Petition Speed TV

[Suzy]

Well, I emailed and asked him to tell me how old this is and what new progress has been made on it. Will let you know, if and when I get a reply.

[Super Dave]

I reaaly would like to see more motorcyle races and all that goes with it on any channel. I just think it isn't going to happen until there is a way to carry a billboard on a racer's back.

The NFL is still pretty successful without much of anything more than the team logo on the uniform.  Maybe you'll see the sponsor of the apparel, but...

[Super Dave]

Does anybody remember the old TNN (Nashville Network) back in the mid-late 80's?

I seem to recall seeing more than a few WSB/AMA/GP races, and not at 3 a.m., either.

Yeah, and through the 90's.  

[Snarky]

Life was agood then!

[Super Dave]

This has been going on since FOX bought Speedvision 4 or 5 yrs ago. No matter what anyone says, FOX is going to keeep on putting 90% nascar programming on SPeed TV. ....Nothing short of FCC intervention will change Rupert Murdocks mind when it comes to the almighty dollar. Nascar means big $$$ to the network.

I dunno.  If your business is to make money, then that's what you do.  If NASCAR makes your business work, great.  When I was active selling racing fuel, guys that were doing local races in Madision or did a Busch or REMAX race spent more money that lots of riders that I knew that appeared to be "committed" to racing.  

I can like AMA racing all I want for personal reasons.  I like motorcycle road racing.  Let me rephrase it...I love it.  But the general bogus attitudes of lackluster teams that sell "sponsorships" to companies goes something like "your products image will be seen by (insert some number of viewers)..."  

NASCAR sells.  Meaning that the program called NASCAR is a selling opportunity for companies to reach customers that want to buy.

AMA motorcycle racing has had a problem with the outside support packages because of a "family feel" within the program...a program lacking in real marketing, real teams, and real pushes by those teams to establish marketing programs.

Yoshimura does not need a sponsor because their money is driven by a manufacturer.  Similarly for Graves Yamaha.  Honda America.  Ford does not support just a single team in NASCAR.  First, there is a rules structure that won't allow the motorcycle style support for parts and products that the AMA has...which is BS.  I have an idea of what bike I'm going to ride for this season.  There are a couple of optional parts that seem to be available to the rest of the world, but not through regular chanels here in the US.  Why?  No VIN's on some bikes?  Well, who's had their GSXR600 since November to work on?  Yamaha?  

Because of that, it's hard to promise much of anything in the way of fair play to an outside sponsor.  So, that does stifle the growth of this sport.  

A few years ago, I took CCS to task because the guy running the CCS ads had pictures in them...but no captions for the riders.  Honestly, I could care less about the bikes...How many GSXR1000's do I need to see to be board.  About two.  Show me a rider that I know that's fast on the bike, and I'll look.  

Personalities go a long way in developing a sport.  NASCAR recognizes that.  The NFL does.  The AMA has been lucky enough to have Mat Mladin and Miguel hang around a long time to give some kind of long term personality stability to it.  The return of Kevin Schwantz and Freddie Spencer to some track side work adds to that.

[Suzy]

I would like to see more TV coverage from Speed TV to more tracks. Tell me why they are not, can someone break that down for my knowledge.

[Super Dave]

More tracks?  Speed does all the AMA races.  It's the only spectator oriented series for motorcycle road racing.  The scheduling is set up for TV and the tracks usually have the facilities for media set ups, etc.  And who would pay to advertise a product during coverage of lightweight superbike amateur anyway?  

Does the AMA pay to have their program televised or are they able to contract it out for bidding?  I don't know.  

[Suzy]

I'm saying all races, CCS, WERA, etc., not just AMA. Why does there have to be an audience to tape a race? How does that make it more important to put on TV? We could fill a whole day of programming with all the races from different areas and orginizations.

[spyderchick]

I'm saying all races, CCS, WERA, etc., not just AMA. Why does there have to be an audience to tape a race? How does that make it more important to put on TV? We could fill a whole day of programming with all the races from different areas and orginizations.

Suzy, Speed won't air anything without major corporate sponsorship. In other words, they need to cover production costs and make a profit.

To convince a major cable channel to cover local club races, a producer will need to come to them with committed sponsors, a reasonable budget, something that works into their scheduling, and some sort af assurance that you would have a viewership.

In addition, there are all sorts of legalities to be worked out, from rights to re-air to releases from many of the individuals involved on the production at large.

In other words, producing one single hour of club racing is prohibitively expensive from the point of production cost/return on $$$.

No money to be made, no air time.

Case in point: Champ car series. They lost losts of air time to the IRL series. They were both basically racing open wheel cars (which to the average viewer, the specs didn't matter, the competitiveness of the racers did). The business and marketing wasn't handled the best by the Champ car folks, and thus they lost significant share to a brand new and growing national level sanctioning body (IRL).

The kicker in this scenario is that IRL folks all came from Champ car, and took the best ideas to form a marketable series. So now you have what was then the premier open wheel series cut off at the knees by better managment.

The pie was not large enough to support 2 open wheel series at a national level, both with spectator attendance, or for TV air time.

I'm sure Sean and Evelyn or Kevin Elliott would love to have even a little coverage of either series, but in reality, niether sanctioning body has the time, resources or money to get this accomplished. And really, in the end, with the coverage for AMA, WSBK and MotoGP, you don't have much of an audience left, because they will be watching those events, not the CCS/ASRA or WERA events that would probably get air time at 2AM.

[Suzy]

What a bummer. I understand more, thanks Alexa.  ;)

Kinda makes you wanna do this...

[Suzy]

Rumor  ???