I was looking back at parts of Stefan's career and wanted to see if anyone knew why or how almost every team he rode for came with the same sponsors and visual look of L&M and Radson. Honda, Husqvarna and Yamaha all carried an almost identical livery so I guess I want to see if anyone here has better knowledge than me to explain how or why this came to be. Where they very closely affiliated with him or what's the story there?
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@MXMattii might be able to help.
Radson is a Belgian company that wanted to build their business in Belgium.
Stefan was at the time a high-profile Belgian sportsman being followed by many many fans.
It makes perfect sense.
There are several examples of companies choosing sportsmen from their Home Counties to sponsor.
Sete Gibernau ride in Movistar colours on a couple of different bikes/teams.
Back in the day, L&M was distributed in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg by Philip Morris, the Liggett Group wasn't active in the Benelux because Philip Morris held the international rights to L&M outside the United States.
Motocross was hugely popular in Belgium and was broadcast on the country’s leading national TV channel. You could compare it to having live motocross on ABC or CBS in the US. So, Philip Morris Benelux (PM
decided to sponsor Stefan Everts’ team, which was the Honda team run by Dave Grant at the time, a man who would later become notorious for his shady dealings.
PMB also approached our national broadcaster and offered to cover the costs of sending a TV crew to every Grand Prix. As a result, the broadcaster acquired the TV rights to the 250cc World Championship, while PMB paid for the crew’s travel to all the races. This meant motocross received excellent coverage, with every Grand Prix broadcast live to an audience of 200,000 to 400,000 people. During the sport’s heyday, particularly when Stefan Everts and Sébastien Tortelli were battling each other, audiences sometimes came close to a million viewers.
For Philip Morris, this was an incredibly cost-effective way to promote the brand and reach a young audience interested in the sport.
When Stefan switched from Honda to Husqvarna, it was essentially still the same team, run by Dave Grant. However, after Stefan suffered a second major injury and people started calling Grant and then Everts to ask where their money was, the team eventually collapsed. Grant disappeared with Stefan’s money.
Stefan showed what he was capable of when he returned to competition towards the end of 1999. However, he struggled to make an impact in 2000. He was fortunate to have such loyal personal sponsors as PMB and Radson, which made the gamble of signing him less risky for Michele Rinaldi and Yamaha.
If you look at old photographs, you’ll also notice that Joël Smets carried L&M branding on his shirt as a personal sponsor during his KTM days.
PMB did a tremendous amount for our sport. They even funded press trips. Everts, Marnicq Bervoets and Smets would travel to Lapland alongside journalists from major magazines, newspapers and TV stations to ride snowmobiles, spend time with the press and give them content to write about.
That was how things worked back then: if the press liked you, they were more likely to write about you. A photo featuring the L&M logo in a national newspaper or on national television was worth millions in exposure. And remember, this was all before social media!
What an interesting insight. I remember the L & M and Radson logos.
What happened to Dave Grant & the money he owed Everts?
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Been a die-hard, core, extreme moto fan since the 70's. Watched basically every National, SX, and GP that has occurred since then. I recall seeing the L&M/Radson/Phillip Morris stuff back then and I have read this entire thread... and I still could not tell you what L&M/Radson/Phillip Morris is. It's a guy that makes the toys for McD's happy meals as far as I know. When I saw the branding back then, my mind just shuffled it in the back as "some euro stuff I don't need to know about". 😄
Awesome bit of history and great insight @MXMattii thank you very much, it's the only time in sports I can recall seeing a group of sponsors follow a rider and the team benefits from that support, thank you!
Everts never saw a dime, everything was spent on those big trailers (remember those three L&M Honda trailers in the nineties, one for bikes two for hospitality). Grant thought he could made more money if he spent more money and it collapsed. He is the father of treating sponsors more professional, also the father of the big rigs to impress... But dunno if that helped the sport.
Back at the end of the '90s you had in the Benelux also a fierce battle between L&M (Phillip Morris) and Windfield (British American Tobacco). I remember Grand Prix races that where almost fully sponsored by Windfield, and Windfield also supported two teams at one point with the Belgian Geboers Suzuki team and the Dutch De Groot Kawasaki team.
Look at this Grand Prix in Leuven (the home of Stella Artois), it was almost all Radson, Stella and Windfield. I was there and it is still an amazing youth memory, I get goosebumps writing about it.
This was the advertisement back in the day that was EVERYWHERE in Belgium!
Indeed. Suzuki Geboers changed from Johnson- to Winfield-tobacco during the 1997-season. When Bervoets left Suzuki for Kawasaki De Groot in '99, he brought the Winfield sponsoring with him. So in '99 both teams had the same titlesponsor (with Bervoets and Beirer at Kawasaki, and with Giesbers, Jorgensen, Coppins and eventually Pichon at Suzuki). Coppins started the season as a Suzuki-supported rider but got full factory support during the season because he was doing so well.
I also remember Winfield providing huge wooden-made kind of tents during the Belgian GP's in '98 (Leuven and Keiheuvel).
Curious what changed (apart from obviously no more tobacco money). I feel like even if Infront offered the rights for free and paid for a dutch or belgium tv-crew to go to the races it still wouldnt be picked up by mainstream media more then it is today. With Herlings, the Coenens, Everts, Coldenhoff, de Wolf, Geerts, etc the dutch and belgium riders have had a title contender for over a decade and its not like the mainstream media is doing much?
edit: sorry for the formatting, i thought lets not quote the full post to keep it clean, but apparently my formatting skills suck haha
At the moment there is a "Belgian MotoMedia Group" that works hard to get motocross in the mainstream media. They also buy the TV Rights for Flanders and give them away to Play Sports (A sport channel behind a paywall a bit like TNT Sport in the UK) because other channels aren't interested. They don't cover the costs of sending a TV crew to every Grand Prix, so the commentators are in Belgium doing their job. Mostly it is Joel Roelants (he's great) and Leon Van Gestel (A Belgian motocross speaker from tracks).
Fred Bolley rode for the same Everts/Grant team. I heard that he never got paid. But after Grant disappeared, because Stefan was a part-owner, he had to reluctantly pay Fred himself, out of his own money.
Might not be true as I only heard second hand.
I think it were Darryl King and Miska Aaltonen who asked Everts where their money was. They were his teammates in 2000, when Everts made the move to 500cc with Husqvarna (and Grant).
Bolley became worldchampion 250cc in 1999, so it would seem odd he didn't get paid at all. Because the team moved to another class, Bolley raced for PAMO Honda in 2000 instead.
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