sure that both the SX promoter and MXSports have for some time provided in credentials a requirement to relinquish copyrights and acknowledge that promoter controls the photographer's work product at the races - certainly was the case when I got credentials 10 years ago. SX has been more aggressive about policing that, but it was generally pretty loose as long as the work product was going to editorial or industry sponsors; the red line had been selling the images to the general public (for example, offering up posters, etc., from current season races).
Is monetizing YouTube/TikTok etc. driving this?
until ML actually tells us what FELD is proposing, we're all just pissin' in the wind.
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Every energy drink brand could vanish tomorrow and Feld would STILL make money on the SX series.
I hate the idea of the promoter controlling all media and the narratives. As stated earlier in the thread, the UFC implemented this model and it's terrible. Every once in a while a legitimate question will slip through that fans care about and the response from Dana White will literally be "Who f'ing cares!?" with zero follow-ups or push back. Imagine asking why rider A was penalized a race win for missing a track marker and the response is "who cares!? just watch the race."
LOL. So they just grant a credential to anyone who wants to be on the floor? Cool, I’ll ask for one so I can gain floor access.
Who said they would control it all?? Have you seen an announcement or anything other than rumors about the changes that might happen???
All these vloggers must be a pain in the buttski i bet.
Sounds like the media guys are the new lappers.......
No one (nor did I). I'm giving an opinion on a potential scenario that's purely speculation, as that is all we have to go on currently. I have no details on the actual proposal.
The rumored plan was that Feld would take the production of all digital assets (video and photo) in-house from the races. Eliminating media, teams, sponsors, and riders from contracting or assigning their own people to gather the assets needed for their marketing, news features, reporting, social media, vlogs etc.
This would, in turn, make media, teams, sponsors, riders, etc have to pay licensing fees or per asset fees to the series to have access to some sort of media library or server to use these.
For media, this would potentially remove a revenue source that helps cover the costs of photographers or reporters going to the races, reducing or completely eliminating their ability to cover the sport. For teams and riders, this would just create one more payment they have to give the series after paying entry fees, license fees, potential marketing fees (in the case of OEMs), etc.
The media is upset and worried that they will lose potential revenue needed to offset travel costs and people's time to cover the sport, along with being stuck with a limited range of assets and time limits in which they can use them. Further damaging their ability to cover the sport in their own unique ways, which are needed to differentiate from each other, to capture an audience. Along with potentially just putting people out of jobs, along with controlling the narrative we can tell.
OEMs or series sponsors are upset with the idea because, as many have put it to me "we already spend so much money with the series, and now we'd have to give them more just so we can market that we did well at their races?"
There are a few more layers to it on how it would affect teams. If a gear brand, say Thor or FXR, pays a team say $80,000 per season, part of what they receive from the team is assets from the races to market those riders. Now said team might be able to contract a photographer at a reasonable rate because they shoot for 15 brands and balance the costs vs what each brand or team requests. Under the rumored program, every brand, team, etc would have to pay for assets. So if a brand is now paying extra/elevated costs to get assets of the team riders at the race, because the team now has a license where they can only use the assets for their own channels, the gear brand has spent more money out of their budget. This could cause them to reduce how much they spend with teams, as their total budget has to be used in a wider range of ways. This goes for any type of brand in the sport.
Im assuming this will also mean the end of most content we value including:
Most Instagram posts with race updates and behind the scenes content like pictures of riders from Track Walk
yes Feld employees could theoretically provide some but it will be no where the same quality and personality because each photographer is unique and had their own creative touch — see Lawrence blogs by Tom Journet and the stuff align media puts out
Again Feld is fucking disgraceful. This is probably the worst, most deplorable decision they have made in years even worse than banning rider merchandise.
Great, that means Bondo is also in charge of digital assets. That's exactly what the sport needs.
I am hopeful that it's not going ahead or won't look like what was leaked/rumored.
I wanted to know how this is a cash grab, now I’m getting a better sense of why it is not unreasonable to call it that. The media would be paying more to get less. I suspect that getting less would filter down to us fans too.
Trying to control a narrative seems futile when there’s people who pretty much say whatever they want and don’t need to be at the races to do that. The key part of this is “controlling the narrative we can tell” with “we” being media outlets that care about journalistic integrity. They’re not the ones that need Feld needs to worry about.
I can certainly see your point as concerns some of the unhinged weirdness that goes on in non moto (I’ve contributed to some weirdness I’m sure - nobody thinks they’re the weird one). But if the discussion is about moto, and nobody is violating any policies aimed at keeping things relatively civil, I’d hate to see boundaries on what kinds of opinions can be expressed. The debacle with the red lights and Red Cross flags was an example of a severe screwup in my opinion and we should be able to express that opinion. I hope they read it. They needed to do better and plenty of us said so. Nothing wrong with that and there’s plenty wrong with squashing criticism.
Yes there are some great threads and such and things that should be discussed. My biggest complaint is we get the same trolls who pollute the forum, I think the Series is great and FELD does a amazing job but people don't realize that and just come in here to dump on FELD. I don't like or respect the AMA anymore and complain. I am guilty too because its gets the better of me when I see AMA threads and Rich Taylor threads etc and I can because unhinged pretty easily.
I dont like MX sports or DC but they do a really good job running the nationals so credit where credit is due but if people could see how far the SX series has come and what FELD brings to the table. I dont care for RCs commentary so I turn down the volume when saying his RC stuff but in the grand scale of things its a small issue. But I do agree with your whole post.
ML512, Michael
Charge a monthly subscription, pay your entry for credentials, report back to your subscribers that actually care what motodrive, i mean vitalmx provides. Lose all the losers on the way. I like it.
Motonews?
Pit Row
I don’t see a problem with Feld charging a fee for credentials similar to the entry fee for the riders. Maybe that would weed out some of the less serious people crowding the floor
As many have proved before, pay models rarely work.
That was then. How many monthly subscriptions does the average user pay today? Peacock, paramount, Amazon, etc. I'd pay just to watch Carson browns content. I'd pay for yours
I am usually one to play devil’s advocate but doing anything to defend making the Feld family richer while simultaneously making MX media poorer makes you the biggest loser on vital imaginable.
Seriously that family can eat shit and die. They’re a cancer on our sport.
We do pay and last time I looked a couple years ago it was $650 for the SX series hard card
Dudes that were around know what they know, but aren't quite sure what to think, right?
That's fine as long as you don't want to also make money from advertising.
It's one or the other, subscription based or run advertisements.
Wrong, both work and the paying advertisers won't be trying to sell me an HIV drug, they'll be advertising trucks, trailers, bikes, gear n stuff
You sell to advertisers based on viewer, amount of people looking at your site, you make it pay to play and the amount of people drop of significantly.
Less eyes less or no advertising revenue.
I would imagine the 1.1m viewers would drop to less than 100,000 paid subscribers...
Probably less than 10,000. Most companies that have gone from a public model to paid model see something like a 1 percent conversion rate.
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