Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

,IN R IE Promoter Chris Agajanian TE V W ove him or hate hi m , AMA Grand National promoter Chris Agajanian certainly manages to attract attention to himself. Agajanian, 47, has been recognized as one of the top promoters in the sport since taking over the reigns of the Sacramento Mile from father and legendary promoter J.e. Agajanian in the early '80s. Since then his Agajanian Presents firm has hosted as m any as six Grand National events in a single seaso n, oftentimes elevating the profile of the Rolling Thunder Show by introducing it to new marketpl aces and beautiful facilities across the United States. He has also been criticized by detractors who claim that Agaj ani an is on ly in the sport for th e mon ey it mak es him and rega rds little else. Or that his sibling r el a ti onsh ip w ith A MA Pro Ra cin g Ch airman of the Board Cary Agajanian poses a di rect conflict of interes t in dirt track racing. We didn' t love him or hate him. We lis te ne d to him, and w e think we got vintage Chris Agaja n ia n. H e gave ins ight on what it takes to sell a Grand National event to the public. He answered critics . He was open. He was closed. And in the end, he dropped a bomb ... Reme mber Ascot? - - ....==.. 4 You are the one who people look at as the guy who held up the Grand National schedule this year over your rift with the AMA regarding purses. Then you announce that you are going to can 883s in favor of 600s at your events. You never seem to find yourself far away from controversy, do you? (Laughs) Evidently not. As far as schedulin g, we (the Gr and National Unified Promo ters Association ) actually d id stall it a little bit longer th an we w anted to with w hat we were try in g to accomplish. As far as our series, I believe that we lost a major sponsor in Camel some yea rs ago, and unfortunately it w asn 't replaced . That is part of why it is so d ifficult to p u t on th ese even ts. They are se nsitive an d m ore fragile th an what they appear beca use costs ha ve gone up. You ha ve to so lve th ose cos ts w ith sponsorship, and yo u ha ve to be a bit more sop histi cated nowadays when you are doi ng tha t. The spo nsors in the old days used to come up to you and say, "Hey, yo u're a good guy, and we like the way that you promote." Now they say, "How ma ny impressions will you give us, how many people are going to see this? What type of demographics will this be? Will it fit our age group? Is this the audience we're trying to reach? A nd how much of our product are we going to sell after you're done or before you're done?" Now we have to develop a campaign to sell - whether it's oil or oranges or whatever you're selling for the sponsor - you have to actually show them tha t you are selling their. product in order to get the subsid ies to put on these events. As we moved into the '90s we were left without sponsorship. R.J. Reynolds was a tremendous company who had backed d irt track racing to the tu ne of thousands a n d thousands of dollars. They pu t up a poi nts fund for the riders, and they gave the promoters mon ey for advertising . They di dn't eve n care if you p ut it in your pocket, they jus t wanted you to pr omote the eve nt. They gave ou t a lot of b a ck g round s upport like broch ures and pictures of the riders for us to give out. I remem ber w he n they even bou gh t us billboards. Th ey did a lot. Unfo rtunately we could n' t come up with an other sponsor. The AMA needed m on ey for th e points fund. Now the points fund has to come from the purse, and the purse has to come from the promoter, and the promoter has to get that from people who come to the events. You just cannot keep hitting those pe0ple for more money all along the lines of staging this event. You have to subsidize it with sponsorship just like the riders have to subsidize their racing with sponsorship. That's jus t how it goes . The 600cc vs. 883cc d eba te all came about due to purse su bs idizati on? Yes, but the 600s also help get people in the grandstands. I mean everybody loves H a rl ey -Da v id s o n s . We love wa tc hi ng th e m . Some of th e biggest events that we had in flat tr ack came when H on d a stepped up to challenge Harley-Davi dson. I th in k that H on da was actually sensitive to th e American m o t or cy cl e raci ng sentiment. They d id n' t feel th at they shou ld overstep the ir bounds, and so they pulled out of it. It was unfortunate. Hond as are still doing well, and I hope that they con tinue to supply parts to the riders who are using Hon d as. 'As far as the 600s go, Ron Wood has the majority of those 600s, but he has assured me that there are some other brands that are going to come out and join this racing, and you can't have anything better than more manufacturers in there competing, so that these guys can go an d get the bikes for a little bit less money and get more sponsorship out there. I think tha t the 600s provide very close racing, and they add to the program. There are a lot of them ou t there. On the other hand, Harley-Davidson does a gr eat job of mar keting their 883s. We cou ld go out and see that the d ealers were su pporting the racing. We're going to run both classes a t a ll fo u r of my events this yea r. But sticking to the business s ide of things, Harley-Davidson indicated that they were not going to step up and pay the event purses. Ron Wood agreed to do it for the 600s. So you decided to go with th at. Well, it was a major part of the decision. This is a business, and like I said, you have to find ways to su bsidize these bigger costs. It goes back to when we stood up th e (1996 AMA Gra nd Na tio nal) series for a w hile to ease up on the expenses incurred by the promoters because it was easy to lay it off on them. We had to find a way to subsidize them (883s). Harley-Davidson, I believe, has the most to gain from this dirt track racing . They are in it the strongest. Every time we have an advertisement across the u.s. for one of these races, the promoters are yelling, "C 'mon out and watch these Harley -Davidsons doing 140 mph." It's Harley, Harley, Harley. We're always saying it, and people are always associating Grand National racing with Harley-Davidson. Harley has the most to gain from the promoters touting these events across the country. Why HarleyDavidson doesn't stand up and subsidize a television show is beyond me. They could have their product out in fro nt of people and be converting new fans to this form of racing. That's where we need to go with this deal. You mention tele vision. From your end of the business, how important is a TV deal? Everything is getti ng so sophisticated in takin g the sport to the next level. We are in the '90s and we're getting close to the year 2000. If we don't have a television series, then I don't know w hat kind of sport we are. We sho u ld have had one

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