Premise
The idea behind a merger is based upon the following suppositions:
1) Operating a major world championship requires considerable financial investment to sanction at least 3-4 classes at each race event, plus substantial investment in media production (e.g. televising the races, website content, and social media)
2) Operating separate world championships for prototype and production motorcycles thinly spreads industry resources, and leads to an overall decline in all inter/national series for team owners, riders, and fans.
3) Combining production and prototype sprint-format circuit racing can eliminate duplicate costs for TV crews, website operation, promotion, etc, and combine the paddocks for a more streamlined career path from the national series to the premier MotoGP class.
Class Structure
Premier Class - GP - Series and concept remain more or less unchanged. Continued focus on reining in top speeds, making the bikes safer, and containing costs.
2nd Class - Next Generation Superbike - The concept remains production based w/ rider-bike min weight and two-race format. Next Generation Supersport drops the 600s and turns the wick up for a new generation of Superbikes with power output similar to the early 750cc formula.
3rd Class - SuperTwins - The concept remains production based and balanced with bike-rider min weight and two race format. Twin cylinder bikes producing roughly 100hp at the wheel. In a perfect world, the 600s would become race-only production machines for a new Moto2 format, but it would only cannibalize the emergent twins class and create a schism among the series at this approximate power threshold.
1000cc WSBK - abandoned
Moto2 - abandoned
Moto3 - revised and relegated to national competition, run as a junior cup at select rounds perhaps
Benefits
The primary benefit is cost structure. Eliminating the cost of running two TV production crews and separate web domains would be huge for the financial health of the series. Replacing Moto2 with Superbike would also provide significantly more capital to the under-class by locating more manufacturers under the MotoGP umbrella. SBK would be better differentiated than Moto2 from MotoGP. The motorcycle racing industry would also benefit from establishing a single path through the ranks to MotoGP, rather than having split paddocks. The teams that fail to secure a spot in a merged series would take their technical know-how and sponsor connections to the national series. If the two-race SBK format were compatible with a 20 round calendar, MotoGP would offer considerably more to fans and media companies over a race weekend.
Challenges
The challenges would be enormous. Coordinating a merger by timing all commercial contracts, etc to terminate at roughly the same time would be daunting. There is no guarantee that revenues would hold steady as the WSBK series is eliminated. It's unclear whether the multi-race SBK format could still be used on a 20 round calendar. The differing paddock cultures would be homogenized into a single world championship, and quite a few teams would be sent packing as a merged championship wouldn't have the paddock space to hold 100 teams. The variety of circuits would suffer as venues like Magny Cours, Most, Donington, etc would be off the calendar, though this could provide a bidding war for international motorcycle events.
Strengthening the National Series
Though World SBK as a series would vanish, I hope worldsbk dot com does not vanish, and Dorna uses some of the cost structure savings to support the nationals by purchasing the streaming rights for their series. They would be consolidated into a single online viewer platform at worldsbk dot com. Obviously, that would be an enormous undertaking, but it would improve media exposure, and encourage tracks to spend on the national events. For instance, the only way to watch superbikes at Monza or Imola would be to watch CIV. The only way to see superbikes at Jarama or Albecete would be to watch CEV. The only way to see Superbikes at the Brickyard or Suzuka or Brands Hatch would be to watch MotoAmerica, MFJ or BSB.
Anyway, just thinking out loud, and reimagining the structure of international sprint format circuit racing. I've surely overlooked many advantages and drawbacks of merging the series.
The idea behind a merger is based upon the following suppositions:
1) Operating a major world championship requires considerable financial investment to sanction at least 3-4 classes at each race event, plus substantial investment in media production (e.g. televising the races, website content, and social media)
2) Operating separate world championships for prototype and production motorcycles thinly spreads industry resources, and leads to an overall decline in all inter/national series for team owners, riders, and fans.
3) Combining production and prototype sprint-format circuit racing can eliminate duplicate costs for TV crews, website operation, promotion, etc, and combine the paddocks for a more streamlined career path from the national series to the premier MotoGP class.
Class Structure
Premier Class - GP - Series and concept remain more or less unchanged. Continued focus on reining in top speeds, making the bikes safer, and containing costs.
2nd Class - Next Generation Superbike - The concept remains production based w/ rider-bike min weight and two-race format. Next Generation Supersport drops the 600s and turns the wick up for a new generation of Superbikes with power output similar to the early 750cc formula.
3rd Class - SuperTwins - The concept remains production based and balanced with bike-rider min weight and two race format. Twin cylinder bikes producing roughly 100hp at the wheel. In a perfect world, the 600s would become race-only production machines for a new Moto2 format, but it would only cannibalize the emergent twins class and create a schism among the series at this approximate power threshold.
1000cc WSBK - abandoned
Moto2 - abandoned
Moto3 - revised and relegated to national competition, run as a junior cup at select rounds perhaps
Benefits
The primary benefit is cost structure. Eliminating the cost of running two TV production crews and separate web domains would be huge for the financial health of the series. Replacing Moto2 with Superbike would also provide significantly more capital to the under-class by locating more manufacturers under the MotoGP umbrella. SBK would be better differentiated than Moto2 from MotoGP. The motorcycle racing industry would also benefit from establishing a single path through the ranks to MotoGP, rather than having split paddocks. The teams that fail to secure a spot in a merged series would take their technical know-how and sponsor connections to the national series. If the two-race SBK format were compatible with a 20 round calendar, MotoGP would offer considerably more to fans and media companies over a race weekend.
Challenges
The challenges would be enormous. Coordinating a merger by timing all commercial contracts, etc to terminate at roughly the same time would be daunting. There is no guarantee that revenues would hold steady as the WSBK series is eliminated. It's unclear whether the multi-race SBK format could still be used on a 20 round calendar. The differing paddock cultures would be homogenized into a single world championship, and quite a few teams would be sent packing as a merged championship wouldn't have the paddock space to hold 100 teams. The variety of circuits would suffer as venues like Magny Cours, Most, Donington, etc would be off the calendar, though this could provide a bidding war for international motorcycle events.
Strengthening the National Series
Though World SBK as a series would vanish, I hope worldsbk dot com does not vanish, and Dorna uses some of the cost structure savings to support the nationals by purchasing the streaming rights for their series. They would be consolidated into a single online viewer platform at worldsbk dot com. Obviously, that would be an enormous undertaking, but it would improve media exposure, and encourage tracks to spend on the national events. For instance, the only way to watch superbikes at Monza or Imola would be to watch CIV. The only way to see superbikes at Jarama or Albecete would be to watch CEV. The only way to see Superbikes at the Brickyard or Suzuka or Brands Hatch would be to watch MotoAmerica, MFJ or BSB.
Anyway, just thinking out loud, and reimagining the structure of international sprint format circuit racing. I've surely overlooked many advantages and drawbacks of merging the series.
