Daytona - my views

Pete wrote:

 > Was there anybody there watching? I saw more motorhomes than people! It's
 > fine having a stadium that seats 1 million people, but when only 10,000
 > turn up it looks piss empty. It looks like there are more people at my
 > local club races. Where was everybody?

I actually thought the crowd looked pretty good. Vastly larger to the eye
than the crowd at the Daytona 24 a few weeks earler.

-Chris-<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Pete" <pete.DeleteThis@bigone.com> wrote in message
news:c2li0d$1u9qqa$1@ID-210165.news.uni-berlin.de...
 > Right, I just finished watching the "race" that we call the Chevy Lube
 > Yamaha Budweiser Miller Lite Suzuki Daytona 200 by Arai. Some of my
 > thoughts...
 >
 > The race was pretty boring really. Correction.....very boring! Is the AMA
 > supposed to be of a good level? This is not apparent. People were being
 > lapped after only 7 or 8 laps, and that at a reasonably big circuit.
Looked
 > like there were only really 5 guys in the event, with 30 A.N. Others to
 > make up the field. Maybe I will enter next year

The AMA has always been the factory riders and then the privateers. The
factory riders compete for the first x spots and the privateers compete for
positions x+1 and back. That's just the way it is. The problem this year
is there are no Yamaha or Kawasaki factory riders. You've got three Honda
guys, two Suzuki guys, one Ducati guy, a few decent, marginally sponsored
privateers, and then a bunch of amateur, weekend warriors. I am hopeful
that Yamaha and Kawasaki will re-enter the fray next year. With a bike like
the R1, it is beyond me why Yamaha doesn't have a team.

 >
 > Was there anybody there watching? I saw more motorhomes than people! It's
 > fine having a stadium that seats 1 million people, but when only 10,000
 > turn up it looks piss empty. It looks like there are more people at my
 > local club races. Where was everybody?

That's motorcycle racing in the U.S. It's not nearly as popular as in many
other countries. We do have NASCAR, though...

 >
 > Yates? Should he get away with this? In America maybe. It certainly added
to
 > the entertainment and was more interesting than the race. It was quite
 > surprising to hear how quiet the commentators were over the incident.
 > Like....oh and Aaron Yates is down, anyway Mladin is going nicely there.
 > Why wasn't more said? He was challenging for a good finish after all.....

Good points, actually, but, of course, he didn't get away with it.

 >
 > What is all that shit at the end....I'd like to thank Chevy Trucks, Dirt
 > Devil, PJ1, Shoei, my mom for having me, my dog, Joe Rocket, my bike,
Jesus
 > Christ son of God, Daytona, Hot Buttons, Honda....and please excuse me
 > while I get all emotional and have a cry! The only thing missing was that
 > the wife/girlfriend didn't appear with the newly born baby! Do you get
 > extra points for naming the most sponsors? Sheesh.....

Par for the course. If you were one of the six guys lucky enough to be
making a living racing Superbikes, you'd go out of your way to thank your
sponsors, too.

 >
 > Sorry but things are not looking good in the AMA.......
 >

In all honesty, the Daytona 200, despite having some great, close finishes
in the past, is not the best example of road racing in the AMA. Pick just
about any other venue and you'll most likely get a better show
start-to-finish. The distance just makes it basically an endurance race in
comparison to other sites.

Mark Curfman<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Mark Curfman" <mcurfman1.TakeThisOut@cox.net> wrote in message
news:e9u4c.1156$F91.192@lakeread05...
 >
 > The AMA has always been the factory riders and then the privateers. The
 > factory riders compete for the first x spots and the privateers compete
for
 > positions x+1 and back. That's just the way it is.

That has become the case for almost every of the most significant fan
series. The days when a privateer could make an impact at the top level seem
over, sadly.

 > The problem this year
 > is there are no Yamaha or Kawasaki factory riders.

They've been irrelevant for many years. The fact that kawasaki was
competitive in AMA when it became irrelevant in WSB is an indication of
where AMA is at. Kawasaki obviosuly doesn't much care about top level
racing. Yamaha gave up Superbikes when their new R7 with Haga didn't make
much of an impact. Naturally, the Superbike format is just going to be about
Ducati, and in the AMA you can add Honda and Suz to the mix due to some
investment by national teams.

Privateer racing has been relegated to their "natural" racing classes.
There's just too many $ involved in this. I find it kinda sad when magazines
these days write an article on their racing experience in some series and
between the lines you can clearly see that because of their position they
are able to quickly recruit a very significant advantage in material
compared to every privateer because they get costly stuff for free... the
cost for racing grows exponentially with the class these days, and either
you can cough up several $M per season or you know you won't make an imact
at even the nationbal level these days.

 > That's motorcycle racing in the U.S. It's not nearly as popular as in
many
 > other countries. We do have NASCAR, though...

Yes, it's weird that a terminally boring racing category such as that gets
so many followers, yet motorcycle racing has receeded into oblivion in the
USA. Look no further when it comes to the discontinuity in dominance at
world level.

 > Par for the course. If you were one of the six guys lucky enough to be
 > making a living racing Superbikes, you'd go out of your way to thank your
 > sponsors, too.

Amen. Because of that it's very amazing that some get away with disgracing
their sponsors. I predict Yates will fade into total oblivion within the
year. He is very replaceable, and thus will be replaced at the factory
level. And good riddance, he's a mediocre rider when it comes to the top
level.

 > In all honesty, the Daytona 200, despite having some great, close finishes
 > in the past, is not the best example of road racing in the AMA. Pick just
 > about any other venue and you'll most likely get a better show
 > start-to-finish.

I totally agree with that - I jhave never understood what the big fixation
on Daytona is about. All in all it's never made for the best racing in the
USA. Laguna Seca, just to name one, makes for far better racing.

....pablo<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"pablo" <pablo.at.simply RemoveThis @hombre.dot.net> wrote in message
news:8Iv4c.37540$pr3.26087@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
 >
 > "Mark Curfman" <mcurfman1 RemoveThis @cox.net> wrote in message
  > > The problem this year
  > > is there are no Yamaha or Kawasaki factory riders.

I think it runs deeper than that. Kawi has only run Bostrom the last couple
years, and Yamaha only ran Gobert in '02. Even when there were 16 factory
bikes in SB, the dropoff to #20 was precipitous. That was okay, because the
factory field was deep enough and all the manufacturers were there. What's
going on now is a real sea change in non-GP racing, and I suspect it's more
than MGP distracting the factories and WSB's bumbling management. I'm coming
to believe that SB as we've known it is on the way out, just as the big
two-stroke classes died out in the late '80s and early '90s. Formula One
died in the AMA because it was too expensive, there weren't enough bikes and
the factories had no interest, and that same thing is happening to SB now.
The factories were interested in SB then, and SS now, and SS doesn't cost
nearly as much, private teams can at least hope to be competitive.

I've thought for some time that 1000 SB won't last long, but I thought it
would be replaced by middleweight SB. Now I'm starting to think it might
really just evolve into 1000SS, which is cheap and competitive. And fast, as
the times at Daytona show.

 > They've been irrelevant for many years. The fact that kawasaki was
 > competitive in AMA when it became irrelevant in WSB is an indication of
 > where AMA is at. Kawasaki obviosuly doesn't much care about top level
 > racing.

Wrong again, Pablo. Yamaha has always been the least involved factory in AMA
SB, beyond Daytona (where they've paid Eddie and Ru$$ell to win for them),
but they'd been out there for 13 years before they pulled out last year, and
Gobert did post three wins for them in his injury-plagued 01-02 seasons. The
reason that Kawi remained successful in the US is that AMA SB was really the
heart of their racing efforts worldwide - Lawson and Rainey won
championships for them, then Chandler and Russell, then Muzzy and Russell go
to Europe and win their only WSB championship, Chandler comes back and wins
two more times, and then hands off to Bostrom. After Gobert left for GP,
their world team was moved to Eckl/Fuchs, and success was a thing of the
past, in part because of their riders, but mostly because they were running
a 750 four in 1000 twin-slanted WSB. They didn't have the money Honda had to
make that bike a winner against the Ducati factory. But that didn't mean
they couldn't win occasionally in the AMA with better riders and less of a
Ducati effort.

Yamaha gave up Superbikes when their new R7 with Haga didn't make
 > much of an impact.

Again, wrong. If it wasn't for the doping thing, Haga might well have won
the '00 WSB championship. That was the most successful season by an inline
four after Russell and Kawi in '94. That they worked so hard and came so
close only to have it taken away from them by a questionable call was the
public reason for their pullout, but I believe the general problem was that
twins favoritism and the coming of MotoGP had them looking elsewhere.

 > Yes, it's weird that a terminally boring racing category such as that gets
 > so many followers, yet motorcycle racing has receeded into oblivion in the
 > USA. Look no further when it comes to the discontinuity in dominance at
 > world level.

Hasn't racing always been in semi-oblivion here? Motorcycling in the US got
stuck with that Easy Rider imagery a long time ago and just hasn't been that
popular to the mainstream. Racing suffered as a consequence.

  > > Par for the course. If you were one of the six guys lucky enough to be
  > > making a living racing Superbikes, you'd go out of your way to thank
your
  > > sponsors, too.

You might be surprised how much money some of those factory SS guys make.
Not as much as Mladin and the Bostroms, but pretty decent money, I'd guess.

 > Amen. Because of that it's very amazing that some get away with disgracing
 > their sponsors. I predict Yates will fade into total oblivion within the
 > year. He is very replaceable, and thus will be replaced at the factory
 > level. And good riddance, he's a mediocre rider when it comes to the top
 > level.

I think you may be right about Yates, in the sense that I would guess he
could easily get replaced by Spies on the SB next year. But I doubt that
he'll be gone, and he shouldn't be. All you had to do was see him attacking
that track after the restart of the Supersport race to tell what he can do
on a motorcycle. He's not quite what Mat and E-Boz are as riders, but he's
only a very small step below that. If he was in WSB today he'd certainly be
among the top five or six guys there. In MGP he'd be farther down the list,
but hardly at the bottom. And he can ride the hell out of a SS machine. This
is a blow to his career, but he'd likely be at a transitional point at the
end of this year even if Fania hadn't decided to fuck up right in front of
him...

  > > In all honesty, the Daytona 200, despite having some great, close
finishes
  > > in the past, is not the best example of road racing in the AMA. Pick
just
  > > about any other venue and you'll most likely get a better show
  > > start-to-finish.

 > I totally agree with that - I jhave never understood what the big fixation
 > on Daytona is about. All in all it's never made for the best racing in the
 > USA. Laguna Seca, just to name one, makes for far better racing.

Daytona is about history, about all the great riders and bikes that have run
there. It certainly isn't that anymore, but it is still a big race just on
its own momentum. And as much as I enjoy going to Laguna, I don't think that
track promotes good racing in the normal sense. It's all about riders
fighting the track there, trying to master it, and not necessarily each
other. None of the GP races there was close, and offhand I can't recall a SB
race there that came down to the last corner. It's all about setup and skill
and conditioning and concentration, which means it's mostly been the very
best, the most dedicated, who have been successful there.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Daytona - my views 

"Mark N" <menusbaum.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1-CdnRVF8KYMOs_dRVn2vw@giganews.com...
 >
 > "pablo" <pablo.at.simply.RemoveThis@hombre.dot.net> wrote in message
 > news:8Iv4c.37540$pr3.26087@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com...
  > >
  > > "Mark Curfman" <mcurfman1.RemoveThis@cox.net> wrote in message
   > > > The problem this year
   > > > is there are no Yamaha or Kawasaki factory riders.
 >
 > I think it runs deeper than that. Kawi has only run Bostrom the last
couple
 > years, and Yamaha only ran Gobert in '02. Even when there were 16 factory
 > bikes in SB, the dropoff to #20 was precipitous. That was okay, because
the
 > factory field was deep enough and all the manufacturers were there. What's
 > going on now is a real sea change in non-GP racing, and I suspect it's
more
 > than MGP distracting the factories and WSB's bumbling management. I'm
coming
 > to believe that SB as we've known it is on the way out, just as the big
 > two-stroke classes died out in the late '80s and early '90s. Formula One
 > died in the AMA because it was too expensive, there weren't enough bikes
and
 > the factories had no interest, and that same thing is happening to SB now.
 > The factories were interested in SB then, and SS now, and SS doesn't cost
 > nearly as much, private teams can at least hope to be competitive.
 >
 > I've thought for some time that 1000 SB won't last long, but I thought it
 > would be replaced by middleweight SB. Now I'm starting to think it might
 > really just evolve into 1000SS, which is cheap and competitive. And fast,
as
 > the times at Daytona show.

Good points. I agree that 1000SS, i.e., Superstock looks like a good,
competitive series. My point, though, about Yamaha and Kawasaki had to do
with the fact that there are only six factory riders. Since I've been
following AMA Superbike, I'm pretty sure that is the lowest number by far.

  > > Yes, it's weird that a terminally boring racing category such as that
gets
  > > so many followers, yet motorcycle racing has receeded into oblivion in
the
  > > USA. Look no further when it comes to the discontinuity in dominance at
  > > world level.
 >
 > Hasn't racing always been in semi-oblivion here? Motorcycling in the US
got
 > stuck with that Easy Rider imagery a long time ago and just hasn't been
that
 > popular to the mainstream. Racing suffered as a consequence.

Mainstream motorcycling in the U.S. is all about Harleys. Take away the
Harley riders, the Harley wannabes (i.e., the Japanese lookalikes), the
sportbike squids who don't have a clue about racing, and you don't have a
very large racing audience.

   > > > In all honesty, the Daytona 200, despite having some great, close
 > finishes
   > > > in the past, is not the best example of road racing in the AMA. Pick
 > just
   > > > about any other venue and you'll most likely get a better show
   > > > start-to-finish.
 >
  > > I totally agree with that - I jhave never understood what the big
fixation
  > > on Daytona is about. All in all it's never made for the best racing in
the
  > > USA. Laguna Seca, just to name one, makes for far better racing.
 >
 > Daytona is about history, about all the great riders and bikes that have
run
 > there. It certainly isn't that anymore, but it is still a big race just on
 > its own momentum. And as much as I enjoy going to Laguna, I don't think
that
 > track promotes good racing in the normal sense. It's all about riders
 > fighting the track there, trying to master it, and not necessarily each
 > other. None of the GP races there was close, and offhand I can't recall a
SB
 > race there that came down to the last corner. It's all about setup and
skill
 > and conditioning and concentration, which means it's mostly been the very
 > best, the most dedicated, who have been successful there.
 >

The Daytona 200 is not too different from the 500 in NASCAR. It's roots go
back to the very beginnings of each series. In both cases, the racing is
relatively uninteresting. It's the opening event of each series, so there's
a certain amount of hype, mostly undeserved, that tends to create interest.
With the 200, there is also the bike week festivities that play a role.

Mark Curfman<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Mark Curfman" <mcurfman1.RemoveThis@cox.net> wrote in message
news:a_G4c.2510$F91.435@lakeread05...
 > Good points. I agree that 1000SS, i.e., Superstock looks like a good,
 > competitive series. My point, though, about Yamaha and Kawasaki had to do
 > with the fact that there are only six factory riders. Since I've been
 > following AMA Superbike, I'm pretty sure that is the lowest number by far.

It's very low, but there were only seven guys last year. The real drop took
place during the three or four years before that, when Ducati dropped FBF
and then V&H, Harley dropped out, Suzuki dropped from four guys down to two,
Yamaha and Kawasaki from two to one, and now out. I think the peak was '98,
when Honda had Duhamel and Bostrom, Kawasaki had Chandler and Hayden
(Tommy), Suzuki had Mladin and Yates on GSX-Rs and Crevier and Pegram on
TLRs, Yamaha had Hacking and Oliver, Ducati had Gobert and Stevens with V&H
and Kipp and Hale with FBF, Harley had Picotte and Wilson, 16 guys. In the
early '90s it was really just two per team most of the time, so got to 12 in
'94 when Harley arrived, and when the turn upward happened in '90 there were
nine guys, but the year before there were four at most (Russell and James
with Yosh, Chandler with Muzzy, Quarterly with FBF, and I don't know that
any of those guys actually got paid). In '87 when Rainey and Schwantz were
racing each other, Shobert was Rainey's Honda teammate, Schwantz had some
Japanese guy who was hurt most of the year, Filice had a supported Yamaha
ride, and the other fast guys, Polen, Chandler, Goodfellow, were on private
teams. I think Merkel was the only factory SB rider in '84, but there were a
number more in '83, the first 750 year - Rainey and Cooley with Kawi,
Baldwin, Merkel, Wise, Pietri with Honda, I think someone for Yosh. Before
that was the Lawson/Kawi - Spencer/Honda - Cooley/Suzuki era. So it's gone
up and down, but the '90s were the golden era for SB, no doubt, just as they
were at the world level.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Daytona - my views 

"Mark N" <menusbaum.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> writes:

 > It's very low, but there were only seven guys last year. The real drop took
 > place during the three or four years before that, when Ducati dropped FBF

I'm not so sure Ducati dropped FBF. Ferraci's son died in a street
accident and he didn't feel up to the racing schedule that year. V&H
picked them up but without proper factory backing couldn't afford to
go it alone. Ducati now has the WSB Ducati CUP series.


--
bsd.RemoveThis@panix.com<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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Mark N <menusbaum.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote:
 ><ppointer.RemoveThis@nospamindspring.com> wrote in message
  >> I agree with you. FBF was very competitive, and they still have very
  >> close ties to the factory.
 >
 >I don't disagree with you, but there was a lot going on back then.

I'm going to raise the issue of private teams again and compare it with
BSB.

In the last few years BSB, has produced Monstermob, GSE-HM Plant,
Renegade, ETI as private teams that have made it to championships and
consistent podiums. Up until this year, the relatively successful
Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki teams have been effectively private teams
with varying amounts of factory input. There's quite a few
non-motorcycling sponsors putting substantial money into the teams. BSB
has had moments when things looked pretty dire but it's come though that
and right now looks to be on an upwards spiral. A big part of this,
apart from Superbike mania in the UK, has been national terrestrial free
to air TV coverage; a high circulation weekly newspaper; relatively
stable regulations; and a large support industry of specialist racing
engineering companies. The end result is a series that looks much more
professional and has much more money in it than 10 years ago.

By contrast the AMA seems to be locked into a downwards spiral. The only
coverage is Speed TV. There's no newspaper coverage and Americans don't
read print anyway (ahem). So sponsorship is hard to come by because it
simply doesn't get the audience. So the only people who can afford to
race at the very top level are the factories and importers. The lack of
stability in the rules has upset some of the factories and they've now
decided that the cost benefits no longer make sense. The lack of
advertising means that a private team really needs angel investors who
post 2000 simply don't exist. Even if they got the money, it's
questionable whether there's the engineering support infrastructure to
enable them to compete with the factories.

Ultimately the blame for all this has to be placed at the door of the
AMA as governing body and primary promoter. If they don't stabilise the
rules, sell a package to mass media and find a way to bring more money
into the sport in the form of non-motorcycling sponsors, it will
continue to fade. They have to find ways of bringing all the factories
back into a single headline championship with a single support
championship. They have to make the whole package more professional. But
most importantly they have to support the top line private teams. These
are the teams that keep the factories honest, provide a breeding ground
for the factory teams of the future. And provide a breeding ground for
the factory riders of tomorrow. I really doubt if the AMA can do this.
Which makes me think that what ought to be the biggest and best national
championship will spend the next 5 years becoming increasingly
irrelevant and little more than glorified club racing.

Then there's Daytona. Frankly Daytona is now where the IoM was in the
80s. It's an anachronism that ought to be shot and put out of it's
misery. Mainly it's so dangerous that professional riders should not be
pressured into racing there. The (endurance) style of racing has no
place in a sprint road race championship. So it can either become a
heritage race that is part of a small championship like the IoM, Spa,
Bol d'Or or NW200 or the circuit has to build a modern short track
within the confines of the Tri-oval. In the immortal words of Lou Reed,
"Stick a fork in its ass and turn it over. It's done".

--
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M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173 T: +44 (0)192 0412 433<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Daytona - my views 

Well it's good to see that our respective positions haven't moved.

Mark N <menusbaum.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> wrote:
 >"Julian Bond" <julian_bond.DeleteThis@voidstar.com> wrote in message
 >news:hrUhOhGTHCVAFAk6@jblaptop.voidstar.com...
 >Yet you said recently, regarding the Dorna move on BSB, "What's good about
 >it in the short term is the stability it brings. BSB has hung on a knife
 >edge financially each winter for years which makes
 >it hard for the teams to plan and get sponsorship." That doesn't sound so
 >positive, and I'm not sure why that has been the case.

BSB's organization issues over the past few years are nearly as
convoluted and political as WSB. Somewhere between Octagon, Motor
Circuit Developments, the team owners and various other interests, the
series has been on a knife edge too many times. Now Jonathan Palmer has
bought the majority of the circuits being used and Dorna is stepping in
to handle promotion. Some of the individuals involved rival Bernie
Ecclestone for being Machiavellian. Hopefully that's behind us. More by
luck than judgement, they got away with it.

 >On the other hand, I have no idea what
 >attendance is like at BSB events, but would have guessed by all the positive
 >news that the series would have been making good money. Yet it seems not.

Attendance figures are in the 20,000 to 75,000 range. The problem was
never the series itself making money. It was the organisations involved
losing money elsewhere hand over fist.

 >You say Kawi has been "relatively successful"
 >in BSB, but what is the measure of that?

4th in the championship last year behind a Suzuki and 2 Ducatis.
Frequent top 5 finishes and 2 places in front of Honda. I wish you could
have seen Richards riding round the outside, turning tighter, stuffing
people on the brakes and so on last year. The results really don't
reflect how well he rode.

Over the last 10 years, it may look like another Ducati cup but people
like Reynolds, Richards, Walker, Plater, Mackenzie have pushed the
winning Ducatis all the way.

 >And beyond SB the SS classes BSB soldiers on
 >with, as you put it, "125GP, Yamaha R6 Cup (somewhere for the manic
 >youngsters to show off on identical R6s), and some fill in races. Historic
 >Classics, Supermono, or whatever the promoters decide to run." Doesn't sound
 >so professional to me.

Come on Mark. Two Superbike races, one 600ss, one 1000 Superstock, one
125GP and one spec one make R6 series is a pretty full day's racing.
What doesn't sound so professional to you? One make series have been
hugely successful in the UK and have provided a starting point for
numerous well known racers. From the LC350 to the Honda CB500 and now to
the R6. It's a good formula, it provides hilarious racing and it throws
up new stars. Some circuits can pack one more race in and a
demonstration grid of Manx Nortons and G50s or a bunch of home built
single cylinder racers is as good as anything. At least they sound good.

 >The other thing that seems to be happening is a bleeding-off of talent into
 >WSB and now MGP, which may have reduced the pool notably in BSB. It's not
 >just about bikes, it's also about riders, and the AMA isn't touting aging
 >Duhamel and Chandler as its standard-bearers at this point, unlike BSB with
 >Emmett and Reynolds - JR was the 1992 BSB champion and Emmett was a 500
 >privateer in 1993, for God's sake.

Bleed off? Or stepping stone? We have this tradition of people wanting
to race at world level. Remember? Reynolds isn't getting any slower as
he gets older. And Emmett is now 31. I seem to remember there are one or
two world champions in MotoGP of the same age and a current AMA champion
as well. So what's your point?

 >That's massively pessimistic, don't you think? It seems like you're entire
 >case here is based on the number of factory riders in SB dropping from 16
 >five years ago to 6 today.

That isn't enough? What I'm really trying to say is that only 6 factory
rides wouldn't matter so much if the next 10 were competitive
privateers. Where's the next Muzzi going to come from?

 >Seems like it's more a matter than you WANT the AMA to fade into
 >irrelevance, a case of wishful thinking...

You've accused me of seeing a cup as half full regarding WSB, GP and
BSB. I think you're doing the same thing with the AMA.

  >the factories still find
  >the promotional value of the event (Daytona) worthwhile.

I think the only factory that finds the promotional value of Daytona
worthwhile is Harley Davidson. And that's got nothing to do with the
racing.

 >We got through the races without incident,

I think the crashes in testing this year used up any luck that was left.
It's only a matter of time.

------------

There are numerous examples of series that have re-invented themselves
and become much more important and successful as a result. I think it's
time the AMA did too.

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ppointer RemoveThis @nospamindspring.com wrote:
 >NASCAR and Golf generate more viewership, plus we have IRL and the
 >remnants of CART. Then there is NHL, NBA, NFL, baseball, college
 >football and basketball, and the farm leagues for each of those
 >respective sports, and you can see the competition for viewers and air
 >time and sponsors is simply too great.

I spent 6 months in the USA a few years ago. What surprised me was how
little coverage there was for minority sports and particularly for World
sports. Satellite TV and Cable ought to mean that there's room for a few
speciality channels to cover these but it doesn't seem to have happened.
My guess is that the barrier to entry is still too high, with the big
monopolies asking for too high an entry fee. Maybe it's the greater
diversity of Europe that has allowed these channels to appear and
survive there. But we're straying into an area that this group probably
shouldn't follow. Whatever, narrowcasting ought to work providing the
costs can be kept low.

I'm glad you've got at least something in Speed TV. But it's still crap
and could be so much better.

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DPGarza <dpgarza RemoveThis @netscape.net> wrote:
 >I think they're still exactly as Julian experienced them. Sports that
 >have wider global viewerships than baseball and NASCAR, e.g. cycling
 >and MotoGP, have a fraction of the air time on narrow cable channels.

Cycling, Tennis, Archery, Snooker, Ski Jumping, Biathlon, World Rally,
Indoor Trials, Badminton, Squash, Cricket, Soccer, Kabadi, Luge,
Bobsleigh, Sailing, Offshore powerboat, Rugby, Rugby League, Hurling,
Athletics, Aussie rules, Horse racing, 3 day eventing, Wrestling,
Windsurfing, water skiing, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, little bits of this are
on US TV once in a while. But there's a whole world of sport out there
beyond the borders. And there's actually a small group of fanatics for
each one (like us) that would bite the hands of any broadcaster who
worked out how to put it on TV at a profit.

 >It's crap compared to other anglophone countries like the UK and
 >Australia. Actually, it's not crap, it's C-R-A-P! We see no GP
 >practices, qualifying, pre-race or post-race interviews, and certainly
 >no feature shows that have GP bikes as their subject. This is
 >tractor-pull country, face it.

The thing I couldn't forgive them for was turning a 40 minute race into
a one hour program by having 7 (Seven! Count them!) advert breaks. I
can't tell you how sick I got of Arm & Hammer Toothpaste and Al
Luddington trying to get me to be a personal watersports mechanic. And
to think we get upset when Eurosport puts one break in a race.

But look, it may sound like it but I'm not really gloating. It's more
about trying to persuade you to complain. It doesn't have to be like
this. Maybe one day, the broadcasters will realize it.

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Mark N <menusbaum.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> wrote:
 >Put all that on a sports channel here and bankruptcy will follow as sure as
 >night follows day.

 >That's the way free (sort of) TV is here, and you see the same
 >advertisements over and over because not very many companies see much
 >benefit in spending their advertising dollars on bike racing. Television is
 >different here, don't you think, and not just regarding sports.

 >I don't think so. Here it's all about critical mass and lowest common
 >denominator.

 >No,
 >the only way we'll see appreciably more bike racing is if basically
 >everything is on TV, which would be for pay, of course.

 >Me, I think
 >it all sucks, and I watch very little commercial TV.

Damn. I forgot. It's different in America.

So let me get this straight. There's no way of making money catering to
minority tastes. So the few minority sports that are covered are ruined
with excessive advertising. Except that nobody wants to advertise
because it's a minority so the adverts are all for the same half dozen
products. So people switch off (or use TIVO) because the advertising is
so unpleasant. And so few non-motorcycling companies see any point in
advertising and sponsoring M/C racing. So the only money in M/C racing
is coming from the factories. So there's only 6 competitive bikes in AMA
SBK. Yeah, I get it.

In that strange place called the rest of the world, there seem to be a
range of models that *do* work.
- Free to air, government (charity) sponsored. BBC and all the other
nationally owned stations.
- Free to air, advertising supported. Eurosport, Motors TV, Men and
Motors, Extreme Sports channel, ITV and Channel 4,5.
- Subscription. Sky Sports.
- Premium Subscription and pay-per-view. Some of the speciality football
channels.

Of course you're right. That could never work in the USA.

Now I don't know what Direct TV or the USA Cable companies charge for a
slot but I bet it's large. Which is a damn shame, because with 1000
potential channels, you'd think there would be a place for 6 speciality
sports channels of which one could carry extensive M/C racing coverage.

Apparently not.

So if that's not going to work, then it's time for a bit of Internet,
bottom up democratization to take coverage back from Fox and Clear
Channel. Just suppose that the AMA piped the raw TV feed into a
Swarmcast internet TV system. Would they then be unable to sell the TV
coverage to Speed and Sky? Would their income drop in the short and long
term? Yeah, I know. The MBAs could never let that happen because they
pumped up the price of the TV rights by giving exclusives.

You know what? It *is* f*cked. And I just love the reaction. The same
one I've had from every American I've ever talked to about it:-

"That's the way it is. It couldn't be any other way. I hate it. So I've
stopped watching."

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Mark N <menusbaum DeleteThis @earthlink.net> wrote:
 >Anyway, pretty much seems to be Euro-sports

Your sneer is showing...

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