Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

sors. Everyone agrees that a second attempt at a World Seri es co uld only su cceed if th e rac es were internationally televised. I'd like to make it clear fro m the start that it is not Bernie Ecclestone wh o is " thin king th e unthinkable," a nd as far as I know he has never seri ously sat down to di scuss organ izing an alternative to th e FIM Road Racing World Championsh ip, but many of those wh o do believe th at the ma n who could spe ll the differen ce bet ween success a n d fai l u re is Bern ie Ecclestone, It was easy to pi ck'o u t th e Eccles to ne bu ilding on Prince's Gate in Lond on. All th e rest o f the buildings on th e bl ock 'were anonymous red -brick four a nd five sto ry o ffice buildin gs. Bernie' s building is all g lass, sta ndi ng o u t like a J a panese bullet train park ed a m id stea m engines. I showed u p six mi nu tes early. At exactly 10:00 a.m . Bern ie Ecclestone, a bo ut th e sa me hei ght as Ken n y Roberts, Wayne Rainey an d Sito Pons. ca me o ut, greeted me and inv i ted me into hi s o ffice a nd to a desk covered with letters a nd faxes. H e had just go tten in the da y before from th e U.S. Formula One GP in Phoen ix. ***** I've often wondered if yo u r own experience as a motorcycle racer had anything to do with you r decision to obtain the TV marketing rights for the Road Racing World Championships. You were a mo torcycle rac er briefly, I believe. R igh t, but not briefly. How long did you race? Abou t four years. Well, that would be considered a brief career by most pro racers. What kind of bikes did you race? I was th e first ri der to race a Triu mp h with a swinging arm, firs t guy o uts ide th e factory rid ers, that is. Did you have much su ccess? Reasonably go od . I seemed to wi n or fall o ff. I've heard it said that the .reaso n that you got into GP motorcycling was that the bike races were becoming too popular, especially in Europe, that they were beginning to represent a threat to Formula One automobile racing and creating a co n fli ct for television programmers, especially in countries like Spain, where motorcycling is more popular than Formula One racing. The suggesti on being, th en, th at if motorcycle racing rep resents a threat to Formula One ra cing we cou ld th en simply stop motorcycling from being on TV . .. that's a co m p lete load o f nonsense. Look, Formula One .is so strong that th ere is no co mpetitio n. Competition doesn 't exist for Formula .O ne racing. But yo u ar e probably right about Spain. There the TV streng th of both is about equal , but how long that will go on I don 't kn ow. In fairness, and we mu st lie up front about this, th ere are prob abl y double th e amount of people at a motorcycle GP in Je rez (Spain) com pared to a Formula One GP , but that is because at Jerez there are very few hotels within a couple of hours drive of th e circui t and th e , traffic situation is suc h that if you had a crowd at .formula One like a t a motorcycling event the peopl e would never get in. Most fa ns who come to the motorcycling GP arrive on motorcycles wh ich elimi na tes a lot of the traffic problems . T hey ca n al so rap along the highway bit quicker and therefore the ca tch area for spe ctators becomes greater. Also, motorcycl ist s often camp a nd those wh o do not are prepared to ac cep t h otels th a t Formula One specta tors wo u ld not. a They are pr ep ar ed to accep t u nsoci abl e co nd i tio ns and hours, But we a re talking here only about Spain . In the rest o f th e world motorcycle raci ng does not compete with Formula One raci ng especially in TV interest , which is what conce rns o u r co m pany. N ow two years of the original fouryear contract have been completed. How has i t gone up until now, forgetting for the moment that the 1993-1998 contract has been obtained by another company? Have th e first two years proceeded as you hoped th ey would? Has there been a sign ifica n t in crease in the television audien ce? We had th e diffi cult task o f pu tting together . so me thing tha t was frag mented. Nob od y knew w ho really had the rights to w hat and we were subjected to p revious co ntracts that were st ill in effect a nd we ha d to try and work a nd fudge around them , so the firs t two years have no t been at all easy . Even no w we are still operating u nder condi tio ns where certain ol d contracts entered i nto by organizers limi t us. So . we ha ven 't been able to do exactly what we wanted to do . Secondly, we are pa rtners wi th Mo tomed ia (the company form ed by the FIM to ha ndle marketi ng of TV rights and the compa ny which con tracted I.S.c., the Ecclestone company, for the 1989-1992 contract) so we have been p us hed by th e FIM to produce in co me from the offset whereas w it h Formu la One when we sta rted I wasn 't the sligh test bi t interested in income. I was interested only in coverage. T his is ho w I wa nted to p roceed with mot orcycli ng, but our partners req uired income from the very beg inning a nd taking tha t into accou nt, a factor th at limi ted coverage, I believe we have don e a good job. Do you now have figures available on coverage? Arc these figures th a t ca n be published? Yes, we have figures, th e only figures th a t really co u nt . .. those tha t have been given to us by th e host bro adcasters. Bu t what I won' t do is let agencies give ou t fig ures ma de u p to suit the clients. We wo n 't tell you, if yo u a re Co ca -Cola, th a t a certain percentage of th e peo pl e from 7 to 12years -old or wh a tever a t th is event dr i n k Coca-Cola or tha t so m any mi ll ions o f peo ple saw this event tha t your produc t sponsored just beca use th at is wh at you want to hear. The figu res th at we gi ve out to th e team sponsor s are true figures from th e host br o adcas ter s. We, as part ners of Mot omedi a, are not ,a t liberty to give th ese figures to th e press a nd this is p rob abl y a good th in g, because, as I tend to tell th e truth, our tru e figures would not co m pa re favorabl y wit h o ther figures th a t bear no resemblance to th e tru th o , . You are referring to the Superbike TV figures from the Flammini group . . . Ap allingl y inaccurate. I would like to see true ho st b ro ad ca st er' s figures contras ted with th ose. But it seems that the FIM was not happy with the job that your company did and it certainly seemed to me that from the very day of his election as new FIM President, Mr . Josef Vaessen had as one of his chief priorities the finding of a new marketing agency. Within the FIM I believe it was clear that Vaessen was not happy with the I.S.C. agreement and did not want to renew with you r company. Was this the impression yo u had? No : and in fact I find it quite stra nge th at you 'sa y th at because Mo tomedia put o u t a publicat ion last year which , to say th e least, was inaccu rate abo ut television sta tistics. The for wa rd was written by Mr. Vaesse n in which he co mplime n ted the effo rts mad e by I.S.c., so he must have been sat isfied. But at the FIM General Assembly, in Budapest, Mr . Vaessen, in announcing the decision to sign a five-year deal with Dorna S.A., said that the FIM had not been satisfied with the I.S.C. deal and that he felt that this $30 million contract was a much better deal for the sport... Prob abl y a better deal for him. I don't kno w abou t th e spo rt. I do n' t see how it co uld be, becau se we ha ve increased th e television a udience a nd th e aw areness of the public to the sport. We have worked qu ite ha rd a t it , and as far as making a ny money o u t o f th e righ ts, we haven 't. Our deal with Mot omedia gave us 50~ percent o f profi ts, but we carryall pro du ction cos ts and in o ur effo rts to o ffer a q ua li ty program our profits ar e less th an productio n cos ts. At some G Ps we would have needed 70% of the profits to have bro ken even , but our co ncer n was to increase ex posure as much as possible whi le at th e same time providing Mot o med ia wi th some profit for th e FIM and to d is tri bute among the teams. If th e.fI M had been prepared to wo rk o n ly to inc rease exposure, we cou ld have increased even more a nd grea ter profits wo uld ·ha ve come la ter. There are those who would sa y that TV exposu re has decreased and as there ar e no figures given to th e press it is on ly one man's word against another. Perhaps the figu res have decreased in 1990 beca use this is the first time any . tru ly accurate figures have been given to the teams. If you want figures produced that will make it seem that you are do ing a good job yo u m erel y pay so meone to si t in an off ice and produce them, but it's d ifferent if you give them reality which is a ll th at we wou ld ever o ffer. T he S uper bike figures wh ich you mentio ned ar e a gross misrepresen tation. Let's talk about this new TV contract. The FIM president said in public that he was unhappy wiih the I.S.C. deal and yet ... This is co mp lete ly different to wh at he tol d me, ac tua lly, a ndon a n umber of occasions. You know , I believe that Vaessen 's associa tio n wi th me has b ro aden ed h is wh ol e ou tloo k ' o n business wh ich I don 't th ink in th e past . he had too m uc h kn o wled ge o f, but I can on ly say tha t it was never my impression tha t Vaessen was a ny thi ng other than sa tisfied wi th th e work we were doing. My understanding is that Vaessen as FIM president was given the right by the FIM Management Committee to sol ici t bids and negotiate, and ... My understanding is th a t he was not gi ven th e ri ght to negotiate but only to di scu ss a nd repon. I'm afraid I was a little nai ve in a ll o f this. You see, normall y, if yo u are go ing to tak e o n th e sort of co m m itme nt that we did yo u would as k for th e ri ght to mat ch a ny o the r o ffer a t th e en d o f th e peri od. But I was to ld th at we co uldn' t have suc h a n agreem ent because of Mot orn edia's agreements wi th th e teams, but I was told not to be conce rne d beca use th e FIM assu red me th a t without a ny sha do w o f doubt we would be g iven th e co n trac t ag ain if we wanted it. Mr. Vaessen himself told you this? Oh, yes. Severa l times. Vaessen and Zegwaard even flew to He athrow while negotiations were sti ll very much open a nd th ey assured th at providing o ur o ffer was no less th an th e offer th ey had received from Dorna that th ey would much pr efer to be with us a nd th at th ey would sign a co n tract. So th ey never seeme d to be unhappy with I.S.c. Were yo u told who yo u were bidding against and what the other offers were? O u r first o ffer was based o n a sug gestion fro m Mr. Vaessen , an o ffer that he said the FIM would be pleased to recei ve from us . This was an offer for .the TV rights and th e naming rights (title sp onsorship) and at the figure suggested by Mr. Vaessen . We a lso made ano ther offer just for th e TV righ ts. I said we would be interested in sta ying with the same so rt o f agreeme nt th at we had a t that moment. At th at time we were ap pa rent ly th e best o f friends . . . o ur rel ation sh ip was one of "Josh a nd Bernie," but this cha nged when we received a " Dea r Sir " letter to sa y that some bo dy else had mad e a hi gher bid and we were in vited to bid that fig ure. But we were now talking about som ethin g diffe rent. We had not bee n, I thin k, not even bidding on the sa me p rodu ct th at th e o the r party was o ffered. The condi tio ns of th eir contract were d ifferent fro m wh a t we had been o ffered. We wanted to talk app les for a pples not a pples for pears. All co mpanies in vol ved in this bu siness were given a 10-day pe riod to mak e another offer. We d id , but it ca me to no thing. I don 't th ink our o ffer or a ny body's offers were ever given to th e Ge neral Assem bly. Fro m wh at I understa nd th ere is a n age ncy which was in volved between th e FI M, or Mr. Vaessen, and Dor na a nd tha t th is agency was seeki ng quite · a la rge amount of com missio n. I do n' t kn ow where tha t commission has go ne or what has ha p pe ned to it or wha t it was for. I ha ve hea rd all so rts o f stories. It's a bit co nfusi ng. I would ha ve tho ught tha t th e rig h t way to have negotiated in the ligh t o f the fact tha t Vaessen had a lready explained to everyone how ha p p y he was with us .. . and we shou ld 'take tha t as a fac t because that is what he sai d a nd wrote . .. the righ t way wo uld have been to have as ked for sea led bids a nd to have favored I.S.c. , given I.S.c. the o p tio n of eq ualling the best bid since I.S.c. had done all the work so far. Bu t it di dn 't seem as if there were sea led bids. It seemed that ot her people knew what the bids were . .. or pe rhaps i t was th e o ther.way around . . . perha ps people were told th a t th e bids were lower th an they were so that a hi gh er bid wo u ld n' t be put in. I've been to ld th is too. But now a ll we ca n do is wa i t to see what th e ou tco me of this co ntract signi ng will be. Garry Taylor , manager of Team Lucky-Strike Suzuki said to me at Jerez, and it wasn't part of an in terview so it · was really off the record, I suppose, but I believe in that context I can quote him ... Garry said that he believed the FIM had made a big mistake because the FIM has angered you while you are still holding a contract that will run for two more years and tha t this will be taken personally by you not as strictly business any longer and that you may in fact seek a way to make the FIM sorry for what has happened and that this could be detrimental to the sport. I don't think I have enough power o r influen ce to be able to do anything like th at. Mot orcycle racing, you tell me , is so big that it riv als Formula One racing, so how cou ld a nybo dy damage it? We were talking about in Spain ... Ah yes, th at's right, in Sp ain. Let's go a little deeper into this. If someone came to you' offering a parallel road racing championship, so m eth ing like the Roberts World Series of 10 years ago, but with circuits already guaranteed and with, say , 75% of the top teams and riders from the 500cc class, would you look at that from a television point of view? Absolutely. I feel now th at if a contrac t has been signed between th e FIM and . somebody, th en obvio us ly we ha ve no

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