Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

at it and said, "Hey, we think that maybe that's a ~ood idea." They've been pumping In a lot of money through .their team , but into their events Through sponsorship, product tieins and promotions Right. See, all the manufacturers benefit from that, but Honda's really been o underwriting Supercross for seven 00 years to the point that it's at. Frankly. O"l these are the guys who don't like a lot ....-4 of the credit, anyway; they want to see it happen. But you 've really got to take your hat off to the people like that who support it. Sure, I put the ' th inking into it and a lot of hard work, but without these people's financial input. we couldn't do it. The motorcycle industry wouldn't be where it is right now with out Supercross. So , what I'm saying there is their continued ,i nt erest and involvement is very , very important and they've made a commitment they're staying with. But there are people out there who think so little of Supercrosa that they would go to great lengths with you to dispute with you on that fact. They might, but unfortunately for them and fortunately for me, I've spent a lot of money on research. I'll give you some figures here that I can quote almost from the top of my head. (Goodwin brings out a big book of computer read-outs , referring to it as he talks) 91.8 percent of the people that attend our events are so satisfied with them , they positively intend to attend the next year. Of the people over 35 years old, 83 percent of them attend because their kids have gone and they want them to go , and then they join that 91 percent-plus group that wants to attend . 51 percent of the people that attend the events are either current or past street bike riders, in addition to the fact that 84 percent of them own dirt bikes. That kind of stuff makes sense for people. When you got that kind of satis faction ratio, who can dispute it? Again, with our survey showing that more people want to attend outdoor motocross after they've gone to a Supercross than prior to it, then it means that there's a void there that a promoter needs to fill. So we're not hurting outdoor motocross in the least - we complement it. For example, for the last Grand Prix (recently held at Carlsbad Raceway), as you may be aware, there was some misleading advertising on the air that , may have had people think - I don't think that it was intentionally done, but some people were confused - into thinking that the international motocross riders were at the Coliseum for the Off-Road Grand Prix (Mickey Thompson's race, which is primarily a four-wheel event) instead of at Carlsbad. We worked with Carlsbad to make sure that the message got across, that the international riders would be there, and they subsequently drew a very good crowd and were quite happy with it. So. I think as the production as opposed to the promotion business matures, you'll see far more coopera tion between individual producers. Like you had a look of surprise on your face when I mentioned that I arranged sponsorship for Pace. I want them to succeed just as much as myself, because it builds continuity for the (Supercross) series. When we're in the top 24 markets in the country, that's when Supercross will really be big ' time. Right now , Supercross has the highest average at tendance of any sport in the country. except NFL football . The problem is we're only in 12 different facilities. We need to be at a minimum of 24 before people stan taking notice. Why hasn't the media at large played up SU'peIUoU' as much as the NFL? 22 That's 50 years away. NFL football plays 11 weekends a year, blank amount of teams in the country. NFL football probably has a minum of 100 to 120 events a year - we hav e 171 That ~ght there ~s the bottom line. But let me rephra se your question: I don't think the national television and national - what we call "stra igh t" magazines' have recogn ized it , because the promoters hav e not done a good job. We need to eac h put in blank amount of money and fund a na tional PR person to represent us in the AMA, to go out and bang on these doors. Because of my other ventures . . . I don't get back to New York as often as I'd like to . We had offers from networks, but the way they portray the sport, I didn't think was in its best interest. How do the networks portray Supercross? Let me give you t he bottom line situation. When we have a network do it, we have no creative control. That's not all bad, but it 's just that we feel we know our sport a little better than anyone else does , and we'd like to portray it in the correct light. But more importantly than that , for example, somebody like Ken Squiers for CBS, who does a super job, his product gets edited all to hell. When it goes back there, he couldn't tell me what's going to be on the air, and it came out to be a 13 minute segment. Number two , you don't know wh en it's going to be on the air. Number three, you may be put on with something like kick-boxing, which we were. How are you going to show any prestige to your sponsors when you can't ca ll Coca Cola and say: "These are the markets you 're going to run in the last week of April?" That's what Eiseman , Johns and Laws and Suzuki did for us last year. We took the cha nce and filmed the event , they came in and negotiated with us and purchased the product. did the syndication, did the promotion on it . got great numbers, a half-hour, magnificent shows that got rave reviews. We knew when it was go ing to be on the air, the sponsors got adequate plugs, because the networks cut the sponsors out. too . The thing I'll say 'until the day I die , is that I'm not working for me; I'm working for those 100 ,000 people who are fans, first and for those sponsors, second. The riders and the AMA have to remember that, too, which I think they have both made a tremendous evolution in the last five or six years - and there's just tons of cooperation back and forth between the two parties, There's people saying, "We don't get enough prize money; I think I'm paying too much." That's something you 're going to have, anyway. But the tremendous cooperation towards making our sport big time is going to make it possible for us. . Like I mentioned to you earlier, the four-color brochure that we're going to mail out to a large number of people? Well , a large number of people means the top 500 corporations In the country and the top 10 heavyhitters in every one of those to start with . "Here's Supercrossl Here's the schedule! Be our guest! Come see itl" We're flying people out for the L _A. Coliseum event, July 12 and 13. That's the reason it's very important to us not only us, but for the future of the sport - that we have 100,000 people, so we can say: "Look what this doesl " Up until this year, the Superbowl was larger than the Long Beach (Formula One auto racing) Grand Prix. The Long Beach Grand Prix outdrew us this year; we want to regain that title. The Superbowl, until this year, was the fou.rth largest motor race in the country, behind Indianapolis, the Daytona 500 and the WatkinS 'Glen' Grand Prix (the U.S .A 's other Formula One auto race besides Long Beach). Now the Long Beach Grand Prix is . larger than us - I don't think it will be after July 12 and 13. It 's not onl y important to us, but it's important to the en tire motorcycle industry, because if Coca -Cola and Schlitz come on board , that will right there leap.frog us int o television, national continuity, national a rt work - th e same artwork at every event! The things people need for continuityl They ( the general public) know what the NFL is; they need to know what the AMA is, okay? And they don 't! I want to portray that. Then given all that, Supercross will be, five years down the road, up there with all the "straight" sports, right? Is that something you envision? Well, I think that you can read a couple of things in there. I think that we will be , far and away, as big as "straight" sports. For example, I have some studies here, and we will, within three years, outdraw all motor racing in the country. The Supercross Series will be bigger than USAC, NASCAR - everything else _ with in three years! Is this by virtue of the energy crisis, the economy, things like that? That's very astute of you to notice that, because the stadiums are all in major metropolitan areas , so they're easier to get to than a race track way out there. Number two, there's going to be more attention focused on motorcycles. Because of their economics? Right. But, frankly, as important as those things, I believe it's the continuity that we're going to see within the next year of advertising, the kind of money we'll spend. For example, the L.A . Coliseum, last year, we spent $504,000 on publicity. Now, we've done some research and have not been able to find any event in the country who has spent that kind of money on a one-day publicity effort. That's got to place a lot of emphasis on motorcycles . There's a computer term called "unduplicated reaching frequency" and our radio and television buy last year reached 98.4 percent of the 18-34 (year old) males, which is our primary target audience, plus teens, an average 22 .3 times! That 's just our broadcasting! In addition to that, we mail out a quarter-million mailers; this year we're mailing out 380,000 to motorcycle owners. We inundate the place with saturation media for motorcycle racing. That's the reason we've been successful. So it takes an environment that you can capitalize on. The stadium's in a downtown area, attention on motorcycles, tremendous amount of advertising. And as important as any of them, is the good show that the guys put on. That's what we're selling, isn 't it! A show! We've got to laythem a good stage. If I don't build a good race track, then they can't have a good race. So I'm part of it as well. But -the ultimate thing of it has to be that we want a close race going over the finish line. Like last y&ar at the Superbowl, when Mike Bell passed Mark Barnett at the finish line - in the air! I mean, that's the kind of things that brings everybody backl I've still got to spend the money to remind them , but there's what I call a "product mix. " Four very distinct things that without one of those our job would be increasingly difficult . You were talking about "eelllng -the show," and when I've talked with riders about Supercross, some feel that promoters think more about the "show" first and riders last, They generally feel that there is very little consideration given as to what they may think of a track and/or their safety, That amazes me - nol It doesn't . . ' a m aze'me: becaUie' iliaflle that comeS from a variety of riders. Can you imagine if we ask 80 different riders their opinion? We'd never have a trackl In fact , the AMA and us walked the track last year as a test with six , different riders. One rider would say , "Jesus, that's terrible, " and another would say , " Boy , that's bitchin' l' So what we've had to do is funnel our input to a small group of riders and team managers. My company always sends a track map to the team managers. before it's finalized , for their input. Safety is a very important considera tion . Now, ca nd id ly, crashes where nobody gets hurt , they sell tickets, okay? And we show them in our tele vision commercials, because I'm not here to change the public's mores, I'm merely here to capitalize on them. Then they come, maybe they cC?me to see blood and guts? Well, they see something better than blood and guts; they see a great athletic contest, I mean a phenomenal racel Shouldn't the sport, then, be promoted on that level, as an athletic contest? I think we have to do whatever we have to do to get the people in - then they see it as an athletic contest. In other words, the ends, in my mind, justify the means. We do a thing called a "galvanic skin response test" at a place called the Preview House in Los Angeles . and you show people commercials to find out what gets them excited. I did a damn commercial that won an Orange County advertising award. about the "young gladiator" - I thought it was magnificent! Didn't get anybody aroused! They like those crashes and that kind of thing. What's important is when they get there they see an athletic contest and that each year we have evolved from a product mix of "Come see the blah, blah, blah, blahlll" to "T he most important athletic contest of the decade," which is creeping more and more into our advertising, because it is that, I mean, the people aren't going to care that a metobolic study in England showed that motocross is only second to soccer. That sounds good to us , but it sounds dry to them, doesn't it? They want to see somebody go through the champagne glory and gold of a halfmillion dollar championship. All we can do is try to measure the public's wants and needs, try to mold our advertising campaign to those within the realm of legitimacy as close as we can, and hope it draws people. We've been very successful at that . However, we're not as successful as I'd like to be. How successful do you want to be? I'd like to have 24 sell-out events in the country for Supercross, I don't care if I own 'em alii I want to see Supercross do that. Let me give you an example: We keep hearing figures that there's three-quarters of a million dirt bikes in southern California, Well, I drew 75,000 people last year; 84 percent of them are dirt bike owners. That means that about eight percent of the dirt bike riders in southern California came to the Superbowl. Well , I'm doing a hell of a lot better than anybody, including any of the magazines on subscriptionsl Nobody has.65,OOO southern California subscriptions! When I'm missing 92 percent of the audience, I don't think that I'm doing a great job. That's why I work this much on the business, because there's got to be a key that I've missed and I've spent so much money on research. We do focus groups on our commercials, tons of things like that. We have , for example, a scatter diagram that shows which tickets sell first and who they sell to and we question them why they buy them, did they like them, We test our mail order: .we make a promise to people' that 'they get their mail order

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