Posts
3
Joined
4/2/2019
Location
Charlotte, NC
US
Edited Date/Time
5/26/2021 9:26am
Unpopular opinion, but we constantly hear the same trope of “we need to do X to grow this sport into the mainstream” Maybe its just me but does noone else see that resulting in Our riders becoming more corporatized, Moto coming under even more legal fire from the outside, and having “Black Lives Matter” spray painted down the start straight like all the other mainstream sports? With the way things are out there right now, I think I prefer moto low-key for the time being.
I think super/motocross with always be "core". I think the racing, knowing who the riders are and actually following it wont ever become mainstream but I would like to see more dirtbikes in the back of a truck heading to the hills
As for politics, it doesn’t belong in any sport
The Shop
Now let's be real, motorsport of any kind is always somewhat elitist due to it's nature. However the current cost of new bikes has also driven up the cost of secondhand bikes, to levels that 'average' people don't want to spend. Especially not if their intention is for a weekend blast around a sand pit or woods. There's a financial, and therefore total, commitment to the sport that is too much for 'average joe'. This is without the cost of racing thrown on top.
i think it's a two prong resolution to increase numbers in dirtbike sales. Firstly you'd need government (in all it's guises) to allow/encourage tracks and riding spaces rather than restricting them. Secondly you need cheap, easy to maintain and repair bikes.
Cheap bikes means more people are open to dipping their toes in and therefore there's more income for tracks/areas as numbers are up. With more tracks and riding spaces you get more options and therefore more competition meaning competitive pricing and better quality tracks. This is all hypothetical and dream world stuff though.
Imagine telling someone who doesn't know the sport that a pro rider in the top 0.001% of riders has to drive his own van to attend events, it's wrong.
I come from mountain biking where I've raced for longer than I care to admit.
The sentiment in mountain biking was always the same; "grow our sport, its good for it!". But like you said, it might not be. Especially when it grows for the wrong reasons or in the wrong direction. The last 5 years has seen an explosion of use. But when trail building doesn't follow the increase in the amount of use, you really just end up with a worse (more crowded) experience. I can say the same for backcountry skiing, resort skiing, and to a lesser extent mountain snowmobiling. The upside for a washed up racer like me is I look like a much more impressive athlete than I really am to the droves of newbies in the sport.
Shallow ego boosts aside, the fact is you need the sport to grow in tandem with places you can do the sport, and this rarely (if ever) happens. At least in real time. Especially not with the amount of red tape it takes to build a new trail or track on the motorized side.
Qualitatively, we'd all be a lot better off being happy we found this crazy awesome sport that is probably the best synthesis of man and machine the world has ever known and keeping it a bit quiet. (more on that if you like)
Those wishing pros got paid more (or at all) have to remember we participate in a sport without teams (in the ball sports sense anyway), and most of the riders don't have a "brand" (outside of a handful) the way an NFL team has a brand. If we want more paid pro athletes, those pros need to be more valuable, which I'd argue comes from the media side. Frankly, compared to mountain biking or a handful of other sports like it, I actually don't think the coverage in dirt biking is all that good. SX isn't bad, MX not terrible, but the off road stuff is non-existent. Hard enduro gaining popularity thanks to Red Bull, but overall it too is pretty absent. In the end you could have a myriad of fast riders but if they don't actually move product, or people don't follow them obsessively (like an NFL player), they really aren't worth anything - despite being scary fast.
Don't forget, the manufacturers have every reason in the world to want to "grow the sport". Its not like they sit in meetings and go "ya know, I think our shareholders would be happy with less growth this year, keep those trails clear!
Time will tell...
Enjoy our sport as long as you can, and fight for it’s survival.
I've tried lots of things. Always amazed by anyone at the top, no matter if its chess, golf, crossfit, bikes, football, whatever.
Dirt biking is rad, and it is super hard, but that doesn't make us special.
I want Japan/Austria to keep making better bikes (ideally, a cheaper model and a more expensive one for each CC).
I want more tracks to open, and not be insanely crowded, but profitable.
I want helmet companies to spend millions developing better helmets.
I don't really care how many people ride, but whatever the number is that does the above, that is what I want.
Fucked if I want to watch a 20 round SX series. SNORE.
Pit Row
There are 16M people who play baseball in the US. This means they actively compete. 1,000 of them are in the majors, with roughly another 3000 getting paid in the minors. That's 4000 people making some kind of money playing baseball out of 16M who are competing in the sport.
For those following along, that is 0.025%. Most will obviously never see a pay check.
I can't find any statistics on the number of people who race dirt bikes in the country. But I'd wager there are about 50 paid dirt bike professionals in this country. Again, I'm saying paid as in they make some kind of salary riding their bike (not making millions). If the proportions stay true (50/0.00025) you end up with a race base of 200,000 - which I'd say is high. I sincerely doubt there are 200K people racing dirt bikes in the US.
There are a myriad of baseball players who are really good and never get paid. Same goes for dirt biking. Without understanding the denominator, its impossible to suggest if the sport's pros are actually being supported enough or not.
Don't misread, this isn't the only way to look at this - but its an important one.
Let’s hope MX doesn’t end up that way, especially with the advent of E-Moto bikes. It could grow on the high end, but cut out the every day Joe. I see MTB as a much more financially elite crowd. Don’t want to see moto go that way.
Further, the promoters of the sport insist on branding it, and promoting it, as an extreme sport, that is insanely dangerous, that the athletes are dare devils, and replaying the crashes over and over and over and over and over...Monster Energy's image doesn't help...athletes with no public speak skills and no PR skills doesn't help...the "hush hush" surrounding the income the top guys are making doesn't help...
If the sport wants to grow, I'd suggest the pro athletes (athletes...not team managers, not team owners, not promoters) stop looking to NASCAR as a model to follow...and start looking to the Pro Bull Riding (PBR)...they did it right...and now they are all getting paid.
As for me...No part of me wants, nor cares, if the sport grows. I'm perfectly happy with the size of the sport now (big enough to get live races on TV and that's all that matters to me)...but if it has to change size, I'd rather it shrink, to be honest...I liked when there were less riders on my trails...I liked when I could see a Fox shirt in the mall and be almost certain the dude rides...I liked box vans (rather than semi's) and hay bails (rather than tuff blocks)...
Bigger means lower prices, more tech, and more people to ride with....
Which do u think is better????
Ditto brother. Ditto.
Post a reply to: Am I the only one that doesn’t want to “Grow our sport”?