Smoke and Noise - New Racetime.com Column by TFS

Welcome to "Smoke and Noise," a new column for Racetime.com about what's really going on behind the smoke and noise in the world's coolest sport!

This first one is about some ongoing news, and as we stated in the Racetime.com opening statements 6 weeks ago, we want to ask the right questions.

- AMA Contracts

AMA racing is about to change. A decision is expected very soon on contracting out all of professional racing, except for supercross, which is already on a long-term deal with Live Nation that goes to 2019.

The AMA told Cycle News over the weekend (at the Indy trade show) that a decision is not ready yet - but will be soon. They need to select contractors (partners) for motocross, flat track, and road racing. We don't have details on which (or if all of them) are holding things up right now.

- Sale of Supercross?

LN has their motorsports division on the market, with SX being roughly 1/3 of the total. The bulk of the price is Monster Trucks, which are fun to watch and make a lot of noise and smoke too. Don't expect much news on this yet, but watch for it.

This shouldn't affect the contracts, but the AMA has to at least be in the loop.

- Prize Money

If you read the internet, you know an ongoing sore with fans is poor rider purse. In addition, in AMA SXMX, riders have to pay to race a professional race, and crews pay high fees for little things so they can participate, like hundreds of dollars for hardcards.

It's not just a sore for fans, its more for "rank and file" riders who don't have nice salaries, or enough "other" to make ends meet racing.

This site surfaced and has a lot of the mood, www.nrgmx.org, but it's too hard to reverse-engineer the finances of a race or a series by counting what you see. The mood is real, but I doubt the numbers they use are very good.

In GP's, Youthstream went even further, taking prize money out of the budget 3 years ago, passing the burden on to teams. Youthstream bought the series back from Dorna, and they say it was losing money and races. They said they needed to invest in TV to make the series work. It created a big fuss, but in the end, it worked.

The fuss seems to be pretty much over. In fact, when some US photojournalists went to Monaco to the FIM Off-Road Awards last year, one of my esteemed colleagues, Steve "The Nerd" Cox, got an award and the president of Youthstream, Guiseppe Luongo, joked that they didn't like each other very much in the beginning. The Nerd riled Youthstream up by asking around about this for an article about the situation just prior to the MXoN at Ernee, and they told him to stay home. Three years later, Nerd found the teams are not really complaining and they admit it worked.

It's possible to have a good series without prize money, but the teams have to be funded enough to pick up the tab.

- Prize Money 2, Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for It

The reason there is weak prize money in AMA racing is because there is no plan for it, and don't expect one in the near future. This is an unfortunate reality of the sport's business. Control of things exists between the AMA, the OEMs, and the promoters. The riders are not in the loop, so they get a token amount.

When AMA CEO Rob Dingman released the details of his "New Vision" last fall, there was a lot of detail in what the AMA did wrong in the past and how they wanted to set it right, but prize money didn't make the list. Fans should have picked up on that, and asked why not? Hardly anyone did.

Prize money in AMA SX and MX are specified in AMA contracts. The amount is small, but it's specified. It's paid to the AMA by the promoter, and paid back out in AMA checks. At least SX goes beyond the minimum with a points fund.

Q - Did the RFP for AMA motocross contain language specifying prize money? Will it be specified once contracts do go out? Short-term answer - I wouldn't expect AMA racing to suddenly become "big-prize" racing. If anyone can figure that one out, let's hear it!

- Christmas 2007 Came Early for LN, but not the NPG

Exactly one year ago, on Houston weekend, I asked one of the Live Nation folks if the AMA really did extend their SX contract until 2019. His face lit up, he smiled, and he said "Yes, no more fighting. I hate that stuff. I just want to put on races, and now I don't have to worry about that stuff until I am 50!" What about the outdoors, I ask. "Not sure."

It seems the outdoors had to hold one more season for a "wait and see." The NPG had one of it's more productive summers in terms of making things better, and listening to teams and riders, and making changes. They went into the Budds MXoN weekend ready to meet on the future and set some plans (since they were there to help out with the race), and they left feeling betrayed, and facing a "Jam Sports 2."

-What Really Happened at Budds Creek MXoN

The Budds MXoN was the best pro motocross race ever put on in the US, in terms of appearance, turnout, press, lots of things. There were fans jammed in infield traffic and a few snags, but overall the race was a huge success, because it was planned to be.

Youthstream has been wanting room to run a GP in the US, and they saw a good result at Budds as a way to make a showcase race, and make the idea more possible. The NPG was there too, wanting to be part of it, and hoping to leave with a better plan for 2008 and beyond.

Instead, Youthstream and the AMA met about them putting in a bid to run the nationals, for the AMA. Youthstream arrived thinking GPs, and left thinking "Wow, they want someone to run the whole series." They went home and started working on it.

-What Really Happened After the Budds Creek MXoN

In the weeks following the Budds Surprise, a lot of us went back and read the Dingman statement outlining the New Vision, and it talked about what kinds of promoters it wanted to hire. My first reaction was "Wow, that's called writing someone (NPG) out of the manual."

The NPG probably called it "not having a chance to adjust fast enough" since it's no secret that its been a challenge working with an ever-changing AMA Pro that is difficult and meddling, and they swing from one extreme to the next, with no accountability.

The PR war started with a 3-part story about Youthstream on MXLarge. This sparked an angry reaction from DC at Racer X, and he wanted a rebuttal. He got told "no." He has a magazine, a website, and everyone's ear already. And his family's company runs 2 of the 12 nationals - so he's Youthstream's competitor, AND a magazine. Not much chance of getting the story straight there at all.

Things turned for the worse after that, with the site owner labeled a Youthstream puppet. Then rumors started that the biggest and best motocross race in America lost money. The message was "Keep Youthstream out, because everyone else will lose money too." The problem with that claim, is that it appears to be BS. Youthstream will open the books for the weekend for any journalist that asks, if they don't print the whole thing. They say Budds netted over $1M, and were offended by the rumor.

I was at a lunch myself when Luongo opened his own notebook he carries around and read off the whole budget, and he said if his competitors keep spreading that, he will publish the whole budget, and the problem will be found somewhere else.

- MXGEOFF, Youthstream Puppet?

More BS. I've known Geoff Meyer as long as I've been covering races. He makes his living covering GPs, and he's OK with people calling him pro-Youthstream, or even a shill. He doesn't mind. He just loves the GPs, and he just likes Youthstream and thinks they are the right choice.

He bought the popular euro website MXLarge a couple of years ago from Bernd Dietrich, and has done pretty well with it. He gets ad revenue, and some Youstream support to keep writing a lot, about like I did with RX when I did "Weekend Window" for them last year. But, its still his site and he decides what to do with it. He's a busy writer and does a good job. He's having a bit of fun on his own poking at critics on line, but he's doing that stuff on his own.

If everyone that does a website can't do extra writing or photos for a promoter, what's the deal in the US? We have a single promoter/publisher/website with half the people at a race working for them at least some. Are they all puppets too? Take them out in the US, and not much is left!

- What is the AMA Thinking?

We read all the time that AMA Pro was difficult and meddling, but there are 2 sides to the story. To the AMA, the NPG is just as difficult and a pain too.

If you only get your news and opinion on line, you can't know the mood at the AMA. Not now, and not in the past. They have to be more discrete with things, because they don't have the PR machine that promoters have.

If you ask quietly and off the record, their story becomes more clear-there is a sense of entitlement coming from the NPG side that is a pain in the ass. The phrase I have heard wispered for years is "These tracks will never change, they think having a national is a birthright."

That mood is really key to understanding what is going on, but you never really see it in the open. If you ask around privately, it's real.

- Youthstream vs NPG, or AMA vs NPG?

The other key to understanding the contract fuss is that it is not about Youthstream "taking away" motocross. More BS. This is the AMA "taking back" the series from one promoting body that feels "entitled." Who's MX series is it anyway?

The AMA is doing this to find a promoter for AMA motocross, not to sell it, or let someone take it away. They want the era of entitlement to end, and replace it with the era of the deal.

- Silence

It's been "quiet time" recently as far as the AMA contracts. The bidders really can't reveal details, and don't want to rile the decision-makers with BS.

Non-bidders can talk, but scan the web or the magazines for statements and you won't find much. They are silent too, at least in public.

Budds MXoN happened at the end of the 2007 season, so there hasn't been much racing since. I asked around at the US Open, and left with "things look bad for the NPG." Wow. I went to Monaco and looked for non-Youthstream folks who would talk off the record and it was "this is the AMA trying to get control of the series back." Wow again. Then when supercross started back, more comments like that. I've been asking for months to find someone who thinks the NPG is leading the process, and so far the only one is 500guy.

Q - Why such a large gap in opinion between casual fans and newswatchers, and people who know but can't say?

This Smoke and Noise was a bit long. Hopefully it was worth reading and you will read ther next one.

See ya in Atlanta!