Age Old Debate: Riders Union

I think one of the biggest pros might be the ability to purchase health, disability, or life insurance through a bigger group.

The current riders are being exploited. There is absolutely no doubt about that. A lot of the same people who "care about this sport" and are in charge of the direction of the sport have done NOTHING to improve this.


Whatever happended to PRO (PROFESSIONAL RACERS ORGANIZATION)??

I remember this coming up a few years ago, the family starting it up being exposed and called out by one of the biggest hitters in the industry and then nothing but silence...



Link: http://www.angelfire.com/theforce2/pru4u/


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From: http://www.motorcycledaily.com/privateer.html

The Supercross Privateer; Who Else Would Do This?

How many professional athletes/entertainers would work for free? How many would work when paid so little that it did not cover their out-of-pocket expenses? How many would do this when they risked serious injury during each performance?

The supercross privateer is a unique breed. They contribute significantly to a very popular piece of entertainment at each supercross (sometimes making up half the field in a 250cc final, for instance) yet they are paid very little prize money. Frequently, they don't even cover their expenses.

Several years ago, when Jeremy McGrath and Mike LaRocco were the biggest names in supercross, and both were unsigned by their respective teams, MD's founder spoke with Jack McGrath (Jeremy's father) about the possibility of starting a new supercross series, essentially owned by the riders themselves (before you laugh, this is done in other sports, including professional tennis - to take the profits from the promoters and put it in the riders' pockets). The discussion didn't go very far (Jack McGrath never followed up after that initial phone conversation, and Jeremy went ahead and signed a factory contract), but the idea has never changed - the exploitation of the riders (the privateers - not the factory-backed riders) by the supercross promoters who pay very little prize money, yet benefit from the huge risks taken by the riders needs to end.

MD recently came across the following letter to the editor of MX Racer (October, 1999). The letter is written by Ken Bentley, President of the Manitoba Motocross Association in Canada. Please read this letter and think about it carefully.
". . . In no other professional sport will you witness the level of exploitation that exists in supercross and motocross. This past season saw supercross outdraw every other professional sport in North America on a per-event basis. Baseball? You can drop a bomb in most stadiums across our continent and blow up nothing but empty seats. A conservative estimate of gate receipts over the course of the series would bring in close to 10 million dollars at an average ticket price of $15. This doesn't even begin to include other sponsorship monies that are generated. And AMA/PACE brags about a measly $100,000 privateer points fund? You have got to be kidding me. For Jason Frenette, who shows up every night to make the program exist, and brings in a lousy $952 to make a main, is outrageous. Brian and Doug Stone? A combined $3571.58. Uh huh. That covers their expenses, I'm sure. Never mind the big four pro sports (NBA, NHL, NFL, ML, athletes make more money playing pro beach volleyball, bowling, satellite golf tours, etc. With all due respect, they aren't throwing themselves up 30 feet in the air thousands of times a year or in general putting themselves at tremendous risk at every event they compete in.

Right off the bat - any privateer to make a main event should make at minimum $5000. And they should have comprehensive health coverage. It is time for some serious reform. It is time for a pro riders union or association. The AMA isn't taking care of our riders, PACE certainly isn't, so the riders had better look at this seriously, or they will keep getting screwed over. There is no other way to present this fact. Life as a pro athlete is short, and it can be taken away with a missed shift on the face of a triple jump. We may want to think this makes us "different" from those other pro sports. It does - and a whole lot dumber. For anyone to tell me that there isn't a lot of money being made at the riders expense, is lying. Open the books and show us then. It will never happen, unless the riders stop kidding themselves and examine the obvious proof.

Jeremy McGrath, the best rider in our sport, period, has already built a legacy second to none - for himself. Of course, he put supercross into the mainstream media with his professionalism and success, and is in fact partly responsible for the growth and success of privateer teams. I won't argue that. But if he really wants to make a contribution to future riders - the people who put on the show - stand up for the "little" guy. For the greater good. If it's not McGrath, fine, but we need the top pro riders to look out for the welfare of the working-class privateer. Living out of vans to make a few bucks to make a main event is ludicrous. Without a riders' association or whatever you want to call it, the exploitation will continue.

I am by no means some left-wing lunatic shouting "down with capitalism," nor do I agree with some aspects of unionism, but I certainly agree with the primary tenet of a union's philosophy which states, "Fair days' work for fair days' pay."

Right now this couldn't be further from the truth in our sport."

Ken Bentley, President, Manitoba Motocross Association Canada
(October 1999 MXRacer, Letters to the Editor)
Amen.

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This is from 2005 and a different (PRO)

http://articles.latimes.com/...03/sports/sp-xunion3

Won't be any riders living in 15,000 sq ft houses if this BS happens.....

This is one area The AMA is screwing the Pooch on.

AMA say's protecting Riders and Rights

I say hey AMA go bargain for Group Health coverage for all your AMA Pro Card Holders and make being insured mandatory before competition.

And start some type of optional retirement accounts for them while you are at it.

In my opinion, it'd be easier to form a new pro motocross sanctioning body and tell the AMA to go straight to hell. Start a new outdoor-only series and hook it in with the Canadian nationals and make it the North American MX championships. It'd be a tough few years, but you might find some teams that would go for it.

I remember back in the late 80's I think,one of my buddies,James Eickle tried to get something going. He wasn't very popular for doing that if I remember correctly.

When the lights went out in Vegas forgot what year.

Emig, think MC spewed out threats of forming a riders union.

AMA use to have some minimum coverage, as long as you reported it that day. Youre screwed if you find out a day or two later you got a broken bone....It happens.

The top riders were ALL going to sit out the race to protest and they all agreed. Then a few mins before the gate was to drop Emig shows up to the line and gets his first SX win. The riders union will never happen because there will always be weasels like Emig who will say they wont ride but then sneak out to get a win and some points.

There was also the world SX race that the top quilifers were all to start on the second row to give the Euros a chance. What happens is Ward,Bailey,Omara,Lechien and a few others except RJ sandbagged their qualifer so they could start on the first row. Pro riders will never stick together and even if they did you would still get the 20th place wannabes who would ride just so they might get a top national finnish.

Hopefully Moto-history will forever show that Jeff Emig is Bitch for punking out.

I don't think they should get paid at all and I don't think there should be any prize money. It should be trophies only.

There will never be a riders union; we all know that. Top guys making bookoo bucks don't give a darn about the bottom tier Pro. Don't blame top guys making their dollars at all.

But 500guy makes a great point that the least AMA could do for these Pros since purse money has barely risen over so many years is to cover them with group health ins.

They sold most of Pro Racing for millions.

Also have about 300,000 member for what .....$40 bucks/year. Some are life member at a reduced rate, say they recieve a yearly amount of 7-10 million bucks/yr in annual dues.

The AMA certainly should be able to buy group health insurance for these Pros.

Makes me wonder with the amount of $$$ that go thru AMA yearly from dues, what do they do with it?

They are ineffective legislatively.

Free streetbike road service though.

What a joke.

all 4 of em....

fuck these riders, they deserve to be in a chair looking like magoo until they die. live with that mufuckers

"Makes me wonder with the amount of $$$ that go thru AMA yearly from dues, what do they do with it? "

they work very hard to pass no helmut laws so when you get creamed on a street bike with no helmut, you're family can say you had the freedom of choice

They had that for a short time but it never did any good.

What was the point in that exactly?

Blatant sarcasm.

Lots of people like to talk and complain about what a raw deal the riders are getting from the promoters and AMA, but nobody has the balls to do anything about it. The riders truly are being exploited. When I talked to the AMA about all the money coming through the gates at Nationals and SX, they tried to act like they didn't know what I was talking about. All you have to do is run the math to see that a lot of money is being made, but it's not finding it's way back to the riders. When I mentioned starting a riders union, they turned and ran away so fast I thought I was watching an episode of the Road Runner... BEEP BEEP... Whoosh! They said the conversation was over and ran away like a scared little girl! It struck me as very odd and not very professional coming from the people in charge of Pro Racing and riders rights. How would they act in front of the government if anyone ever tried to do something like stop the sale of kids bikes?

Some of you are on the right track. I'd love to get some help. I've talked to many of the riders and every Pro rider that I've ever spoken with is unhappy with the AMA and think something needs to change (even top guys). If we wait for the AMA to do something, we'll be waiting another 30 years. I personally like the idea mentioned above:
"Jack McGrath (Jeremy's father) about the possibility of starting a new supercross series, essentially owned by the riders themselves"
Does anyone have the NRG to help?
nrgmx.org

The problem is the riders are use to be whored out from the time they are 10 yrs old racing at LL's until they retire. This is the only sport in the world where you can be called a pro and not get paid. Most don't even make Burger King wages.


The privateers need to Stay Home. Shit would get worked out if they did.

Here are the basics on how money works in NASCAR:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-racing/nascar/racing/nascar-prize-mo…

NASCAR Purse Money

NASCAR prize money comes from several different sources. ¬Obviously, for a driver to win prize money in a race, someone has to put the money up for grabs. Of course, if you're a smart investor/sponsor, you're not going to offer several million dollars as a prize unless you're certain you can make several million more as a return on your investment. That's just how the game is played. But the actual cash payout NASCAR offers as a prize comes from several different places.

The single biggest source is from the television rights. Networks like FOX and NBC don't get to broadcast NASCAR races for free. They pay NASCAR a fee for the right to broadcast certain races. In return, the networks make money on advertising. Not all of that money stays with NASCAR, although a fair share does. Most of the broadcasting fee for a particular race goes to the promoters of that race, which is usually the company that owns the race track. Because the track owner has to pay for things like security and track maintenance, they keep a large percentage -- about 65 percent, according to some reports -- of the broadcasting fee to cover their expenses. A smaller chunk of the broadcasting fee goes into the purse. That's the money that makes up most of the prizes offered at a NASCAR race.

The rest of the prize money comes from race sponsors -- but just because a driver wins the race doesn't mean he or she will get all of the money the sponsors put into the purse. NASCAR purses contain what's called contingency dollars. These contingency payouts are money put in by sponsors, but the only way a driver can win it is if the team uses the sponsor's product and displays the sponsor's decal on the car. Sponsors also offer a variety of other bonuses throughout the racing season. Just as one example, Gatorade offers the Gatorade Front Runner Award to the driver who leads the most laps during the race. There are also a number of cash awards given by sponsors for things like the best strategic call during the race or the fastest lap time.

Now that you know where the money is coming from, keep reading to find how it's paid out. The system may surprise you.

Prize Money Plans

The distribution of NASCAR prize money depends on more than just who wins the race.
¬It's important to win the race -- after all, that's what every driver on the track is desperately trying to do; however, NASCAR prize money is handed out in such a way that it's entirely possible for the last place finisher in a race to win more than say, the 7th place finisher. So what's the incentive to win? Well, in racing, the largest share still goes to the winner. To date, there's never been a case where the winner of a NASCAR race gets a smaller share than any of the other finishers. But this is where it gets tricky -- beyond first place, the prize money can get a little confusing.

Shares of the race purse are handed out not only based on where a driver finishes, but also on the specific products the team uses -- as in the case of the contingency money we talked about earlier in this article -- how well the team is doing this season, how well the team did last season, and what type of prize money "plan" the team participates in.
A prize money plan? Doesn't every team have the same plan -- to win as much prize money as possible? Well, of course they do. But NASCAR distributes the money to different teams in different ways. Teams who are in the Winner's Circle plan are the previous season's top 10 teams, plus two "wild card" positions. Teams in the Winner's Circle plan get NASCAR bonus money no matter how they finish in the race.

The remainder of the plans -- the Cup Series Car/Champion Owner Program, Plan 1 and Plan 1c -- each have their own system for payout. Basically, we can tell you that they're all based on the number of points a team has, how long they've been in the sport and how well they've done. NASCAR doesn't publicize exactly how each of these plans pays out prize money.

Why are the NASCAR winnings distributed in this rather confusing manner? They do it for several reasons. The most important reason is to make sure they have an exciting race every weekend throughout the entire season. That's why programs like NASCAR's Winner's Circle are important -- it insures the most talented and most popular drivers and teams will show up for nearly every race. The remaining payment plans are structured to help teams that are just starting out not only to get to the races, but also to reward them for doing well.

Up next, find out just how much money we're talking about.

Easy Money...?

As you may already know, the top NASCAR drivers can make a lot of money. In fact, you've probably seen a few NASCAR drivers on MTV Cribs and maybe even spotted a few others staring back at you from a Coca-Cola machine or a motor oil ad. In the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, the top drivers earned as much as $8 million. This may sound like a sport filled with easy money, and for some, it is; however, you have to remember that these are the top performing drivers in the series. Not everyone makes that kind of money.

¬There are some drivers in the NASCAR series that don't go home every night to a mattress stuffed with money. In fact, the lowest-ranked drivers in the Sprint Cup Series, Eric McClure and Jacques Villeneuve, only earned $22,988 and $22,863 respectively during the 2008 racing season [source: NASCAR.com]. To put these figures into the proper perspective, if you translated their 2008 racing earnings into a 40-hour work week, based on a 52-week year; those two drivers would be making approximately $11 per hour.

The fact of the matter is, while the top earners are in the minority, so are the bottom earners. Of the 76 drivers in the 2008 Sprint Cup Series, all but 11 earned more than $100,000. And 46 of the 76 drivers earned more than a million dollars. So while the top earners are miles ahead of the bottom earners (sometimes literally), the majority of the pack is bunched together right in the middle -- and making a pretty good living, too.