From NASCAR to F1 to Moto GP, every team and manufacturer has been forced to reduce their operating budgets for 2009 in light of shrinking sponsorship deals, and/or, vehicle sales.
In many ways motorsport is one of the most adaptable of international sports – rules and regulations can change from year to year. In this current financial climate, motorized sports are well placed to change, albeit this may be a Fait Accompli.
Motorsport Changes with Sponsorship
In the early years of motorsport, manufacturers built cars and bikes to showcase their brand – win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Sponsoring partners were more often than not trade suppliers such as Castrol, Firestone, and Champion spark plugs. But when Colin Chapman introduced tobacco advertising on his F1 Lotus, with the Gold Leaf cigarette brand, the whole world of motorsport changed.
As sponsorship began to take a foot hold in motorsport (primarily as a brand awareness exercise) the cost’s rose dramatically. Well-supported teams with talented drivers/riders could spend considerable amounts of money on development; no longer was the sport only available to factory teams and rich individuals. But keeping up with their competitors forced teams to spend vast amounts of money. Cars and bikes got faster, but did the sport improve?
A Global TV Sport
As motorsport grew in popularity, the media (primarily TV) began to broadcast races both from a national base, and from international venues. This mass media outlet helped sponsors get global recognition, often from viewers in their target markets.
The world of motive transport benefitted from race track developments too. Faster, more powerful, and, in some cases, more economical vehicles could trace part of their development costs to motorsport. The justification for motorsport, as a spectator sport that benefitted the average motorist, was without question. Even safety developments could be traced to motorsport – seat belts, deformable structures, to name but two.
But as race car development hit something of a plateau, the street car and bike manufacturers began to take the technological lead. F1 cars and Superbikes had become so fast that the regulations were continuously being changed to slow them down – often resulting in lesser technically advanced racers. Computerization of many of the systems controlling not just the engine, but also the handling, was becoming so sophisticated that their use in racing was questionable. But for street use, an explosion of sophisticated computers and software was inevitable, and transformed the industry.
Street Cars and Bikes Faster than Racers
So fast was the development of street car technology that the cars and bikes were considerably more advanced than their racing counterparts. What was a standard street bike, for example, in the middle 80s, was faster than a Grand Prix bike just five years before. It could be argued, in the case of motorcycles in particular, that spectators were traveling on street bikes to watch races that contained slower vehicles! Needless to say, spectator numbers dropped considerably in the 80s.
Today, motorsport is facing two of its biggest challenges ever – lack of money and eco credibility. Sponsorship will return when economies recover, but to have any relevance, not just as a hard to justify (due to carbon emissions) spectator sport, motorsport must look toward green technologies and develop them ahead of, and for, street vehicles.
These points were clearly alluded to during a recent interview with Richard Branson on BBC Radio 5 Live: "If Bernie Ecclestone can make it more cost-effective for the likes of the Virgin brand to come into the sport, and if he can champion clean motor car racing - which is possible to do by making sure all the cars run on clean fuels - then at some stage we might be interested in getting involved."
Branson Sponsors Brawn GP anyway
Luckily for F1 in general and Brawn GP in particular, Branson decided to become a limited sponsor (in spite of his comments) of the new team - it had been rumored that he wanted to buy the entire Honda team, however negotiations fell short of a purchase. But Branson’s entry in F1 at this point is very much the exception, not the rule.
One series that looks to be on its last legs is the ALMS (American Le Mans Series). With only three cars in both the P1 and P2 classes, and none in the GT1 class, for the 2009 St. Petersburg race, the series is fighting to stay alive. It is also rumored that financial backer for many years, Don Panoz, will withdraw his support later this year.
Lack of Spectators
For American sports car racing fans, only the Grand-Am series has full grids and lots of support. But this series does not have the number of spectators needed to be financially viable - painting the grandstand seats to look like spectators does not bring in revenue!
To survive, motorsport must return to its previous position of being a technological leader, and at the same time, it must fully support the green issues confronting all businesses; if not, it will be forced into obscurity.
Hybrids, the Future Racers
Although eco friendly vehicles are not seen as sporting (yet), the future of motorsport does not have to be boring (or slow). Green racers such as the KillaCycle drag bike has proven that electrically powered vehicles can be very fast. And the new TTXGP shows how much interest there is already in Hybrid racers.
The current economic crisis has forced many businesses (and sports) to re-evaluate their financial models; motorsport has no choice but to do the same, just to survive.
