Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

: R C GA EC O S O os Chapter 2: AIR's Roy Janson and Bill West A IN " TTH R S R A What is AIR? (West) Air is something that you breathe.. . Ganson) American International Rae- Who is in the Supercross Promoters' Group? (West) The Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group has four or five events, S.R.O. Promotions out of Chicago has five events, and PACE/Supersporls has five even ts . I think in 1995 w e ha ve absolute parity among the group in that we each have five events - a third, a th ird , a third. Daytona also h as one even t that is not considered a part of this wo rking group, but it is considered part of our series. Is the television deal stilI there? (West) Yes, we have tel evi sion w ith ESPN for 1995, but we are working on a better time slot for the events. We are also working to separate the 125s from the 250s and have two different shows for each round. We are also working on having four of the 250 mains shown live on ESPN 2. The television package is certainly in place; we are firm for 1995. What we are trying to do is improve the 'quality of the shows. parties. Entry fees have always been ,considered' the fees that cover a rider's medical insurance, which costs between $4,000 and $5,000 per event. The money has to come from some place , and that place is entry fees. I suppose we could find those resources in some other place , but basically that's what it is for now. The rider receives a service d irec tly in the case of insurance. If he went out and tried to bu y a medical insurance policy as a mot orcycle rac er , they wou ld n ' t even want to talk to him. (West) Le t me inter ject so me thi ng here. Are you sure that IMSA (car ) races ha ve no en try fee? No, I'm not sure. But I'm talking about football, baseball, whatever... (West) We shouldn't compare apples and oranges. Let's compare apples and apples, motorsports and motorsports. There's an entry fee in IMSA, SECA , NASCAR, all of those. All motorsports have an entry fee. You mentioned all these changes in national events would remain stable (15 SXs and 12 outdoor races) so that the factory teams could avoid choosing one series over the other. If the AMA were to add more Nationals, or maybe start their own supercross seri es, would AIR consider this an act of war? Ganson) Let me first say that our understanding is that there ha ve been events .added (by the AMA ) and that complicates this issue. The supe rcross promoters have maintained the same schedule that the y h a ve h ad in th e past - 15 events - and d id so with the sens itivity that the manufacturers sa id that they would not attend any moreevents than what was on the current schedule. However, that same policy does not seem to exist with the AMA. My understanding is that there have been Nationals added, there have been increases. While the AMA has made the public comment that they seek reconciliation, I think the fact that they have already added events demonstrates that they did not seek rec- ing is a newly formed organization intended to provide the operational support for the United States Supercross Series. Is this new organization the result of a schism with the AMA, or is it something you've been thinking about for a long time? . (West) Basically, it's a result of the problems we had with the AMA. We tried to reach a long-term agreement with them so that we could conduct business like business has to be conducted in the 90s, not on a year-by-year basis. We just couldn't get them to agree to do that. We've been trying for five or six years to get them to sign a multi-year working agreement. Not the specifics of a sanctioning agreement, just an agreement to agree for more than one year. That way, we could go on w ith the business of signing sponsors to long-term agreements, signing television contracts for more than one yea r. But the AMA wouldn't do it, they wouldn't give us tha t confidence to go forward in our bus iness. . What were some of the sticking points that couldn't be worked out in the negotiations? (West) It all sta rted over this need for the multi-year agreement, but from there it mushroomed into many things. The AMA came to us and said that they would give us a three-year agreement, but they wanted to take over our television, they wanted to take over the sponsorships, they wanted to take over many things. It went from the multi-year thing into a shoving match - the more they would shove on us, we would go back and shove on them a little bit. But the basis of the whole thing was the multiyear deal. Was there a question of exclusivity in keeping supercross for the current promoters? . (West) No. We didn't want exclusivity. You can't have that because it's against Restraint of Trade, Anti-Trust, so on and so forth. We never at any time asked for an exclusive deal at the AMA. Is there a deal to show the races in Japan in 1995? (West) Yes. We gave ESPN the rights to Japan (for supercross). So they have worldwide rights now . At one time we negotiated our deal (for Japan) w ith NHK or other networks in Japan, but we did awa y with that last year. ESPN has done a great job for us in Japan. And they produce the shows for you... (West) And they produce the shows. ESPN also has the rights to the European market. They might sell some programs to other networks and other channels, but it's still ESPN. How will the U.S. Supercross Series be different from what was the AMA Supercross Series? (West) The only differences you will see are some improvements in the quality of the program. It will be the same format, same rules, and so forth. What AIR is going to do under Roy JansOn, is replace the services that the AMA gave us. We don't plan any major changes for '95. Ganson) The big key to AIR w ill be streamlining the races. Our goal for '95 is to make the events as comfortable as possible for riders and m echanics to co m e to work . By stream lin ing th e licensing process, the entry process, the admissions process, we hope to make supercross a very user-friendly, modem type of entertainment. Pro motocross and Supercross are among the few pro sports around where the players have to pay to play. ($50 pre-entry fee, $60 post-entry in 1994.) Has there been any consideration by AIR to forego a rider's fee in the future, even if only for people like Jeremy McGrath and those other top guys? Ganson) Well, a certain amount of liability comes with activity different from the concert business or the music business . When Van Halen takes the stage there's not much of a liability as a result of Van Haren taking the stage. But when a rider goes to the racetrack he brings with him a certain amount of liability as far as potential injury to himself or other admissions and things, and I mention that as a logical improvement. The people in the stands are there to see them; the racers are the show. . (West) Well, we did try that once back when the rider count was way down. I think it was '81 because I had a total of 34 entries for the Orlando Supercross! The next year we d id a deal where we didn't charge an entry fee if riders would just pre-enter and get the entry numbers back up . It really didn't improve, which leads me to think that the en try fee really isn't a big factor. I think maybe psychologically it is. One of the most controversial things going on right now with AIR and the AMA is the fact that Roy left. I don't want to say you jumped ship, but rather you decided to pursue the business of supercross management with these guys. How did that come about? Ganso n) The facts are, that the personal decision as to why I left the AMA is my own business. I could summarize it by saying that I no longer agreed with the policies of the company that I worked fo r. The company had made the final actions to create a for-profit corporation called Paradam a. It was evident that the first actions of this new company were to make a run on the businesses of two of the AMA's best customers - CCS road racing and events promoted by the Supercross Promoters Group. I believe a sanctionin g organization should provide services, not compete with its comm erci al customers for the limited amount of profits that are out there. I did not agree with the policies of the AMA, and it would not have been appropriate for me to stay any longer with the company. I was leaving whether there was an AIR to go to or not. It just so happens that AIR is here now. I'm an operations guy. My specialty is running motorcycle races and that's what I'm going to do. Really, nothing's changed for me. Everyone seems to be hoping for a status quo in 1995, where the number of supercross events and the number of onciliation. They understood as well, that the manufacturers do not want to attend more events. Now, let's say there is a reconciliation. How do you deal with these new promoters who have been promised events on a schedule? Those same manufacturers who sit on the AMA's board ha ve repeatedly told the motocross advisory board committee that they would not attend more events, and that complicates matters if any resolution was truly being sought. H ow hard did the promoters' group seek a resolu tion with the AMA? (West) We negotiated with the AMA's Tom Mueller for eight months and we have documents that support our position here. We had all issues resolved with the exception of the multi-year agreement. At that point Tom Mueller broke off negotiations with us on July 12. We all believe now that he never really intend ed to make an agreement with us. What reason would the AMA have for not wanting to have an agreement? (West) I think the AMA has des igns and thoughts of going in to th e busin ess of producing events themselves. I think they have be com e profit-driven with this new Paradama co rp ora tion and I think that they want to eliminate the promoter's role in order to do their own events. For that reason I don't think they even intended to make an agreement with us . Who owns the name "Supercrossj" (West) Nobody. It's public domain now . Many people have tried to get a trademark for it but it's a generic term at this point. That's the word "supercross," but if yo u're talking about "The American Supercross Series," that belongs.to the people who put the money up to make it happen. Does AIR have an agreement with the fact ories for 1995? Ganson) No, there's no agreement with the factories. To be honest, we have sought no agreement. As a courtesy we have met with all of the manufacturers By Davey Coombs he new racing season is effectively only three months away, yet many questions remain unanswered. Just how many supercross series will there be in 1995? One? Two? And what will happen to the existing AMA National MX Series? Wh y are there so many questions about the coming season? Simple. Now there ar e two sanctioning bod ies fighting to control the established Supercross Series - the AMA and AIR - American International Racing. We caught up with AIR's Bill West and Roy Janson at the Motocross des Nations and asked them to fill us in on a few things. f[ -g 0\ ...-l N ...-l I-< OJ 'B u o 22

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