Does the AMA Hate Supercross?

January 28th, 2009 • Comments Breaking Into the Mainstream, My Thoughts
Tags: AMA, Feld, motocross, online, Rants, supercross

This post was not planned, it didn’t go through draft after draft until absolutely perfect. While researching for another post, the troubles I had while doing the research led to the following conclusions.

What the heck is the AMA doing with professional Supercross? Truthfully, I doubt they even know. Our sport has incredible potential. The riders are talented, the bikes trick and the tracks technical. However, it seems like the AMA is doing everything they can in order to mess it up and ensure that our sport does not succeed.

Branding

I understand that the AMA is not a marketing company, but a promoter, but still, they should know how to brand a series. But it is apparent that they don’t. The “Supercross” logo looks nothing like the motocross one. If I didn’t race and didn’t know a lot about the sport, I’d never know they were ran by the same company and were essentially part of the same series.

Furthermore, the AMA has branded the entire Supercross series so heavily towards Monster, that it seems as if the series is “owned” by Monster. I respect what Monster does and I love that they support the sport, but there needs to be separation between the event and the sponsors. In no condition should the sponsors become the series. Yet this is exactly what has happened. What do we do when Monster folds or pulls their sponsorship? Completely rebrand the sport with another sponsor? Awesome idea. Then the kid who watched “Monster Energy Supercross” last year will have no idea what “{Insert New Sponsor Here} Supercross” is next year.

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