Major Air Time
With soaring motorcycle jumps and Wonder Bra trophy girls, Supercross hasn’t changed much since it was born a generation ago in the Los Angeles Coliseum.
But as the Supercross season opens today at Edison International Field in Anaheim, the sport is making a play for the lucrative mainstream, say advertisers, television programmers and promoters.
Long typecast as the Hells Angel of pro sports, Supercross is drawing big enough crowds to blow past its fringe status. And where customers go, television and advertisers follow.
Attendance at Supercross--off-road motorcycle racing moved to an artificial track--totaled nearly 772,000 at 16 host stadiums, up 11.6% for the season over the previous year, according to the nonprofit American Motorcyclist Assn., which sanctions the events.
The sport is so popular in its native Southern California that the Anaheim venue, whose 43,000 seats are sold out, will host another race Feb. 6.
The key to its success: riding the coattails of the alternative sport craze and promoting Supercross as both the original extreme sport and family fun.
“I think people grouped the off-roading group with the street-riding group of motorcyclists, which for a long time had a bad reputation,” said Jeremy McGrath, five-time national champion, whose blond wholesome look hasn’t hurt the drive to sell the sport as family entertainment.
“But it’s not a bunch of delinquents riding out here. Everyone is a professional athlete. . . . I mean, I’m as normal as they get,” he said.
Though Supercross will never rival baseball as America’s favorite pastime, it often draws more spectators than the home team pros, stadium operators say. That helps fill the stands during the dark days after football or before the baseball season. Supercross and Hot Rod Monster Jam were the city of Anaheim’s biggest moneymakers in 1996, before Disney bought the stadium and Supercross went to the L.A. Coliseum during remodeling.
TV networks have tuned in to the Supercross potential.
Advertisers say they get a better rate for air time than for pro hockey, football or baseball. And that coverage--delivering a national and international viewership--also has legitimized Supercross as a mainstream sport, says Patrick Schutte, spokesman for PACE Motor Sports, the Illinois-based promoter of the annual Supercross circuit.
“TV exposure,” said Schutte, “has been essential to our trying to become a household word.”
McGrath called ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” coverage last April “a breakthrough.”
“Six million viewers, that’s about what NASCAR gets,” he said.
Supercross races air several times weekly on all-sports cable network ESPN2, which claims about 62 million household subscribers, ESPN spokesman Dave Nagle said.
“It’s great TV because they play to packed houses and there’s a lot of excitement, and that comes across on the air,” Nagle said.
The ESPN2 Supercross broadcasts average about 170,000 viewers, he said. The cable station says the viewer is similar to that of the much-hyped extreme sports Olympics called the X Games: a young, white, reasonably affluent and suburban male.
“You may have higher viewership on ‘ER,’ but with a lot of what we call waste. If you are an advertiser who wants a specific audience, you’ve got it, at an affordable rate,” Nagle said.
“We got a 3.5 share on ABC’s ‘Wide World of Sports’ last year, which is incredible,” said Scott McLemore, executive producer at Atlanta-based Seals Communications Inc., which produced the ABC broadcast and is one of the biggest providers of programming for ESPN2.
“As a result, ABC is now doing two [of 16 events] this year,” said McLemore, himself a motocross rider in high school.
The public, he said, is enchanted by a sport whose stars are accessible.
“These guys are treated like rock stars. The girls line up all over the place. Kids get to meet them,” he said. “People see that . . . basically motorcycle racers are not spoiled rotten stars like in the NBA. They love to race. Yeah, they make money, but they love the competition. And fans can go right up to them and talk in the pit, get an autograph. Try that with Michael Jordan.”
A Changing Fan Base
Its airborne stunts and affordable prices have attracted fans to Supercross since its 1972 debut when, motorcycle lore has it, the idea was first drawn up on a cocktail napkin.
Yet, promoters say, TV and other media have sniffed at Supercross and its audience. Rednecks in fanny packs. The “Married With Children” audience. A “Supersize me!” crowd. Not exactly their coveted ad market.
But times and tastes change. The 1980s advertiser who coveted the Baby Boomer buying a BMW is now chasing Generation X and buyers of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles, say marketing managers for Toyota and Mazda.
Where once motorcycle manufacturers were the primary sponsors of the national circuit, corporations outside the sport such as Toyota and Mazda are now underwriting some of the ride.
Trucks are one of the fastest growing market in the vehicle industry, say marketers for both companies, and Supercross spectators provide the perfect buyer demographics: an average of 48,239 fans, 70% of whom are already pickup owners and are predominantly 18 to 34 year old males, said Mark Gelfond, Toyota’s sports marketing manager.
Toyota is a sponsor for the circuit. Mazda is among three sponsors of McGrath’s team. Mazda also has produced a special series model pickup truck designed by cutting-edge motocross designer Troy Lee, whose flashy helmets are on most Supercross riders.
Mazda is building its entire national TV and print advertising campaign with a motocross theme, said Jack Stavana, group manager for marketing plans at Mazda North American operations.
“Tough, agile and athletic, with a bit of attitude. That’s our image and why we’ve chosen motocross,” Stavana said.
“We’re very focused on this motocross generation,” he said. “That’s what we’ve determined to be our target market. That and the children of baby boomers: the boomlets.”
McGrath, 27, of Canyon Lake, reportedly earns about $2 million a year in salary and endorsements and is the highest-paid Supercross or motocross racer. Since 1994, McGrath has been a spokesman for MCI’s 1-800-Collect, and he is sponsored by five other companies. He said the MCI division wants to penetrate the younger market and figures he will sway “the normal blue-collar person.”
Many of the companies involved with Supercross say McGrath and his familiarity has provided the celebrity face an aspiring mainstream sport needs to build its fan base.
Last year, a video game called Jerry McGrath Supercross ’98 hit the market in June and became the third-highest Sony PlayStation seller of the year, said Mike Meyers, spokesman for Acclaim Entertainment in New York, which produced the McGrath game.
“He is called the Michael Jordan of Supercross,” said Meyers, who added that other Supercross video games are planned. “The Sony PlayStation customer is 90% to 95% male, 16 to 25 years old,” Meyers explained. “The teen demographic has a lot of trend-setting influence.”
Cutting-Edge Brand Identity for Sponsors
The so-called bleeding-edge sports like Supercross, skateboarding and wake-boarding (surfboard skiing) pull the younger buyer into the marketplace, and older buyers follow.
The motorcycle companies that dominate world sales--Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha--don’t come close in direct sales to recouping their sizable investment in motorcycle racing. Only an estimated 88,000 racing motorcycles are sold yearly, said Roy Janson, operations vice president for PACE Motor Sports.
Yet the racing cachet sells less daring motorcycles and bikes. More important to manufacturers is that the sport builds brand identity.
“When people grow out of motorcycle riding, they may buy a Kawasaki Jet Ski or a utility vehicle or a generator,” said Bruce Stjernstrom, manager of the Kawasaki factory team.
All four foreign bike makers based their U.S. headquarters in Southern California and have test courses in the clay hills of Corona.
“That’s why all the big four are in it. And the interest has grown in the past three or four years to a much wider audience,” Stjernstrom said.
Some in the alternative sports world fret about whether the outlaw image that popularized Supercross will be lost as promoters woo the masses. Will Supercross survive if Bob Costas does color commentary and you can buy a race bike at Sears?
“Ain’t gonna happen,” said Mike Russell, owner of LBZ Clothing, a Huntington Beach maker of Supercross wear sold at motorcycle dealerships and a few mall shops like Pacific Sunwear and gothic-themed Hot Topic.
“Sears? I don’t think you’ll ever see that happening,” he laughed. “JC Penney or WalMart would be the kiss of death. Supercross will never be that mainstream.”
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Bikes Get a Bounce
Since bottoming out in 1991, Supercross attendance has leaped. Last season’s average mark was a 11.6% increase from 1997, and records were set in 10 of 16 venues. Average attendance:
1986: 385,535
1998: 771,817
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GLOSSARY
Whoops: (Whoop-de-doos) A series of closely spaced bumps, similar to moguls in skiing.
Doubles/Triples: A series of dirt mounds that are designed to launch the riders high into the air.
Endo: When the motorcycle flips end over end with the rider.
Lipstand: When a rider crashes face-first into the ground.
Nac-Nac: While airborne, rider takes one foot off the foot peg and swings it back over the other side of the bike, as if dismounting the bike in midair.
Can-Can: Rider takes both feet off the foot pegs and kicks legs straight out, while airborne.
The Superman: Another airborne stunt in which rider leans forward on the handlebars and kicks legs straight back, so it appears he is flying like Superman.
Heel Clicker (or Dorothy): Rider brings both legs over the handlebars and clicks heels, while airborne.
Source: American Motorcycle Assn.; PACE Motor Sports
