Latest / Pit Talk / MotoGP’s F1 Moment? What Liberty Media Means for the Future of the Sport

Transcript

MotoGP’s F1 Moment? What Liberty Media Means for the Future of the Sport · Pit Talk

0:00
Speaker 1: Liberty Media, the same powerhouse befind behind Sorry, Formula Ones
0:05
Speaker 1: Global Transformation has officially acquired MotoGP from Dawna for a
0:09
Speaker 1: whopping three point two billion euros. So what did this
0:14
Speaker 1: really mean for the sport that we love. Well, we're
0:16
Speaker 1: gonna unpack what Liberty could bring to the table, what
0:19
Speaker 1: moto GP desperately needs, What should we be excited about
0:23
Speaker 1: and what should we be cautious of. This episode of
0:25
Speaker 1: Pittalk is sponsored by Shannon's Insurance. I'm your host Rinita
0:29
Speaker 1: Vanmuelin alongside Moto GP, Jurno and statman veteran Matt Clayton.
0:36
Speaker 1: And joining us today is a man who's been in
0:38
Speaker 1: the trenches all round every round this season. Oh, I'm
0:42
Speaker 1: already off to a good start because I'm so excited.
0:45
Speaker 1: Simon Patterson from the Races joining us. Simon, welcome to
0:49
Speaker 1: pit Talk.
0:50
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be with you, guys.
0:52
Speaker 2: It's about tayme. We all finally actually sat down together
0:55
Speaker 2: and did this, isn't it? Because we've it for long enough,
0:58
Speaker 2: we've spent looks time together in it and you've been
1:00
Speaker 2: over in Europe and so it's good to actually fainally
1:02
Speaker 2: be you know, opinion edited together.
1:05
Speaker 3: This is the official podcast before the unofficial podcast that
1:08
Speaker 3: happens in some desk and the Philip Island Press roo
1:10
Speaker 3: a bit about two months time, which is probably not
1:12
Speaker 3: for publication for anyone long.
1:14
Speaker 4: I know, it's crazy, crazy.
1:17
Speaker 1: Right before we get stuck in, though, Matt, I think
1:20
Speaker 1: we need to give like a bit of context to
1:22
Speaker 1: our listeners, a bit background, because we know you here
1:25
Speaker 1: as a stats man the journal, like I said on
1:26
Speaker 1: pit Talk, but you've actually been around f one before
1:29
Speaker 1: it was even on Netflix, So you are.
1:31
Speaker 4: Not that old amazing that Netflix didn't invent formula? What
1:36
Speaker 4: is it.
1:36
Speaker 3: I'm not going to ask you how old they didn't, apparently, Roonita,
1:40
Speaker 3: I'm not going to ask you how old slash young
1:42
Speaker 3: you were when I did my very first Grand Prix.
1:44
Speaker 4: But it was in.
1:44
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety eight, so I'm not sure you would have
1:47
Speaker 3: made it through the gates with the press pass back
1:49
Speaker 3: in those days. But it's been super interesting, you know,
1:51
Speaker 3: all jokes asider because I feel like I'm living at
1:54
Speaker 3: this liberty story for a second time, because it was
1:57
Speaker 3: eight years ago that they first became involved in formula.
2:00
Speaker 3: If anyone knows anything about F one. In the years
2:02
Speaker 3: prior to that, it was, as Mark Weber used to say,
2:05
Speaker 3: it's Bernie Eckleston's train set.
2:06
Speaker 4: We're just playing with it.
2:07
Speaker 3: And that was the way Mark always used to describe
2:09
Speaker 3: Formula one, and it was very much. It was run
2:11
Speaker 3: in such a different way, an unrecognizable way, than it
2:15
Speaker 3: is now. You look at what's happened to F one
2:18
Speaker 3: just in the last eight years since Liberty's been involved,
2:21
Speaker 3: there's a lot of good that's come out of that.
2:23
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things that rusted on fans turned
2:27
Speaker 3: media people that are of a certain vintage, shall we say,
2:30
Speaker 3: probably don't like about the way that Liberty's gone about it.
2:33
Speaker 3: I'll be super curious to see knowing Motor GP as
2:37
Speaker 3: I do, but seeing the Liberty experience from the F
2:39
Speaker 3: one side as I have, I'll be super curious to
2:41
Speaker 3: see what translates, what doesn't work, what they'll do the same,
2:45
Speaker 3: what they'll learn from with what they did with F one,
2:47
Speaker 3: and what they'll do differently. The next few years is
2:49
Speaker 3: going to be super interesting. I feel like I'm watching
2:52
Speaker 3: a movie that I've already watched once before, but I'm
2:54
Speaker 3: not quite sure. I remember how it ends, so that's
2:56
Speaker 3: going to be the interesting part about it for me.
2:59
Speaker 3: Yes there is some content ext and yes you made
3:01
Speaker 3: the old joke Guilty has charged. Someone's got to be
3:05
Speaker 3: the Sadia figure on this podcast, and it most will
3:06
Speaker 3: be made.
3:07
Speaker 1: I love the fact that, like you just said, the movie,
3:09
Speaker 1: and the first thing I thought about was the fact
3:11
Speaker 1: that Happy Gilmore two has just been released on them.
3:14
Speaker 1: That's obviously on my mind. But let's not talk about
3:17
Speaker 1: Adam Sandler and Gold. Let's talk about Moto GP. So Simon,
3:21
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you, because obviously you're in
3:24
Speaker 1: the paddy. What's their general mood among teams and writers
3:28
Speaker 1: since the whole Liberty takee I've always confirmed.
3:31
Speaker 2: So first of all, no one really knows what's going
3:33
Speaker 2: to come yet, right, that's the thing. We've seen what
3:36
Speaker 2: they've done with that one, but we know that the
3:38
Speaker 2: model is maybe not necessarily just copy and piste. So
3:42
Speaker 2: people are expecting definitely things that have been done in
3:45
Speaker 2: F one to be done, but not all of them.
3:47
Speaker 2: So it's not going to be just oh, look, this
3:50
Speaker 2: is exactly what they did. This is exactly what we're
3:52
Speaker 2: going to do now as a.
3:52
Speaker 5: Result, so there's going to be you know, people are
3:54
Speaker 5: still curious about what actual ship it's going to take.
3:58
Speaker 2: There hasn't been any Liberty people in the paddock yet
4:01
Speaker 2: since the takeover. We think that's probably because the round
4:05
Speaker 2: after the takeover was like Saxon Ring and Bruneau, which
4:09
Speaker 2: are two of the least glamorous paddocks.
4:11
Speaker 5: In the championship, and we think they've.
4:13
Speaker 2: Probably held off on telling Liberty to turn up until
4:16
Speaker 2: we go to the Red Bull Ring at the next round,
4:18
Speaker 2: which is like the greatest facility that we have, and
4:20
Speaker 2: it's the fau Bels and Whistles experience. So we think
4:23
Speaker 2: that we're probably going to see some Americans rock up
4:25
Speaker 2: in the paddock at the next round, the first one
4:28
Speaker 2: back after the summer break. But the general consensus seems
4:32
Speaker 2: to be that this can only be good because, you know, fundamentally,
4:37
Speaker 2: we have an amazing product.
4:39
Speaker 5: Motegip is.
4:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, there's a bit of a lull at the
4:42
Speaker 2: minute as we wait for the new rules to come
4:43
Speaker 2: in with the on track action, but by and large,
4:46
Speaker 2: it is an excellent product. What you see whenever you
4:49
Speaker 2: watch it is super entertaining. It hooks people in it
4:52
Speaker 2: draws people in, but don't know have been really bad at.
4:56
Speaker 5: The bit where they get new people to watch it.
4:58
Speaker 2: There has been a you know, not very good marketing
5:02
Speaker 2: strategy built around the sport, and I think that is
5:06
Speaker 2: where Liberty really changed things in F one. And it's
5:09
Speaker 2: the kind of the low hanging fruit for whenever they
5:12
Speaker 2: come into motor GP. Someone told me recently that whenever
5:15
Speaker 2: they took over Formula one, the marketing department in FOM,
5:20
Speaker 2: the company that runs F one was four people and
5:23
Speaker 2: the first thing they did was hire another one hundred
5:25
Speaker 2: and sixty. And that's the kind of attitude that the
5:30
Speaker 2: motor GP. I think that the murdor GP paddock thinks
5:33
Speaker 2: that MURDUGP needs it needs.
5:36
Speaker 5: That kick up.
5:37
Speaker 2: The asset needs to be shown to more people because,
5:42
Speaker 2: you know, without turning this into motorbike journalist bash is
5:45
Speaker 2: car racing. When you watch an F one car go
5:48
Speaker 2: around a track, it's all right, it's cool, but you
5:51
Speaker 2: can't really see the driver. They're very enclosed, even more
5:54
Speaker 2: so with the halo these days. Then you watch a
5:56
Speaker 2: motorbike go around a track and the guy's hanging off
5:59
Speaker 2: at knee down, elbow done. You know, everything is more
6:02
Speaker 2: visually spectacular. It should be an easy cell, especially with
6:07
Speaker 2: the short you know, the short eRASS and the attention
6:10
Speaker 2: span of you know, our current screen addle generation of yours.
6:15
Speaker 5: It should work. All the pieces are there and we
6:18
Speaker 5: just need Liberty to work their magic. Hopefully.
6:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it should actually work better in some respects of
6:24
Speaker 3: the FI model for a couple of things that you
6:25
Speaker 3: just said there, there is that there is something quite
6:28
Speaker 3: visceral about being able to translate the on track action
6:32
Speaker 3: live from a Motor GP event that Formula One will
6:35
Speaker 3: never replicate, and that is because you see the human
6:37
Speaker 3: element of it there there in the bikes occupy a
6:40
Speaker 3: smaller space of tarmac. The stage is bigger for them
6:43
Speaker 3: to show what it is that they can do and
6:45
Speaker 3: you can actually see the people. Now the flip side
6:48
Speaker 3: to that is a performance element to it. If we
6:50
Speaker 3: go to some of the similar circuits that the two
6:52
Speaker 3: series go, so you think of Catalonia or I can
6:55
Speaker 3: tell you Simon, there's nothing quite like standing on the
6:57
Speaker 3: outside of turn three at Barcelona watching a Formula one
7:00
Speaker 3: card just completely lit going through there with barely a
7:03
Speaker 3: lift of the throttle. It doesn't look like a human
7:05
Speaker 3: should be able to control. That is quite staggering when
7:08
Speaker 3: you see that. But there are certain tracks and the
7:12
Speaker 3: way these races are played out over such a short
7:15
Speaker 3: intense time frame that translates brilliantly to a story, A
7:20
Speaker 3: great story being told better is the way I always
7:22
Speaker 3: like to describe it. And to my mind, you know,
7:25
Speaker 3: it's hard for us because we're in it and we
7:26
Speaker 3: live it and we breathe it. But Motor GP is
7:29
Speaker 3: kind of world sport's best kept secret in a lot
7:31
Speaker 3: of ways because it's got every element you would want,
7:33
Speaker 3: but perhaps not the storytelling that you need to get
7:37
Speaker 3: that out to that wider audience. But Redtter, I'm actually
7:39
Speaker 3: going to ask you a question. I want to go
7:41
Speaker 3: slightly off script here. We want to ask into questions.
7:43
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you one for a change, because
7:45
Speaker 3: this is your domain. We are simon how it's been
7:48
Speaker 3: felt in the paddock with the news of liberty coming in.
7:51
Speaker 3: So you know, you live in this social media space,
7:53
Speaker 3: this is what you do. What is the reaction from
7:57
Speaker 3: the rusted on bike fans because I would suggest that
8:00
Speaker 3: they're probably a little wary, maybe a little skeptical, And
8:04
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say gatekeeping is quite the right term, but
8:06
Speaker 3: it's like, we don't want some of the elements that
8:09
Speaker 3: Formula one has become to come into our inverted Kova's sport.
8:13
Speaker 3: What's the general sort of reaction in the social space
8:16
Speaker 3: being like, because it's not a space that I tend
8:17
Speaker 3: to occupy too much because I'm too old that can't
8:19
Speaker 3: be bothered, and Simon drops in and out of it,
8:22
Speaker 3: mostly when he's sparring with people who are probably calling
8:24
Speaker 3: him names on social media. So, given you all the
8:27
Speaker 3: most neutral of the three of us in this conversation,
8:29
Speaker 3: what is it actually like? Like, what are we hearing
8:31
Speaker 3: from the fans?
8:32
Speaker 1: I think MODOGIP fans are so serious about the sport.
8:37
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily about the hype and the glamour like
8:40
Speaker 1: what we've experienced with F one, So I feel like
8:43
Speaker 1: what a lot of the content that translates from F
8:46
Speaker 1: one is a lot of the who witch drivers dating
8:51
Speaker 1: this person? Then what's happening off track? It's all of
8:54
Speaker 1: the tabloids and the gossipy type stuff. MotoGP seems to
8:58
Speaker 1: still just be about the racing or the manufacturer or
9:02
Speaker 1: the technology that's coming in now. I don't necessarily know
9:05
Speaker 1: if it's going to correlate across because I feel like
9:08
Speaker 1: most of the demographic who are fans of Moto GP
9:11
Speaker 1: either a because they ride a bike so they're interested
9:14
Speaker 1: in it, or they're the older generation. And I'm not
9:17
Speaker 1: trying to say anything about age. I feel really bad
9:20
Speaker 1: now because it just seems to keep coming up in
9:22
Speaker 1: our conversation. But I think of people like my dad
9:25
Speaker 1: and my uncles are those sorts of guys who rode
9:27
Speaker 1: bikes with their kids and then followed along through the
9:29
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, and now it's kind of continued the
9:32
Speaker 1: ROSSI fans have come in. So I'm really going to
9:35
Speaker 1: be interested to see if that whole glitzy glamour a
9:40
Speaker 1: sort of content translates across. But what I do think
9:43
Speaker 1: would be really cool to see is the personalities and
9:46
Speaker 1: the characters come through, like what we do see in
9:49
Speaker 1: F one and what Drives Survived did brilliantly. I know
9:52
Speaker 1: you worked with Daniel Ricardo a lot of Matt, so
9:55
Speaker 1: you know Daniel as a person, and then you see
9:57
Speaker 1: Daniel who's on the TV show, it's his character. It's
10:00
Speaker 1: this goofiness. Jack Miller's kind of done it. I feel
10:04
Speaker 1: like my brother did a little bit back in the
10:06
Speaker 1: day with the bucket hats, trying to create that like
10:08
Speaker 1: personal branding. So I think if we can see a
10:11
Speaker 1: little bit more of that style of staff come through,
10:14
Speaker 1: then I think it'll be cool. But then this is
10:17
Speaker 1: where I'm going to kind of pivots assignmon because I
10:19
Speaker 1: have this opinion. But you know, all the VR forty
10:23
Speaker 1: six guys, they're all like friends, right, so there's we're
10:26
Speaker 1: not going to see too much of that head budding.
10:28
Speaker 1: But then there's Pedro Poster who wants to create this, right.
10:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely there's people in monigp Crowno for a
10:34
Speaker 2: platform for ravalies.
10:36
Speaker 5: There is, and I.
10:37
Speaker 2: Mean the other thing, not even the raiders though before
10:41
Speaker 2: we even look at them. You know, I think part
10:43
Speaker 2: of what mid Drive to survived so interesting was the
10:46
Speaker 2: ravelry between the teams.
10:48
Speaker 5: Yes, you know, if you were to.
10:50
Speaker 2: Say who is the biggest raveler, who was until recently
10:53
Speaker 2: the biggest ravelry in F one, it probably wasn't Lewis
10:56
Speaker 2: Hamilton versus Max fist Up, and it was total war
10:58
Speaker 2: versus Christian owner. And that's something that Drive to Survive
11:01
Speaker 2: really magnified. One thing that's super interesting about this whole
11:07
Speaker 2: like tvsque situation that they've created and f one is
11:11
Speaker 2: that it's looking more and more likely that sort of
11:16
Speaker 2: one of the breakout stars of Drive to Survive is
11:18
Speaker 2: already on his way to the Motorjip Baddock because former
11:21
Speaker 2: HAS team boss gunther Steiner has been linked to taking
11:24
Speaker 2: over the Tech three Motorji beating because Hervey Pontrell is
11:27
Speaker 2: ready to retire and sell up. So like, there's your
11:30
Speaker 2: immediate way to hook these fans across, isn't it. You
11:34
Speaker 2: Just you don't even pretend you're trying to do something different.
11:37
Speaker 2: You make a Motorgip documentary and you call it Right
11:39
Speaker 2: to Survive. You don't have to pretend that you're doing
11:41
Speaker 2: anything else, and you you launch this kind of spiky,
11:46
Speaker 2: outspoken character into the middle of the team bosses, and
11:48
Speaker 2: that's going to create something, because we already see little
11:52
Speaker 2: flickers of that with you know, Honda and Kate Hamer
11:55
Speaker 2: always taking shots at each other subtly, and they you know,
11:59
Speaker 2: Caddy Gigi sitting and his pedestal attacking everyone below him
12:02
Speaker 2: with his rule changes, and there's lots of drama in
12:06
Speaker 2: murugp and that side of things. And then you've got
12:09
Speaker 2: writers who you know, there's certainly writers who want to
12:13
Speaker 2: create a bit of drama or who aren't afraid of
12:15
Speaker 2: creating a bit of drama. Mark Marquez would punch his
12:19
Speaker 2: grandmother to win a championship, let alone one of his.
12:21
Speaker 5: Rivals, because that's just who he is, and we will
12:25
Speaker 5: see more of that.
12:26
Speaker 2: There's people like Pedro Acosta, who is very outspoken and
12:29
Speaker 2: opinionated and not afraid to say, you know, what he
12:32
Speaker 2: feels about his rivals.
12:34
Speaker 5: But I also think that.
12:35
Speaker 2: There's there's guys in MUDUGIP like Jack Miller who are
12:39
Speaker 2: smart enough to also understand the opportunity that this presents
12:43
Speaker 2: to maybe lay it on a bit thicker than they
12:45
Speaker 2: would normally. And I'm not saying that Jack's character is
12:49
Speaker 2: an act, because we all here and know what Jack
12:52
Speaker 2: is like, and he is exactly like he comes across.
12:55
Speaker 2: But there, you know, there are opportunities to maybe just
12:59
Speaker 2: be a bit.
13:00
Speaker 5: Stronger with some of the things that they see.
13:01
Speaker 2: And do I know multiple people in modern GP who
13:06
Speaker 2: don't really like each.
13:07
Speaker 5: Other, Tim Metz Ravels.
13:10
Speaker 2: You know people who come up against each other on track,
13:12
Speaker 2: but It almost feels like there's not a platform for
13:16
Speaker 2: them to dislike each other publicly at the minute, and
13:18
Speaker 2: that's something that Liberty will, I am certain, build for them.
13:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's where the difference is to me, Simon,
13:25
Speaker 3: and I think that Drive to Survive created the platform
13:28
Speaker 3: for some of these rivalries that may have been rivalries
13:31
Speaker 3: in lower case to step forward into the spotlight. I
13:34
Speaker 3: mean the Christian Horner Toto Wolfing. You've got two alpha
13:37
Speaker 3: males that are very successful in their business lives. They're
13:39
Speaker 3: probably going to look at each other with a fair
13:41
Speaker 3: amount of suspicion interrepidation.
13:42
Speaker 4: But we didn't have the.
13:43
Speaker 3: Forum to know about that in the past, Whereas I
13:46
Speaker 3: feel a similar series for bikes, there are these things
13:49
Speaker 3: that simmer, but perhaps there's not the platform to push
13:53
Speaker 3: them out. But I'm curious with this for me and
13:56
Speaker 3: that I think a lot of people on the bike side,
13:58
Speaker 3: they see Liberty met and they almost see that as
14:01
Speaker 3: shorthand for Ride to Survive or whatever we're going to
14:04
Speaker 3: call this fictious series we're talking about. Do you think
14:07
Speaker 3: it's not as simple as that? Is it like we
14:09
Speaker 3: don't necessarily have to have one and we have to
14:12
Speaker 3: have one now. But do you think that's an inevitable
14:15
Speaker 3: byproduct of liberty taking over here, or perhaps is there
14:18
Speaker 3: a different playbook given the sports and their audiences are
14:21
Speaker 3: so different that Liberty need to follow at the moment.
14:24
Speaker 3: I don't think it's just a matter of getting a
14:26
Speaker 3: few boom mics in the paddock for a year and
14:28
Speaker 3: filming everybody's offhand conversations, creating a few faux conversations, and
14:32
Speaker 3: then badging it as something else. I think bikes people
14:34
Speaker 3: on principle would probably bristle against that.
14:38
Speaker 2: I think that there will have to be a documentary series, okay,
14:42
Speaker 2: in some shape or form, simply because it is it's
14:46
Speaker 2: the standard iron sports. Because of drafts of ave you know,
14:49
Speaker 2: sex Nations, Ugly, a turd of France's America's Cup.
14:52
Speaker 5: They have all got these documentary series.
14:54
Speaker 2: Built our own, you know, kind of behind the scenes
14:57
Speaker 2: access because of what Liberty is dead. So I think
15:00
Speaker 2: that there will be there's an inevitability that the mortigp
15:03
Speaker 2: will have to do something similar. I mean, ever, for
15:07
Speaker 2: no other reason than to repair the damage did by
15:09
Speaker 2: their previous attempt. Oh my god, it was going to
15:12
Speaker 2: go for a documentary series ever met, so it has.
15:17
Speaker 5: To be done.
15:18
Speaker 3: I went looking for some old clips of Motor GP Unlimited,
15:21
Speaker 3: and I gave up after the second one I found
15:23
Speaker 3: where they had spelt Mark Marquez's first name incorrectly, But
15:26
Speaker 3: that's another story in the actual caption. So that was
15:29
Speaker 3: that wasn't a great start. But what do you think, Simon,
15:32
Speaker 3: in terms of you know, we know what liberty has done,
15:37
Speaker 3: but if they if they phoned you and said, look, Simon,
15:40
Speaker 3: we'd like you to come, and you know, we'd like
15:42
Speaker 3: to sit around a table and really pick your brain
15:44
Speaker 3: and everything we want to do. We're going to take
15:46
Speaker 3: your guidance on this to your mind. Where is it
15:50
Speaker 3: they make the big, biggest impact? And maybe a second
15:52
Speaker 3: question to that, what's the priority here? Because you can't
15:55
Speaker 3: do everything tomorrow. This needs to be a slow burn
15:58
Speaker 3: over a long period of years. And you mentioned twenty
16:00
Speaker 3: seven as being this sort of inflection point maybe for
16:03
Speaker 3: the sporting part of all of this, because let's be honest,
16:06
Speaker 3: the rest of twenty five and twenty six looks like
16:07
Speaker 3: a decade benefit and probably a number ninety three benefit
16:10
Speaker 3: until we get to the rule changes. So there's this
16:13
Speaker 3: natural You've got your feet under the table for eighteen months.
16:15
Speaker 3: You now know what this sport is. The sporting narrative
16:18
Speaker 3: might change twenty seven. It might not, but it is
16:20
Speaker 3: the possibility that it will. What's the priority do you
16:23
Speaker 3: think that what's the lowest of the low hanging fruit
16:25
Speaker 3: as you described it, and then what should they be
16:27
Speaker 3: looking at doing longer term?
16:30
Speaker 2: The thing for me, and this is something that Renida
16:32
Speaker 2: has already picked up on. The thing for me that
16:34
Speaker 2: Murujip has always done that I don't think is necessarily
16:38
Speaker 2: the right approach is with the possible exception to golf,
16:43
Speaker 2: I think we're the only other sport in the world
16:46
Speaker 2: that markets almost exclusively to the people who take part.
16:50
Speaker 5: In that sport.
16:51
Speaker 4: Does it wear absolutely.
16:52
Speaker 2: Sell motiv regressing to bakers, And that's as we've seen
16:57
Speaker 2: that as a diminishing audience because less people are ratings,
17:00
Speaker 2: especially as people are riding sports bikes, and the kind
17:05
Speaker 2: of the previous captive audience of the guys who will
17:09
Speaker 2: buy what you race.
17:10
Speaker 5: On us on a Monday aren't there anymore.
17:12
Speaker 2: So that to me means we have to look at
17:15
Speaker 2: open in the audience and that is something that Liberty.
17:17
Speaker 5: Has done really really well. On F one. You know, the.
17:22
Speaker 2: If you enrage the teenage girl fan base of any
17:28
Speaker 2: F one driver, you quickly realize how much they've changed
17:31
Speaker 2: that audience.
17:33
Speaker 5: And it's for the better.
17:34
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, I'm using that example because it's
17:36
Speaker 2: the way that you see them in their visible But
17:39
Speaker 2: it's really cool that there's now a huge broad demographic
17:43
Speaker 2: watching motorsport. That's good and I think that that's something
17:48
Speaker 2: that we can transfer over fairly easily because we've got
17:51
Speaker 2: all the same elements.
17:54
Speaker 5: One thing that I think really stands.
17:55
Speaker 2: Out for me in the short term is you year's
18:00
Speaker 2: circuits talking about.
18:01
Speaker 5: How F one is.
18:03
Speaker 2: Is there big cash kind of how you know, like
18:06
Speaker 2: Silveston this year five hundred and eighty thousand people across
18:09
Speaker 2: four days compared to like ninety thousand for Motor GP.
18:15
Speaker 2: Circuit of the Americas are bringing in less than forty
18:18
Speaker 2: thousand people in race day for MUDORGP. They're bringing in
18:20
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty one hundred and forty thousand for
18:23
Speaker 2: F one. So the circuits in some places are already
18:28
Speaker 2: have already been positioning Motor GP as a kind of
18:31
Speaker 2: a oh you can't afford to buy an F one
18:34
Speaker 2: ticket at one thousand dollars. Would you like a MODORGP
18:37
Speaker 2: ticket at one hundred and fifty dollars yep. And we're
18:40
Speaker 2: kind of we're really well positioned in the short term
18:43
Speaker 2: to be the overflow for the fans who can't afford
18:46
Speaker 2: or can't find a way to go and see f
18:48
Speaker 2: one live. And that seems like a really easy opportunity.
18:51
Speaker 2: That seems like a really simple thing for them to
18:54
Speaker 2: build on as part of a longer term strategy that
18:58
Speaker 2: you know, really have to be taken MODERGP to North
19:02
Speaker 2: America because that's where the money is, that's where the audience,
19:07
Speaker 2: where there's a huge audience who loves sports. The problem
19:10
Speaker 2: is right now that they can't do anything about that
19:13
Speaker 2: in the short term because there is the sum total
19:16
Speaker 2: of one circle in North America that can host modogyp.
19:20
Speaker 3: Well and the other part to me and this is
19:21
Speaker 3: something I was going to get on too later, but
19:23
Speaker 3: we've kind of arrived at it now. There is a
19:26
Speaker 3: diversity of nationality in Formula one that makes the sport
19:30
Speaker 3: more global. You look at the current twenty two rider
19:32
Speaker 3: MotoGP Gridge, You've got fifteen riders from Spain or Italy,
19:36
Speaker 3: and some of them are absolutely awesome. Some of them
19:38
Speaker 3: I'm not sure they should be a motor GP. That's
19:40
Speaker 3: another conversation. But there is a sort of homogeneity to
19:44
Speaker 3: the driver the rider line up at the moment, and
19:47
Speaker 3: I don't want people to be promoted just for the
19:49
Speaker 3: sake of the fact that you have, Oh, we need
19:51
Speaker 3: this passport and we need this passport and the better
19:53
Speaker 3: riders aren't going in it. I've always argued that if
19:55
Speaker 3: you get to MotoGP as a Spanish writer, there's none
19:57
Speaker 3: of this Oh it's the Spanish World Championship. Ausly, you
19:59
Speaker 3: better be bloody good because there's a lot of good
20:01
Speaker 3: Spanish guys that are lining up ready to get in there.
20:03
Speaker 3: But you know, at the moment, we've got the sub
20:05
Speaker 3: total of no Brits, no Americans, and white Australian who
20:08
Speaker 3: occasionally speaks English, and Jack Miller and any agree with that.
20:13
Speaker 3: And so you've got an American media company coming in
20:18
Speaker 3: trying to sell the sport where you've got one and
20:20
Speaker 3: a half native English speakers on the grid. Will give
20:22
Speaker 3: Brad Binder the Haarf Brother's say much on the best
20:25
Speaker 3: of times, but you've got a lot of guys who
20:27
Speaker 3: aren't dealing in their native language here, And I'm wondering
20:30
Speaker 3: if a more diverse grid is something that, you know,
20:33
Speaker 3: longer term, the sport is going to need, if it's
20:36
Speaker 3: really going to crack this American market. Because I'm Renda
20:39
Speaker 3: is putting her hand up here, I'm going to finish
20:41
Speaker 3: this point. The Americans love their professional sport, but they're
20:44
Speaker 3: not necessarily only loving the American athletes. Because you look,
20:46
Speaker 3: the best baseball players in the world, there'll be some
20:48
Speaker 3: Japanese players in there, the best basketball players in the world.
20:51
Speaker 3: There's nearly triple figures of guys in the NBA that
20:53
Speaker 3: don't and lots of Australians quite frankly, lot of guys
20:56
Speaker 3: from all over the place. So it doesn't necessarily matter
20:59
Speaker 3: about in their sports if you're the best at what
21:02
Speaker 3: you do. But I do wonder if a more diverse
21:04
Speaker 3: grid is a way of unlocking some of that new audience.
21:07
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, diverse grid, but just the fact that everyone
21:10
Speaker 1: in F one actually speaks English, So every radio calls English.
21:13
Speaker 1: Every the green room by they're waiting for the podium
21:16
Speaker 1: is in English. Moroto GP are trying to copy it,
21:19
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you have Matt Bert trying
21:21
Speaker 1: to translate, Like for us here in Australia, he's trying
21:24
Speaker 1: to translate what they're saying in his limited amount of
21:27
Speaker 1: Spanish that he knows. And no offense to Matt and Lewis,
21:30
Speaker 1: but it's like, I want to hear. I want to
21:32
Speaker 1: hear the emotion of what they're saying, and at least
21:34
Speaker 1: the F one drivers they are relaying that because I'm
21:37
Speaker 1: guessing they're speaking English in the garages as well. You know,
21:41
Speaker 1: most of these teams here not, so I feel like
21:42
Speaker 1: that's like the first thing that they need to do.
21:44
Speaker 1: If they're going to bring in these radios and stuff
21:46
Speaker 1: that they're testing as well, why not have them speak
21:48
Speaker 1: in English so that the whole planet can understand and
21:52
Speaker 1: hear what these guys are saying. Do you guys agree
21:54
Speaker 1: with me on that?
21:55
Speaker 2: I follow with people regularly on social media, But the
21:58
Speaker 2: Spanish people are about this is such a But the
22:01
Speaker 2: reality is that English is the most widely spoken second
22:04
Speaker 2: language in the world. It is It is the language
22:06
Speaker 2: that if you're in Indonesia or if you're in Argentina,
22:09
Speaker 2: you probably speak English is your second language. So it
22:12
Speaker 2: makes sense to force them into speaking in English across
22:16
Speaker 2: the board, and you know that there are factory Moto
22:19
Speaker 2: GP writers whose English.
22:21
Speaker 5: Isn't that good and that's like, oh, guys, like.
22:24
Speaker 2: That seems like a really you know, that's a low
22:28
Speaker 2: hanging for it to pick.
22:30
Speaker 5: And to be fair to Dorna, they have been working
22:33
Speaker 5: on that.
22:33
Speaker 2: I know that, like the minute that they realized Pedro
22:36
Speaker 2: Costa was the next big thing, he was basically forced
22:38
Speaker 2: into Dorna organized and paid for English lessons that paid off.
22:43
Speaker 5: So they are aware of that, and it's.
22:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's an obvious one because the Spanish grid
22:51
Speaker 2: that we have is frustrating and I have to say,
22:54
Speaker 2: I have to say it is more frustrating to Dorna
22:58
Speaker 2: than anyone else and it is annuinely.
23:00
Speaker 5: I know there's a.
23:01
Speaker 2: Perception about it's a Spanish championship and it's easier to
23:03
Speaker 2: be to get promoted if you're Spanish, but that is
23:08
Speaker 2: despite their best efforts to fix it. You know that
23:11
Speaker 2: you look at the amount of money that they've spent
23:13
Speaker 2: that they spend from Mini GP Championship to Asia Talent
23:17
Speaker 2: Cup to running the Junior GP series and Spain, you
23:20
Speaker 2: know this system to bring up kids some countries that
23:23
Speaker 2: are not Spain Italy, and we're starting to see the
23:29
Speaker 2: effects of it. You know, Iagura arriving Amotor GP is
23:32
Speaker 2: the first kind of Asia Town Cup star to come through.
23:36
Speaker 2: There are other kids we've seen who I'm watching coming
23:39
Speaker 2: through the pipeline. You know, there's a couple of a
23:41
Speaker 2: couple of quick Aussies in Red Bull Rookies, for example,
23:44
Speaker 2: Carter Thompson, who's who's come up through the ranks of
23:47
Speaker 2: Asia Talent Cup. And I think the problem that we
23:51
Speaker 2: have right now maybe is that Dorner realized about five
23:54
Speaker 2: or six years ago that they really needed to do
23:56
Speaker 2: something to fix this. We're only now starting to see
23:59
Speaker 2: the first payoffs of that, but it's going to take
24:02
Speaker 2: another favorite six years to really change the structure of
24:05
Speaker 2: the grid.
24:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, if this was twenty twenty right now and we're
24:08
Speaker 3: having this same discussion, then that we'd actually been a
24:10
Speaker 3: good place. It needs to catch up. I completely agree.
24:13
Speaker 3: But the sentiment is there and they have acknowledged it.
24:15
Speaker 3: It was just maybe a little bit too late. But Simon,
24:18
Speaker 3: I did want to ask you in terms of you
24:20
Speaker 3: mentioned the size of the crowds where we go to
24:22
Speaker 3: the same circuit like Silverston and Kota. And the one
24:25
Speaker 3: that always comes to me is there is one motor
24:28
Speaker 3: GP event that basically runs like a Formula One event
24:31
Speaker 3: in terms of what it has on the side. It's
24:34
Speaker 3: not just you turn up and watch bikes go around
24:35
Speaker 3: in circles for three days. There's a festival with a
24:38
Speaker 3: bike race in the middle of it. And I'm talking
24:40
Speaker 3: about Lemon. And you see the crowds at the French
24:42
Speaker 3: GP every year, that's matter what the weather is, and
24:44
Speaker 3: the weather's usually crap, let's be honest, but you see
24:47
Speaker 3: the way they turn up and they show out and
24:50
Speaker 3: they make that event unlike anything else for our Australian
24:54
Speaker 3: viewers that may not know the full story of that event.
24:56
Speaker 3: Give us a bit of background as to how that's
24:59
Speaker 3: organized and the promoter it does an amazing job, as
25:01
Speaker 3: we know. But do you think that is the template
25:04
Speaker 3: that Liberty will look at and go, oh, this is
25:06
Speaker 3: what we need to do because this is repeatable across
25:09
Speaker 3: most of our other circuits if we get this right.
25:12
Speaker 2: First of all, I should probably say this is not
25:14
Speaker 2: the podcast to bash the Lemon where they're given the
25:17
Speaker 2: rimulant family history at Lamon and the Ruin Well very true. Yes,
25:23
Speaker 2: Lamine is run by a crazy little Frenchman called Claude
25:28
Speaker 2: Michet who has like fingers and lots of sports pays,
25:32
Speaker 2: owns a professional football team, runs a couple of endurance races.
25:36
Speaker 5: Ron's Lamon and you.
25:39
Speaker 2: Know, Liberty should probably just offer him a blank check
25:43
Speaker 2: to come and work for them because of the job
25:45
Speaker 2: that he does in promoting the sport. They you know,
25:51
Speaker 2: the Lemon Weekend starts now on a Monday because they
25:54
Speaker 2: open the campusites in a Monday and they start to
25:57
Speaker 2: fill them from Monday and then there's something on stage.
26:00
Speaker 2: Basically all weekend there is always entertainment happening. There is
26:06
Speaker 2: these mad parties in the camp sites. There are you
26:09
Speaker 2: know the this year. For the last few years actually
26:12
Speaker 2: they've done a live broadcast from pitt Lane and the
26:16
Speaker 2: Start Finished Grid on French National TV on a Thursday night,
26:20
Speaker 2: and I think this year they said they had twelve
26:22
Speaker 2: thousand people in the grand stands for it.
26:25
Speaker 4: Wow.
26:25
Speaker 2: Okay, so you know, and that because I think that
26:29
Speaker 2: goes out free to air. So imagine whenever you put
26:32
Speaker 2: you on Zarco and Fabio Corduao on the Start finished
26:35
Speaker 2: grid with twelve thousand people on the grandstand and you're
26:37
Speaker 2: able to interview them and have them ride bikes and
26:40
Speaker 2: normally Fabio does a special home livery that he unveils
26:43
Speaker 2: as part of it, and you know, it's it's an
26:45
Speaker 2: awesome event. But it's really worth noting that Lemon has
26:50
Speaker 2: been like this since long before they had two fast
26:53
Speaker 2: frenchmen on the grid.
26:55
Speaker 5: This, you know, it's not linked to the Zarko Corduadro effect.
26:59
Speaker 2: Because it goes back before that to just a really
27:03
Speaker 2: good event where you know, I am absolutely certain there
27:06
Speaker 2: are people who go to the French Grand Prio and
27:08
Speaker 2: never see a motorbike contract because you can go for
27:11
Speaker 2: the weekend and be a part of this crazy kind
27:15
Speaker 2: of almost music festival and just enjoy yourself without actually
27:21
Speaker 2: even caring about the racing or having to go and
27:23
Speaker 2: see the racing. The only place in Europe I've ever
27:26
Speaker 2: been that's anything like it is the eleman Tt in
27:29
Speaker 2: terms of this big festival atmosphere. It's completely unique in
27:34
Speaker 2: motor GP and it has to be at least part
27:37
Speaker 2: of the model because then you look at other events
27:41
Speaker 2: like I'm coming back to buy Silverstone again, but Silverstone
27:44
Speaker 2: this year accidentally, without realizing, scheduled the race during the
27:48
Speaker 2: TT and the number one impact that it had was
27:53
Speaker 2: that all the sort of cool live stuff that Monster
27:56
Speaker 2: Energy in particular have done in the past, all the
27:58
Speaker 2: stunt shows in the drift car and all we're on
28:00
Speaker 2: the aid of Man and suddenly there was no fan entertainment.
28:04
Speaker 2: And you know it when you only have three championships
28:09
Speaker 2: and when you come from you know, like a lot
28:12
Speaker 2: of British fans do come from British Super Break Championship,
28:14
Speaker 2: but there's maybe fourteen races in a day, and then
28:17
Speaker 2: there's three races in a day at the British Grand Prix.
28:20
Speaker 2: You need to buff that out. You need to fill
28:22
Speaker 2: in around it. You need to entertain people with more
28:25
Speaker 2: than just bike racing. You need to give them value
28:27
Speaker 2: for their money. Lamon is very good at that.
28:30
Speaker 5: I'd say they're the best in the business of that.
28:32
Speaker 2: It looks like some of the F one races are
28:35
Speaker 2: doing a good job of that as well, and that
28:39
Speaker 2: to me is kind of a model to build on well.
28:42
Speaker 3: And Renata from your point of view, I mean, you've
28:44
Speaker 3: only recently sort of been in the F one space
28:47
Speaker 3: over the past couple of years with Fox and you've
28:49
Speaker 3: come down to Albert Park, which let's remember it is
28:52
Speaker 3: a semi permanent street circuit in a public park, so
28:54
Speaker 3: it's not even a permanent facility. You cannot believe what
28:59
Speaker 3: that event has turned into. It is absolutely wild with
29:02
Speaker 3: the stage and the bands and all the other activities
29:05
Speaker 3: and never mind what's going on track. It's sort of
29:07
Speaker 3: turned into the equivalent of the horse racing spring racing
29:10
Speaker 3: Carnival here in Australia, Simon, and there's lots of people
29:12
Speaker 3: that turn up and they will not see a live
29:14
Speaker 3: car for three days, but they don't care because they
29:17
Speaker 3: having the time of their lives because there's so much
29:19
Speaker 3: that's going on. But Ronita, from your point of view,
29:21
Speaker 3: I mean you've seen what Albert Park has become. I mean,
29:23
Speaker 3: it's the templates there, isn't it.
29:25
Speaker 1: The template is there for sure? For sure. The first
29:29
Speaker 1: thing though, that when Simon was talking about Silverstone, so
29:32
Speaker 1: I witnessed Silverstone for the British Motorcycle Grand Prix.
29:35
Speaker 3: Of course, yes, right, yeah.
29:38
Speaker 1: So I was there to work for both events. Silverstone
29:42
Speaker 1: Moto GP fantastic for me from a working point of view,
29:46
Speaker 1: I had some friends out in the fan area, so
29:50
Speaker 1: I got to see them. They were telling me how
29:51
Speaker 1: cool it was to be able to watch the bikes
29:53
Speaker 1: and Bloody Bluff and then went back for the Formula
29:56
Speaker 1: One went to arrive and I had to pay for
30:00
Speaker 1: for car parking, which is fine, like I'm happy to do,
30:02
Speaker 1: but the fact that over the whole weekend it was
30:05
Speaker 1: nearly going to cost me four hundred pounds in car
30:07
Speaker 1: parking and I'm parking with the spectators, so they're having
30:11
Speaker 1: to pay that. So considering the fact that these F
30:14
Speaker 1: one fans are spending pretty much their whole entire year's
30:18
Speaker 1: savings for a holiday to go watch F one at
30:21
Speaker 1: Silverstone is mind blowing that they're doing that. But it's
30:25
Speaker 1: not translating over to F one. So if we can
30:29
Speaker 1: get that vibe and that build up of people there,
30:32
Speaker 1: not saying that people to charge four hundred pounds for parking,
30:36
Speaker 1: I'm saying get the people there because yeah, Albert Park,
30:38
Speaker 1: I was in the general fans or own area and
30:42
Speaker 1: we had Lune Croisson, so famous Melbourne croissant restaurant. She
30:46
Speaker 1: had a pop up stand, Daniel Ricardo had his wine there.
30:48
Speaker 1: There was so much going on, there's vibes. Imagine if
30:52
Speaker 1: Mark Marquez and Insto three P sixty who I know,
30:55
Speaker 1: Simon you work with, they had a pop up stand
30:57
Speaker 1: there and they were doing activations and or not. And
31:00
Speaker 1: that's probably the biggest take that I took this year
31:02
Speaker 1: from attending F one and MotoGP is. I really feel
31:06
Speaker 1: like Moto GP could learn from F one with their
31:09
Speaker 1: activations for their fans, because, like you said, it's this experience.
31:13
Speaker 1: And I thought of Bathurst, because Simon, you're at Bathurst
31:17
Speaker 1: last year.
31:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and.
31:20
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you know, the guys there, they have their
31:22
Speaker 1: tents setup and their costumes and their party and the
31:26
Speaker 1: time they're not watching the cars on track either, because
31:28
Speaker 1: they're just there for the vibes. So how do we
31:30
Speaker 1: bring that to motorcycle racing and Moto GP without losing
31:34
Speaker 1: the complexity of the fact that these guys are mustling
31:38
Speaker 1: around prototype bikes in near death experiences, in literally sliding
31:43
Speaker 1: on asphalt, traveling at stupid speeds. How do we keep
31:46
Speaker 1: that seriousness and the complexity and just the rawness of
31:50
Speaker 1: the sport but bring in everything else at the same time.
31:54
Speaker 1: And Matt, like you said, you witnessed this through F one,
31:56
Speaker 1: So how do we do that? How do we do that?
31:59
Speaker 1: From your standpoint and my standpoint.
32:01
Speaker 2: You've kind of hit upon a bit of the catch
32:03
Speaker 2: twenty two, I think.
32:05
Speaker 5: So I was talking last year at one point.
32:08
Speaker 2: We did a podcast together with David Brivio, the track
32:12
Speaker 2: house team boss, obviously veteran MDORGP team boss who also
32:15
Speaker 2: spent a bit of time at Alpine and F one,
32:18
Speaker 2: and he was telling me that we were talking about
32:21
Speaker 2: the subject actually, and he was telling me that Austria,
32:24
Speaker 2: maybe last year, Fernando Alonso came just to spectate a
32:28
Speaker 2: motor GP for the day and they were standing in
32:31
Speaker 2: the middle of the product together, him and Brevio talking
32:34
Speaker 2: and kind of Mark Marquez had came past and had
32:36
Speaker 2: stopped to say hello, and you know, Jack Millard compassed
32:40
Speaker 2: and stopped to say hello. And because they all know
32:42
Speaker 2: who Alonso isn't he He's a BUGP fan, so.
32:44
Speaker 5: We know it's all they are.
32:45
Speaker 2: And after kind of four or five MOTORGP writers had
32:48
Speaker 2: stopped to say hello on their way past, he turned
32:51
Speaker 2: to Brivio and he said, like, these guys do not
32:53
Speaker 2: know how easy their lives are, because there is no
32:57
Speaker 2: time in my schedule on a F one weekend up
33:00
Speaker 2: in the padic can say hello to someone because they
33:02
Speaker 2: have this crazy schedule of activations and events and promos
33:06
Speaker 2: and all this stuff that you know they're doing with
33:09
Speaker 2: their sponsors on stage with their team and the MUDIGP
33:13
Speaker 2: writers do have an easier time of it. But at
33:17
Speaker 2: the same time, no one in F one is getting
33:20
Speaker 2: off a free practice session and needing to go immediately
33:24
Speaker 2: to a physio session because they've fallen off twice one hundred.
33:26
Speaker 5: Mans an hour.
33:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's always you know, we're going to have
33:30
Speaker 2: to find a balance point between the expectations that is
33:35
Speaker 2: going to be placed on on MODIGP writers to do
33:38
Speaker 2: more of the marketing and pr side of their jobs,
33:41
Speaker 2: while also remembering the fact that they're doing something.
33:43
Speaker 5: Really dangerous and that the you know, it.
33:46
Speaker 2: Is a physically tougher weekend than it is being an
33:50
Speaker 2: F one driver. And no, that's not to get anything
33:51
Speaker 2: away from F one. I'm just talking about the you know,
33:54
Speaker 2: the sheer impact of crashes.
33:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the truth. I mean, there are there are consequences.
33:59
Speaker 3: You can absolutely tear all four corners off a Formula
34:02
Speaker 3: one car and take the hands device out and go
34:04
Speaker 3: back and you'll be fine. There are consequences to MotoGP
34:07
Speaker 3: guys coming off, and you look at weekends. You look
34:10
Speaker 3: at Mark's weekend in Asen this year. He was very
34:14
Speaker 3: very close multiple times to severely hurting himself in accidents
34:17
Speaker 3: that would have had major consequences not just for that
34:20
Speaker 3: weekend but for others. And he used three of his
34:24
Speaker 3: nine lives that weekend. He was a very very lucky boy.
34:26
Speaker 3: Now at the end of the day you look at
34:27
Speaker 3: it and say, well, he's got one hundred and twenty
34:29
Speaker 3: odd point championship lead.
34:30
Speaker 4: It's all fired. It could have been very, very different.
34:31
Speaker 3: So there are consequences with that sort of stuff. But
34:34
Speaker 3: I'm curious, Simon, you mentioned before about that extra workload.
34:37
Speaker 3: Now everyone sees Liberty coming in, and you know, it's
34:40
Speaker 3: like the old the old cashier with the dollar sides
34:42
Speaker 3: flickering around because everyone can see what it can do
34:44
Speaker 3: based on what Formula one has done.
34:46
Speaker 4: How much do you think motor GP.
34:48
Speaker 3: Is prepared to change the way it works and the
34:50
Speaker 3: way it goes racing to get access to that pot
34:53
Speaker 3: of gold that is clearly there at the end of
34:55
Speaker 3: the rain.
34:56
Speaker 5: Some of them are very prepared.
34:57
Speaker 2: Some of the raiders are not because they're greedy, but
35:01
Speaker 2: just because I think that there's there's a sense at
35:05
Speaker 2: the minute in motor GP, especially in some of the
35:07
Speaker 2: traditionally really strong markets, of almost they're they're what's the
35:13
Speaker 2: word I'm looking for, they're almost disappointed that they're not
35:16
Speaker 2: who they wanted to be when they were kids.
35:19
Speaker 5: Does that make sense?
35:20
Speaker 2: And Juan Meir's manager told me once that that is.
35:23
Speaker 2: You know, the thing that makes him the most angry
35:25
Speaker 2: about Dorna is the fact that Juan Mehir can walk
35:27
Speaker 2: down the street in Madrid and no.
35:28
Speaker 5: One stops him for a selfie.
35:31
Speaker 2: The guys in MODIGP weren't champion and in what should
35:34
Speaker 2: be modigp's biggest market. But you know, that is something
35:38
Speaker 2: that has really suffered through the kind of universal.
35:42
Speaker 5: Move to pay per VTV.
35:45
Speaker 2: You know, we've seen audiences go way down and with
35:49
Speaker 2: that they've lost some of that brand image recognition and
35:55
Speaker 2: they want it back.
35:56
Speaker 5: Definitely. Lots of writers want to be.
36:00
Speaker 2: You know, they want to be the guy who's who's
36:04
Speaker 2: you know, dating beautiful supermodels and Monaco and his Lamborghini
36:08
Speaker 2: and getting pictured in the tabloid magazines doing it because
36:11
Speaker 2: that's you know.
36:13
Speaker 5: Everyone wants to be not everyone wants to be that.
36:15
Speaker 2: You know, there's certainly I can think of motor GP
36:18
Speaker 2: writers who would have absolutely detested that casey stoner, But
36:26
Speaker 2: there's certainly some of them that want to be bigger,
36:28
Speaker 2: want to be earning more, want to be more famous,
36:31
Speaker 2: want to be more successful, and the leader exactly. You know,
36:39
Speaker 2: there are guys that will lean into it, and there
36:41
Speaker 2: will be guys I think, like we saw initially with
36:44
Speaker 2: Drive to Survive, there will be guys who got left behind,
36:47
Speaker 2: who choose to be left behind, like kind of Lewis
36:50
Speaker 2: Hamilton Wells to an extent, I think in the beginning
36:52
Speaker 2: of Drivet to Survive. But once once they're teams, once
36:56
Speaker 2: their employers and their sponsors see that you kind of
36:59
Speaker 2: have to doing it, there'll.
37:00
Speaker 5: Be a push where they won't get a choice.
37:02
Speaker 3: Well, this is where the Driver to Survive thing for me,
37:04
Speaker 3: they got it was it was a well made series
37:09
Speaker 3: because it was groundbreaking because no other sport had done
37:11
Speaker 3: it at that point. We've had a lot of imitators
37:13
Speaker 3: that have done it since, to various degrees of success
37:15
Speaker 3: or not where they got super lucky. Formula one was
37:19
Speaker 3: the first season of Drive to Survive was twenty nineteen.
37:22
Speaker 3: On the twenty eighteen season, and it was kind of like,
37:25
Speaker 3: you know, there's a bit of Netflix content.
37:27
Speaker 4: That's fine.
37:27
Speaker 3: Ferrari and Mercedes weren't even involved in it. They did
37:30
Speaker 3: not want any part of the first series of Drive
37:32
Speaker 3: to Survive. And then, of course the start of twenty
37:34
Speaker 3: twenty happens and everyone's I can tell you this, Simon,
37:37
Speaker 3: because we were there. Everyone's lined up outside the entry
37:39
Speaker 3: gates at Albert Park for the first race of the
37:41
Speaker 3: Formula one season and everything goes to shit and we
37:45
Speaker 3: don't have a Grand Prix and we don't have a
37:46
Speaker 3: Formula One season and everyone stays home for six months.
37:49
Speaker 3: But there's twenty episodes of this reality TV. And I
37:52
Speaker 3: used that term loosely series called Drive to Survive. Everyone's
37:55
Speaker 3: sitting at home, everyone's bored. Let's watch this. Oh this
37:57
Speaker 3: is interesting, isn't it. Because we've got no live sport
38:01
Speaker 3: and you had a captive audience and no live sport.
38:04
Speaker 3: It was content. It was the perfect content at the
38:07
Speaker 3: perfect time short of there being another one in one
38:10
Speaker 3: hundred year pandemic. I think I've lived through the one
38:12
Speaker 3: in my lifetime, thank you, So I don't want another
38:13
Speaker 3: one of those motors. REVP is not going to get
38:16
Speaker 3: that perfect confluence of circumstances to start to build this
38:20
Speaker 3: brand if that's the Liberty playbook in terms of having
38:23
Speaker 3: a reality TV series. So you do wonder what it's
38:26
Speaker 3: going to take if they go down that path to
38:28
Speaker 3: have this thing kick off and succeed where some of
38:31
Speaker 3: these other imitators perhaps have not.
38:34
Speaker 2: I think the thing the opportunity that they have in
38:38
Speaker 2: that situation, in the situation where Ino is maybe to ignore,
38:44
Speaker 2: and I hope that Liberty are going to do this.
38:46
Speaker 2: There's a few things where I hope that they ignore
38:49
Speaker 2: what kind of seems like the immediate money mech and
38:51
Speaker 2: opportunities because its long term is maybe more about official
38:56
Speaker 2: There was a news story comote this week.
38:58
Speaker 5: In the UK that.
39:01
Speaker 2: The you know, we've always had BBC and then ITV
39:03
Speaker 2: is the two big broadcast networks here and for the
39:06
Speaker 2: first time ever in the last kind of month, ITV
39:10
Speaker 2: has been knocked back to third place by YouTube in terms.
39:14
Speaker 5: Of content and where people are watching their content.
39:17
Speaker 2: So, you know, make the series, put it on YouTube
39:20
Speaker 2: for free and USU your f one brands to co
39:22
Speaker 2: promote it. Be able, be kind of willing to take
39:28
Speaker 2: the risk of doing something that you can push out
39:31
Speaker 2: for free and use that to engage people, because that's
39:35
Speaker 2: the way to do it if you can't replicate the
39:39
Speaker 2: success of Drive to Survive and that, like you say, Matt,
39:42
Speaker 2: those amazingly beneficial circumstances that they landed in.
39:47
Speaker 5: I remember watching one.
39:48
Speaker 2: Of the seasons, must have been season two, season three,
39:52
Speaker 2: the start of twenty one, whenever we had those two
39:55
Speaker 2: Motive GP races back to back in Qatar, and we
39:59
Speaker 2: were locked in a hotel where we literally went alad
40:02
Speaker 2: to leave the corner of the hotel that they built
40:04
Speaker 2: a wall around for us. And I remember watching the
40:07
Speaker 2: first episode of draft of that season, that new season,
40:10
Speaker 2: which had just come out, in the gym one night
40:12
Speaker 2: while on an exercise bake. I'm going to tap in
40:14
Speaker 2: the shoulder from Valentino Rossi to say, oh, this is
40:18
Speaker 2: the new season.
40:18
Speaker 5: Is it good? And then like three days.
40:20
Speaker 2: Later he was watching it in the gym because we
40:23
Speaker 2: had nothing else to do. And then they benefited from
40:25
Speaker 2: that massively, and we're not going to get it, So
40:29
Speaker 2: do this do the thing where you can sell the
40:32
Speaker 2: sport and the drama, but do it in a different way.
40:34
Speaker 2: Look at YouTube, look at social media, push it onto
40:37
Speaker 2: people's forms.
40:38
Speaker 4: The YouTube idea is brilliant. I love it.
40:42
Speaker 3: I'm going to play Devil's advocate advocate for a second here.
40:44
Speaker 3: What if you're one of these long standing TV partners
40:47
Speaker 3: that's gotten over the top product and it's like, well,
40:49
Speaker 3: we've paid X dollars for this and you're giving this
40:51
Speaker 3: thing away on YouTube that's going to potentially cannibalize our audience.
40:54
Speaker 4: How does that conversation go.
40:56
Speaker 2: They have to be going to the broadcasters and saying, look,
40:59
Speaker 2: we are going to make changes that are going to
41:01
Speaker 2: increase the amount of people watching the sport in your
41:04
Speaker 2: channel in five years time.
41:06
Speaker 4: Bear with us.
41:07
Speaker 5: Just bear with us then.
41:09
Speaker 2: And we have seen a few of the broadcasters, to
41:12
Speaker 2: be fair, taking a few risks along the same lines. Recently,
41:19
Speaker 2: the day that Murujip announced sprint races, I wrote a
41:22
Speaker 2: column saying sprint racers should all be free to air,
41:26
Speaker 2: regardless of the pay per view package. The Sprint race
41:29
Speaker 2: should be free to air every week in every country
41:31
Speaker 2: to hook people in. And it's been interesting watching more
41:33
Speaker 2: and more broadcasters get on board with that. It's free
41:35
Speaker 2: in it, it's free in Spain, it's free in the UK.
41:38
Speaker 2: So people are.
41:40
Speaker 5: Willing, I think to They're realizing that they're going to have.
41:43
Speaker 2: To take some hits in order to go to this
41:47
Speaker 2: sport as a whole, because the long term effect, when
41:50
Speaker 2: you look at what F one has done, the long
41:53
Speaker 2: term benefits have to outweigh any short term losses.
41:58
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think exactly what you're saying. I think,
42:01
Speaker 1: even from a content creator point of view, is okay
42:05
Speaker 1: with Fox Sports. We can use the broadcast content because
42:09
Speaker 1: we have the Fox logo on it. It's fine. So
42:11
Speaker 1: then we can go on post mark markets crashing for example,
42:14
Speaker 1: me on the other side of the camera, and I'm
42:16
Speaker 1: a content creator personally, I can't use any of the
42:19
Speaker 1: on track footage. My content will get blocked straight away.
42:22
Speaker 1: So how the content creators like myself and like other
42:26
Speaker 1: people out there on socials, how can we keep building
42:29
Speaker 1: the sport and having more people talk about it if
42:32
Speaker 1: we can't use the content. So that's why I see
42:34
Speaker 1: your point the sprint having it free to air, Why
42:36
Speaker 1: not exactly?
42:37
Speaker 2: And the one thing that I'm hoping comes into play
42:40
Speaker 2: exactly what you said, Nida, because this is a constant criticism.
42:46
Speaker 2: The Donut basically garret their footage like the Crone Jaws,
42:48
Speaker 2: and no one's ever allowed to use it to do
42:50
Speaker 2: anything with it.
42:51
Speaker 5: Only shipping them a lot of money to do it.
42:54
Speaker 2: MBA launched a program a few years back where they
43:01
Speaker 2: have a system where you can I think there's probably
43:03
Speaker 2: a similar system in MODOGIP where the broadcasters can like
43:06
Speaker 2: kind of pull highlight clips out of what they're doing
43:10
Speaker 2: for socials and stuff like that.
43:12
Speaker 5: In NBA, they opened that up to fans. They did
43:16
Speaker 5: and allowed.
43:17
Speaker 2: Fans to create short short form content, little clips, not
43:21
Speaker 2: big things that they could edit turn into.
43:25
Speaker 5: Means, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and it proved
43:28
Speaker 5: to be really successful.
43:30
Speaker 2: The guy who launched that program at MBA is a
43:33
Speaker 2: guy called down Rosimondo who's now the chief commercial officer
43:35
Speaker 2: at MODEGIP.
43:36
Speaker 5: And I'm hoping that.
43:38
Speaker 2: As he kind of wrestles some of the control away
43:42
Speaker 2: from some of the maybe more old fashioned mindsets within Dorna,
43:46
Speaker 2: that that's something that's going to come to you, because
43:47
Speaker 2: it's not just about the broadcasters and the series making content.
43:51
Speaker 5: It's about all of us making content completely.
43:53
Speaker 3: You create, you make a bigger pie and that everyone
43:56
Speaker 3: gets to eat, right. That's the way it works when
43:58
Speaker 3: the Rossamondo things so Simon. For your background, I was
44:01
Speaker 3: an NBA journalist before I was a motorsport journalist, so
44:03
Speaker 3: I've been around old.
44:06
Speaker 4: I'm so old.
44:08
Speaker 3: I was in the NBA when it was in black
44:09
Speaker 3: and white and they didn't even have inflatable basketballs now.
44:13
Speaker 3: But the way they have it's been so interesting to
44:16
Speaker 3: watch the way they have opened up their product over
44:19
Speaker 3: a long period of time. They were one of the
44:21
Speaker 3: first sports leagues I ever remember that were really quick
44:25
Speaker 3: in getting their own highlights from a game that were
44:28
Speaker 3: going viral on social media and doing it themselves because
44:31
Speaker 3: they were sick of you know, old mates sitting at
44:33
Speaker 3: home with his phone recording his TV. Oh, here's a
44:35
Speaker 3: guy who did an amazing three point and it looks
44:37
Speaker 3: terrible these cats in the background, and you know, there's
44:39
Speaker 3: like someone vacuuming the floor, and let's sound as rubbish.
44:42
Speaker 3: The NBA will be here's that highlight, and here's six
44:44
Speaker 3: different angles of it, and here it is on every
44:46
Speaker 3: single platform that we have within fifteen seconds of it happening,
44:49
Speaker 3: and it'll be better than anything you guys can do.
44:51
Speaker 3: So they took ownership of it, so there's a quality
44:54
Speaker 3: control element, but they're also pushing it out and so
44:56
Speaker 3: you would get these murmurings. I remember in the early
44:59
Speaker 3: days of them doing this without boring our bikes audience
45:02
Speaker 3: completely stupid. Steph Curry, who plays to the Golden State Warriors,
45:05
Speaker 3: he would have these flurries of three point shots in
45:08
Speaker 3: games only he could do and you would hear this thing.
45:11
Speaker 3: It's like Curry's going crazy. Curry's going crazy, Like you
45:14
Speaker 3: hear this, and you be on social media and here
45:16
Speaker 3: is a forty five second clip of the nine to
45:18
Speaker 3: three pointers that Steph Curry's just made in the first
45:20
Speaker 3: half for a game that's still going. And it was
45:23
Speaker 3: there and it was up. They were so on it
45:25
Speaker 3: so early. The quality of what they were doing was good.
45:29
Speaker 3: You just went to them whenever they had something that
45:31
Speaker 3: needed to be told because you knew they were going to.
45:33
Speaker 4: Do it right.
45:34
Speaker 3: And that would be something that if modor GP could
45:37
Speaker 3: adopt one tenth of that model would be a fantastic
45:40
Speaker 3: addition to the sport.
45:41
Speaker 1: I reckon I feel like Fellas we pretty much kind
45:45
Speaker 1: of touch on all the subjects of Lebty. So I
45:48
Speaker 1: want to we've just fixed all the problems. Let's round
45:52
Speaker 1: it all are Simon. I'm going to come to you first.
45:55
Speaker 1: Liberty Media taking over Donner? Is this a good thing?
45:58
Speaker 1: Is this not going to ski away our existing fans.
46:01
Speaker 1: We're going to get a new fan base and we're
46:03
Speaker 1: going to see Moto GP get all the credit it deserves.
46:07
Speaker 2: I think Liberty Media are smart enough to know that
46:11
Speaker 2: they do not need to touch the sporting product.
46:14
Speaker 5: They just need to build it out. They need to
46:17
Speaker 5: build stuff around it.
46:19
Speaker 2: The benefit of that should be that if you're an
46:21
Speaker 2: existing motor GP fan, you know what.
46:23
Speaker 5: No one's making you watch the documentary series. No one's
46:26
Speaker 5: making you watch.
46:26
Speaker 2: The social media. You don't have to watch Drive to Survive.
46:30
Speaker 2: If you're an F one fan, you can just churn
46:32
Speaker 2: in on Sunday and watch the race. And that remains
46:35
Speaker 2: the case with MODORGP and whatever Liberty do.
46:39
Speaker 5: I mean even more than.
46:40
Speaker 2: F one, because they're not going to make any of
46:41
Speaker 2: the changes that people dislike a bit F one the
46:45
Speaker 2: most that Liberty have made, like street circuits, that's not
46:47
Speaker 2: going to happen.
46:48
Speaker 5: We're not going to Miami with a modigp bike.
46:50
Speaker 2: So the core product will always remain the core product,
46:55
Speaker 2: because the core product.
46:56
Speaker 5: Is not the problem.
46:58
Speaker 2: It's all the stuff around the product that we need
47:01
Speaker 2: to change if we're going to expand the fan base
47:03
Speaker 2: and bringing new people, and that can only be good.
47:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's not a case
47:09
Speaker 3: of attracting different fans. You're not trying to water down
47:12
Speaker 3: or cannibalize the fan base you've got. You're trying to
47:15
Speaker 3: attract new fans to increase the size of the fan base.
47:18
Speaker 3: And so to my mind, the sporting product, the on
47:21
Speaker 3: track product, quite frankly, is better than Formula one. It
47:23
Speaker 3: has been for a long time. It's just a story
47:26
Speaker 3: that needs to be better told. They're a media company.
47:28
Speaker 3: Their business is telling stories and telling stories well to
47:32
Speaker 3: the widest possible audience. And that's why I'm super optimistic
47:35
Speaker 3: based on what they have done to a sport that
47:38
Speaker 3: they probably picked up with more issues with Formula one
47:40
Speaker 3: when they had it, I'm super optimistic that longer term,
47:43
Speaker 3: this is going to be a really good thing for
47:44
Speaker 3: the sport.
47:46
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, I want to
47:47
Speaker 2: be in a position where we're.
47:50
Speaker 5: Seeing raiders get unto the mold of two grid without
47:52
Speaker 5: having the mortgage. Mom's host did, Yeah.
47:55
Speaker 4: That's part of it.
47:56
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, that's a whole other podcast and a whole
47:59
Speaker 1: other conversation. We need to go down one more question
48:02
Speaker 1: and then I feel like our listeners, if they're stuck around,
48:05
Speaker 1: they're going to get a full understanding. But Simon, there's
48:08
Speaker 1: rumors about a potential F one motor GP race on
48:12
Speaker 1: the same weekend. Hey, what's your thoughts on this is
48:16
Speaker 1: not going to happen or is that just crazy?
48:18
Speaker 2: The problem is, I think there's one circuit in the
48:22
Speaker 2: world where it's doable, and that's Silverstone. Yes, because Silverstone
48:27
Speaker 2: has two pit complexes yep, And I think that's probably
48:31
Speaker 2: the only place where you could really pull it off.
48:35
Speaker 2: There's nowhere else that has the space, that has the
48:38
Speaker 2: size and the space apart from well, maybe it's a
48:40
Speaker 2: good excuse for Formula want to go back to sipaying,
48:42
Speaker 2: which I think a lot of people would love because
48:45
Speaker 2: they have that they're Simons and the Pharasy as well.
48:48
Speaker 2: But there's not a lot of places where you can
48:50
Speaker 2: actually physically do it. For me, the actual actually the
48:55
Speaker 2: secret to it is maybe not just jumping in and
48:57
Speaker 2: doing a joint F one what did GP rice? Why
49:00
Speaker 2: not do like a Red Bull Rookies rounded F one race.
49:04
Speaker 2: Why not move the Women's World Championship over for a
49:07
Speaker 2: rounded F one rice where they've got a smaller padduct footprint.
49:11
Speaker 2: And I mean, who doesn't love watching Red Bull Rookies
49:14
Speaker 2: because it's the most manic sport on Earth. So there's
49:17
Speaker 2: there's a way to do it, at least to test
49:19
Speaker 2: the waters that doesn't just involve full steam ahead into
49:23
Speaker 2: a joint F one motor GP weekend that I think
49:26
Speaker 2: would still do a pretty good job of the concept
49:29
Speaker 2: of selling our sport to that audience.
49:32
Speaker 3: The only other circuit I reckon that you could if
49:34
Speaker 3: you're going to go down that path Simon, because it's
49:35
Speaker 3: not as big of a paddock footprint as you said,
49:37
Speaker 3: is if you could do Castaloonia, simply because I think
49:40
Speaker 3: the rebel Rookies would probably resonate a little bit better
49:43
Speaker 3: there perhaps than Atma Silverstone.
49:45
Speaker 2: I mean, these places like Austria where you could fit
49:48
Speaker 2: in the rookies. They don't have a big foot, But yes,
49:51
Speaker 2: there's lots of places where you could.
49:53
Speaker 5: Make it work.
49:54
Speaker 2: They would have to be one of the circuits that
49:55
Speaker 2: we both go to, right, Yeah, exactly.
49:57
Speaker 1: Exactly, Just imagine. I'm even thinking like if it could
50:00
Speaker 1: happen magically like F one at Coda because obviously the
50:04
Speaker 1: American fan base Formula one they do like that big
50:07
Speaker 1: show and then have Bodo GP and Mark Markers. Oh,
50:11
Speaker 1: that would be cool.
50:12
Speaker 2: One thing that wouldn't surprise me at all in twenty
50:14
Speaker 2: twenty six, the new Bago Championship, the new how To
50:16
Speaker 2: did with some Bago Championship that's coming to Murder GP.
50:19
Speaker 2: I would not at all be surprised if one of
50:21
Speaker 2: their roons are at F one Koda.
50:23
Speaker 3: On the undercard. Yeah absolutely, because they are at totally
50:26
Speaker 3: different times of the calendar as well.
50:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, March in March at October, so you can absolutely
50:30
Speaker 4: do that.
50:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, believe the bags are going to be at Barcelona,
50:33
Speaker 1: and obviously we're getting off track here. We have our
50:35
Speaker 1: Aussie Choy herfous in there as well in that championship,
50:38
Speaker 1: so hopefully that might be ed as well. We'll keep
50:41
Speaker 1: you guys on that. But guys, I feel like we
50:43
Speaker 1: could just keep talking and talking and talking about how
50:45
Speaker 1: are we gonna fix Moto GP. I just have this
50:48
Speaker 1: feeling it's the beginning of something much, much bigger. But Simon,
50:52
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us here on pit Talk,
50:56
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see you in a few months, like
50:58
Speaker 1: Matt said at Philip Violence, so we'll hatch up then,
51:01
Speaker 1: And Matt, as always the statman, it is a pleasure
51:05
Speaker 1: having you on board here with me. Moto GP is
51:08
Speaker 1: back in Austria for around thirteen at the Red Bull
51:11
Speaker 1: Ring and you guys can catch all the action live
51:13
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports and KO. If you want to keep
51:16
Speaker 1: up to date with all of Matt's articles, though, you
51:18
Speaker 1: guys can do at foxsports dot com, dot AU, Forward,
51:21
Speaker 1: Slash Motorsport, don't forget to follow us on socials at
51:25
Speaker 1: Fox Motorsport everywhere, and subscribe to Pittalk so you never
51:29
Speaker 1: miss an episode. But from Sliven Patterson, Matt Clayton and
51:33
Speaker 1: myself Rinita Vermulin, we're going to be back real soon
51:36
Speaker 1: with more Moto GP Pit Talk