[Ducati] Soup Interview w/ Michael Lock... AMA SBK Content....Good Read.

[John L. Bowman]

AMA has not marketed it's "product" outside of its membership, far as I can
tell. And not enough within the community. Nor do the sponsors. Ford for
example sponsors the AMA Flat Track series. Yet other than their displays at
the track I never see this anywhere in their advertising in other
media/markets.

Also, AMA don't do a good enough job at the track to actually produce the
product so that you get what you paid for in a timely fashion. We were at
Mid-Ohio for the Superbike race this weekend and it was raining on Sunday.
Long story short the racing usually kicks off around 11 but in this
instance, after numerous vague announcements and endless delays to "dry the
track", and an announced start time of 6:15 PM, it finally kicked off at
about 7 PM. This is unacceptable. You have to factor all reasonably
foreseeable circumstances into your production. E.g., if weather is a factor
then you should account for that by being able to run in the rain. The key
is to be able to deliver a quality product, when you said you'd deliver it.
Until they get that down it will always remain a niche sport.  


-----Original Message-----
From: ducati-bounces at ducati.net [mailto:ducati-bounces at ducati.net] On Behalf
Of Joe M Ribaudo
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 1:46 PM
To: ducati at ducati.net
Cc: CDRNE at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Ducati] Soup Interview w/ Michael Lock... AMA SBK Content....Good
Read.


U.S. racing HAS to look outside itself to grow.  Every major sport that's
popular here has "Stars"   It's an unfortunate reality of our culture (too
bad really....that people can't just appreciate something, unless it has a
personality/drama attached to it).
[I don't follow NASCAR, but they have definitely developed their
"Stars"...seems like to older/gruff guys have been replaced by "young-guns"
- I think I just threw up a little while typing that ;-[
WWE has it's Stars (OK....now I know I've taken this analogy way too
far!....LOL)
Even Motor/Supercross has it's Stars.....  How many Ricky Carmichael/James
Stewart shirts are sold here?......Compared to how many Mladin shirts?
(Come to think of it....I've never seen a Mladin shirt...unless it had a
derogatory message on it).

Now, I'm sure that David Beckham won't single-handedly change the U.S.
market for Soccer...but if every major U.S. soccer team had a "David
Beckham" you'd wonder what it might do to the viewship of the game(?)
IMHO....If you want viewership/attendance....you must develop your Stars.
Otherwise, you just draw the same (small) dedicated crowd...not a bad
thing...If you don't want to grow.
Q: Who will recognize the AMA Superbike Champion this year?
A: The same small circle of people as last year.... (Maybe less, because
Ducati left the series and it's worse than ever).  Maybe if Ben Spies
hooked up with Paris Hilton in the Winners Circle, it would make the 6
o'clock news...but yeah that would just be prostituting the sport.

Regards,
Joe