Thursday, October 30, 2008
MediaZone closes Moto Channel
MediaZone will refund my subscription fee on a pro-rated basis, but the money isn't really the problem. I'm disappointed that what seemed to be a really good service for catching all the GPs has gone by the wayside.
I don't know anything about what motivated the closure, and the email gave no reason. But if you read my post on The right broadcast model for motocross you know I think full length video on the web is the right way forward for MX. [More...]
The right broadcast model for motocross
What I want to talk about is a realization I had while watching — that Internet video is the right medium for motocross. Not broadcast TV.
It’s no new idea that motocross is a niche sport. I think we all know this and, to my mind, it always will be. A big niche, perhaps, but a niche nonetheless. It’s a special sport. A different sport. It’s an extreme sport, but not a circus like Supercross. There is a history, a mind set, and a culture that are inherent in the way man and machine attack the terrain and the elements. There is an endurance aspect that simply doesn’t exist in other forms of closed course competition. It is not a complicated sport, yet it requires understanding.
None of this fits neatly into 1–hour, commercial-laden segments of American broadcast TV. The sport, at it’s core, does not match up well with normal, accepted TV practices for niche sports — 8 minutes of action punctuated by 1.5–2.5 minutes of commercials. Then repeat the cycle over and over. [More...]
Tim Ferry on training and racing until you're 40
Just before his trip to England for the 2008 MXoN (which Team USA won, again) the Factory Kawasaki rider and two-time MXoN winner was interviewed by Tim Cryster of RacerX Virtual Trainer. Ferry talks about his training regimen, how things have changed in the sport since he began his professional career in 1991, and what the future holds. The most interesting comment in Ferry's interview. [More...]
Live Nation sells Supercross with motor sports division
Last night Dave Despain had Edmondson on Wind Tunnel. The interview was via telephone and fairly short, as it was the last call of the program. Despain asked Edmondson two questions, the first about the NASCAR purchase, the second was (paraphrased), "Am I wrong to think the situation in professional motorcycle road racing is a disaster?" [More...]
DMG/AMA Pro Racing equal goat rodeo?
The behavior of AMA Pro Racing toward the road race community looks a lot like the sort of corporate raider mentality personified by people like "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap. [More...]
Friday, August 15, 2008
Risking irrelevance - why too much youth focus is bad for pro MX
The problem is relevance and the Olympics give us an interesting case study. It's been nice to have some sports distractions — the Olympics and the NFL preseason — during this two-week break in the Pro Motocross schedule. [More...]
Friday, August 8, 2008
FIM vs DMG - the battle for world domination
Two things of note this past week in the world of motocross (three, I guess, but I'm not all that interested in who hired Chad Reed — it was obvious someone would) – Youthstream opens U.S. office in southern California, and CycleNews publishes an interview with FIM president Vito Ippolito confirming the FIM's intentions to grow a Supercross World championship (Cycle News Issue #32, Aug. 13, 2008, pg 7.)
Neither of these things is unexpected, but together they are an important warning — nature abhors a vacuum, particularly the vacuum created when the |AMA| sold off professional racing.
Under the AMA pro racing in every discipline except road race and SX was a goat rodeo and a national embarrassment. Getting out of the racing business was overwhelmingly the right thing to do. Selling most everything to Daytona Motorsports Group was the right choice. But that doesn't mean we didn't get some new and different problems in the bargain. [More...]