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| Roberts: Distinct Possibility We Won't Be Racing This Year
'Right now, we've got to make a decision: go or no go.' by dean adams (thanks susan) Thursday, February 15, 2007
A Well, certainly, we're not a bank. So right now, it doesn't look good. That could change overnight, but at the moment I can say that there's too much funding that's not there. Q Today the team is in Qatar testing. Do you plan on doing the Jerez test?
Q Is it a great deal of funding that's needed, or is part of the package? A Yes, there's part of it in place, and there's not a lot that we would need to do the season. The thing that we don't really want to get into is, is starting to cut everything, and not being able to make what we need to make to do the season properly. So it's a question of yeah, we could probably cut everything back. Not make as many chassis, or not do this and not do that, and probably coast through the season. I don't want to do that. Right now, we have a budget that we can do this season with, and we're short on that budget by about 20%, I would say, right now. The last couple years have not been super years. So we need to step the sponsorship game up a little bit. It's really tough right now, for everybody. Q It's an interesting contrast. Your team is so successful, and such a great story, but you can't find a sponsor at the moment. A There is sponsorship there, and you'll see that at Jerez. MotoGP is not the cheapest form of racing in the world. The Honda deal is very successful, but it still costs money. Q In speaking with your people in the last few years, it's apparent that you've stuck some significant money of your own into your MotoGP effort. A That's right. Eventually... I've been flying around the world a lot over the past 25 years. The KTM thing was a complete disaster. We simply went on faith of an email and that cost us quite a bit of money. My company is trying - is in the process of diversifying, and even looking at building a track-day bike and things like that. But these things take time. And when you're at a level that you're trying to build a new 800, everything kind of came along at the wrong time for all this stuff to keep going. We had to completely redesign the motorcycle. Q The move to the 800 era probably wasn't well-timed for Team Roberts. A That's right. That's right. The sponsorship for MotoGP is - I wouldn't say at an all-time low. MotoGP's never been better. The television (viewership) in MotoGP is just going up and up and up. The thought of having another one in America is a great thing for us. We're an American team. But certainly, putting this kind of money into this racing team year after year drains the bank account. So I have to make a decision one of these days, "Okay, well, look, we're too short. I'm going to pull the plug." Q Have you got firms looking for sponsors? A Everybody's looking for sponsorship. Like I said, I have a feeling that the sponsorship is lagging behind the cost, and has been for quite some time. But the interest in the whole project, and the interest in MotoGP, has certainly never been higher. And that floor traffic, and foot traffic, has to result into someone signing up the project. If you would've said a month ago, "Are you going to be in this position?" I would've said no, simply because of the foot traffic and the tire-kickers. Especially in the project of being able to produce a motorcycle at a limited, high-quality production that has the potential to make quite good profit. And, of course, putting into the team, we actually have been for some time, looking for investors, not only to sponsor the team, which is not really what we want - we want someone to buy into the team that can make it more profitable. As Formula One did years ago, selling off part of the company to an individual, or to a company, that can add to the income, and just not simply sponsorship. Because if you look at the TV, from [the methods used to value teams in] Formula One - and we had Formula One people that looked for Formula One money do this - we're worth $14 million, based off what they base off in Formula One, per year. Well, sadly, that's not happening. For whatever reason - either we're not selling it properly, or the CEOs at some of these companies aren't looking at it. Q That's been a long-time issue with motorcycle racing, that the numbers are actually as good or better than Formula One in some countries, yet the sponsorship just doesn't translate, for some reason. Why is that? A Nobody has an answer for that. And some pretty smart people - they don't have an answer for that. Who knows? Maybe this kind of young - because it is a younger sport than Formula One - and certainly, having 125s and 250s in the same ball game isn't as easy sell, I don't think, as Formula One. Some of the smaller sponsors that can pay the $2-3 million can have a 125 team with four riders. And they get very good television in their countries. America's not quite as good. But money per slot on television is very good. So no one really knows why some of the bigger corporations have not gotten to MotoGP. And I think it's just a lag. MotoGP is gaining leaps and bounds with people, but that enthusiasm is not yet transferred from all these people, that go to Laguna, for example, and Indy - hasn't transformed itself to the boardroom yet. Q I've often wondered, and I asked your people this probably 18 months ago: I don't understand, with all the money that Red Bull spends worldwide in buying teams, and sponsoring series, and sponsoring riders, why - it just seems like such a perfect fit for them to be a huge sponsor of Team Roberts, or a partial owner of the team. Has there ever been discussion in that area? A There certainly has, but nothing fruitful, I must say. Nothing fruitful. Just looking from the outside, I don't know too much about Red Bull, but boy, they're up to their ass in alligators in that Formula One thing. I mean, they are in so deep. And the thought of having them - they're in MotoGP. They're in the paddock with a big presentation. In my opinion, they shouldn't be, to be quite honest. MotoGP is MotoGP, and of course, if you can come in and play the game and not be in MotoGP, it's maybe not quite what it should be. If you don't have a pass, you shouldn't come into the race, and the way to get the pass is to be one of the participants. Q You mean, you'd like to see them have more team involvement. A Well, I think that anybody in MotoGP needs to be in MotoGP. They do sponsor riders, and you can make a very good point that they spread a lot of money around. But they're not in MotoGP. So I don't know. It's kind of a funny thing, that they're there, but they're not there. So I think that you're probably going to see other energy drinks entering MotoGP before Red Bull, simply because the Formula One thing is nuts. Owning two teams in Formula One is just, in my opinion, way over the top. But I don't know. I don't know anything about Red Bull, to tell you the truth. I've met the guy three or four times, and he seems like a great guy. That's all I know. I don't know who runs their deals or the sponsorships or any of that stuff. I know that our name gets thrown up as much as anybody else's. But for whatever reason, they are not in MotoGP. So it's not my job to turn their company around. My job is to try to sell this thing. And right now, I'd have to say that we're too short to pull the trigger. Q Someone said something to me the other day that I thought was kind of profound. They felt we're on the cusp of a new era in sponsorship, in that the energy drinks are going to replace tobacco in motorcycle racing, and probably in car racing, over the next 15 years. I'm not equating energy drinks with tobacco, but they seem to have the revenue where they can translate that into spending the money that the teams and the series require. Your thoughts? A What I'm wondering is how far the two big ones are going to let this go on. The world's getting smaller. Q Red Bull and someone else? A Coca-Cola and Pepsi. How long that's going to go on. Everyone seems to be in NASCAR in America, and energy drinks now are going into NASCAR. But NASCAR certainly doesn't cover the world. And the rest of the world, motorcycle races make NASCAR look very bad. But in America, that's kind of what we're fighting. We are an American team racing in the rest of the world. We only come to America once - now twice, counting '08. It's a tough sell. I don't know. I think that energy drinks fit motorcycles, because it's a young, vibrant deal. It's the perfect market. But years ago - years ago, I had some conversations with Coors Beer. This was way back when I quit, so it was '84. They wanted to run an American motorcycle team, because their number one person that bought beer - their market - was motorcyclists. But they didn't - they couldn't decide how to do it. So they called me back to Colorado, and said, "Okay, we'll sponsor your team. You race for a year, and then turn it over to the riders that you want." And Yamaha wouldn't back the equipment, so they didn't do it. But for whatever reason, all the way down the line, in my opinion—and I stick with this—the Japanese companies are not helping the situation. And you can't blame them. It's not their business to see the racing go good. It's their business to sell motorcycles, and make money, and you cannot fault that. But if teams like us have to die to get this thing turned around, then I guess that's what's probably going to have to happen. In America it's just not going very well at all sponsorship-wise. Like you say, it's just, "Why?" When Michael Jordan's team can't win races, dude, it's not winnable. Hopefully we're at the lowest. Because I've never seen the foot traffic so good and the money so low. Q Right. The numbers are incredibly encouraging out of MotoGP, in terms of television audience - A The thing in Spain - they just signed a big TV thing in Spain - was huge. Was huge. I mean, it rivals NASCAR, in Spain, certainly. NASCAR in America, and then if you just take that away and said, "Okay, how about Spain?," the motorcycle deal with Spain would be the same. It's a network. The deal that just got done is unbelievable. Okay, but that's not America. American TV is, of course, behind in MotoGP. And Formula One, let's face it. Whatever. NASCAR's taken a big chunk of all that. But the numbers at NASCAR right now aren't very good. Quite honestly, I've never watched one. I've seen parts of them, and I have buddies that watch parts of it, but I've never seen anybody sit down and watch one. Q An entire race, do you mean? A An entire race. So I think MotoGP has a great future. But in my opinion, we've got to be able to finance these bottom-line teams if we're going to run bottom-line teams. We've got to be able to finance them with the TV money and the appearance money until the sponsorship catches up to the basic minimum of sponsorship. Because right now, quite honestly, Suzuki sold their major sponsorship for, I don't know, 10% or 20% of what I need to run. That makes it very hard on us. It doesn't help anybody. And that shouldn't be allowed, in my opinion. The factories should have a minimum that they need that they would have to have a major sponsor. Now secondary, they can have all they want. But I would say for a title sponsor, there needs to be a minimum. Q I think Suzuki's probably up against the same obstacles you are. They probably couldn't find a sponsor, or couldn't readily find a sponsor. A That could very well be. But they have the money to participate. Teams like us do not. Right now, we've got to make a decision: go or no go. They could do that as well, but they make the rules. Japanese companies make the rules. They made the 800 rule. And to do it with no limitations.... Formula One is on a cost-cutting mission, something that you've never seen in the history of Formula One, and we don't even consider it. Wait a minute! This is so out of whack. Q It seems that way from one perspective. The bikes are going faster than the 990s did. So the common question we at the site hear is, "Why did we go to 800s, again?" It was implied that it was to slow them down, but no one really believed that was going to happen. A The Japanese factories, towing along Ducati, make the rules. And unfortunately, sometimes the rulemaking process, and what the factories want to do, doesn't help the racing. Sometimes it does. It's not simply a one-way street. They don't always screw up. But I would have to say at this point, this juncture, 800s are a good idea. The racing's going to get closer, and I think they'll be able to ride them better, but the cost is going to go up. If the provisions of that cost from either Dorna or from the factories were not a consideration, they shouldn't have gone to that 800. And unfortunately, our team is in the middle of that, because we're still spending quite a bit of money to build motorcycles, and I can tell you there's not one team in MotoGP that's not a factory that is over the moon about sponsorship. Q You mentioned Dorna a couple of times. It's always been inferred, at least last season, that they were helping Team Roberts (financially) in some way. A Well, I think that they helped all the smaller teams in one way or another, if they can do that. There's a limit to what they can do, as well. Now, if the cost gets above the limit that they can help, and we can't do it, we're not going to do it. And I'm going to make that decision in a week. That's going to be largely sitting down with Dorna, of course, and Honda, and say, "Okay, guys, here's the bottom line. We can't fix this. If it can't be fixed, I'm out." Unfortunately, that's a decision I've got to make after the IRTA test, because I don't really want to ship to the first Grand Prix if I know I'm not going to do it. Q There's so much contrast here. Dorna gets sold for $500 million, and a team like yours can't find sponsorship. I just find that ironic. A So does everybody else, including people at Dorna. There is no way that a company can honestly - there are sponsors in Formula One that pay three times as much for a sticker on a car, as what they could have a whole MotoGP team for. The only thing I can judge from that is that the hospitality at Formula One is really what they want, not selling their product. Because you can't, you cannot, argue the point that that is getting to more people than motorcycles. No way. You just can't do it. You couldn't stand up in front of a corporate board and say, "Look, this sticker on a Formula One car is going to get a lot more press than having a fully-backed two-rider Team Roberts in MotoGP, for the same amount of money." You cannot say that. Because the TV stats in MotoGP are going up, and Formula One's going down. You just can't say it. It's the craziest thing for us to be in this position now, while MotoGP is going up so much. I'm going to make a decision next week, and we're going to go or no go. It's just odd. We don't know. I had a meeting with Dorna a month ago, three weeks ago. And it's like, "What is happening?" I don't understand it. It's never been so good, so cheap, and reached so many more people. And it's just like there's a carburetor lag. Q A disconnect somewhere. A A disconnect from the boardroom, I guess. Because there's so many more people talking about it. Normally, I find over the years doing this, when a company's really serious, it takes them two to three years to actually push the button. They kick the tires for at least two seasons before they go. So who knows? It's a mystery. ENDS Post this story to: digg PRIVACY POLICY | HOME | RETURN TO TOP © 1997 - 2007 Hardscrabble Media LLC |
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