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There is actually an answer to your question. The promoters learned that creating a narrative around a hero vs villains sells, it's a typical Hollywood creation adapted for sport consumption, it works. It's a marketing paradigm shift that once it was realized became increasingly sophisticated. This led to a skewed competition, because to have a hero, the hero needs to win by beating the villains. The promoters manufacturer that artificial record by a mechanism of advantages written into the rule book. For example, the advantages of specially designed tire done legally, this is the most famous and easily understood, but there have been many more examples. You see, something "legal" is misconstrued as "fair"! Nobody questions legal advantages. And so on... what we end up with is a peculiar reaction by the masses of fans who gravitate towards "winners". Look no further than the two big soccer clubs Barcelona & Real Madrid. People buy their jerseys without the slightest affiliation. They become blind to the facts that is responsible for the artificial "success", they seem unaware of the lopsided advantages. The fact that a 300 million dollar club beats a 45 million dollar club is not factored in to the equation of outcomes, astonishingly it's perceived as fair competition. It was the same with the Yankees for example, a club that basically bought many of its titles (until the parity model changed in American baseball). Incidentally, the parity model for Spain's league of Barcelona & Real Madrid is still skewed. Other top flight soccer leagues have mitigated the parity model; however, It's not a coincidence that DORNA subscribes to a similar competition model being a Spanish league itself.
Then there is a sport MEDIA (the main subject of this post) which is something I'd like to draw your attention to here. The media are the drivers of most of what fans think, accept, and discuss. For example, since Rossi was injured in a training incident, several articles have been written on the subject which purposefully paint Rossi's training regiment as an admirable commitment to improve particularly praiseworthy. It wasn't enough to write articles and disseminate tweets on social media, every rider was asked to comment over the weekend and since! There are video interviews where the leading questions beg the answer: yes, Rossi is right to train, and the risks he takes are an example of his dedication. However, this media blitz is disproportionate when other riders are injured during training. I'll give you two examples of this disproportionate handling of incidents then move on; when Nicky Hayden injured his heel and ankle riding supermoto, there were not multiple articles written in a positive light to approve of his participation in such activities, nor was most the paddock asked if training supermoto should be banned. In fact, the general arch of perception was it was a stupid unnecessary injury, frowned upon by his employer as I recall (surely Yamaha aren't voicing their displeasure with Rossi).
Here is my second example, recently Hack Oxley discussed the Silverstone GP alongside Freddy Spencer at some UK royal motorsport club (you can probably find it on youtube). Oxley referenced the barging by Marquez on Lorenzo at Jerez in 2013 (the one that was a carbon copy of Jerez 05 Rossi /Sete) Hack Oxley characterized Lorenzo maintaining his line around the penultimate corner as evidence of "Lorenzo's fragile ego!" That's a quote. Absurd right? The incident was brought up by Oxley for this purpose; let me explain his ludicrous logic, he said Dovi let Marc past at Silverstone because unlike Lorenzo, Dovi is not afflicted by capricious ego and was willing to let Marc by, in effect letting Marquez be the author of his own demise, allowing Dovi to recover the line and win. Oxley reasoned, Lorenzo's capricious nature compelled by Jorge's "fragile ego" held fast onto his race line in 2013, inviting Marc to use him as a berm and effectively losing the position--follow me here; Oxley basically is "reasoning", it was Lorenzo's fault because his ego is so fragile not to have let Marc by to then overtake the position like Dovi! Can you imagine a sport rider of consequence and the affect of his opinions saying something so outrageous? Keep in mind, this logic is intended to exonerate Rossi's barging of Sete in 2005! It's a litigation by fallacy, if Lorenzo's "fragile ego" caused his demise--so then Sete was at fault for Rossi's infamous move to "win" that race: lore preserved! How do you suppose it affects readers, particularly Rossi fans? Oxley repeatedly says .... like this to cue who are the 'villains' Lorenzo is decidedly one-hence being cheered when he crashed today. Oh Oxley will tell you it's because Lorenzo showed a thumbs down to Rossi at Sepang 05 (whitewashing the fact Jorge did that because Rossi had just tried to run a competitor off track and didn't deserve to stand on the podium). Oxley provides the minions their cues, cues that come decidedly from Rossi's McCarthiest opinions.
The point I'm making Michael is that the media are responsible for building up Rossi to astronomical disproportionate heights. They refused then and still now to call Rossi on the carpet for the villainization of rivals. There is a thread here titled: Rossi still won't let it go. With the media, it's quite the contrary, then have done their best not to ruffle Rossi’s sentiments about the great Marquez conspiracy--hence why he was booed today. I predict you'll read in the coming days some media figures declare: the boo birds at Misano displayed disgusting behavior, bla bla. They will because the display was so noticeable it requires the journalists to cover their ...... The authors will grandstand; but I'll tell you what they won't do, they will NOT place the blame on Rossi for starting this ...., and they certainly won't raise their hands taking responsibility for not aggressively writing against it in the past (though I'm sure they'll point you to some flaccid line buried in some article that they disagreed with Rossi claiming Marc conspired. Notwithstanding, you may remember, Marc Marquez pointed out that Rossi WEAPONIZES the MEDIA--this cannot happen unless that media is a partner!
You asked how Rossi became so popular? Take a look below. Marc Marquez put in an astonishing performance today. You would think that's the lead of any story discussing today's amazing race, particularly the last lap. Well, you'd be wrong. The lead of the summary by David Emmett (Kropo) for today's performance was the absence of Valentino Rossi! In fact, the first 8 paragraph are basically all in direct or indirect reference to Rossi! Oh, it gets worse. Not only were the first paragraphs dedicated to Rossi's absence (it's in the title FFS) and the survival of MotoGP post Rossi; but the initial explanation for Marc's performance was, as Kropotkin reasoned: the affect of Rossi's boo birds turned motivation--that is, it ALL revolves around Rossi. Without Rossi and his fans perhaps Marc wouldn't have tried so hard--Kropo logic.
Get this, Krops says that Marc threw caution to the wind in order to exact revenge on Rossi's minions--the reason for Marc's determination! No, no, it wasn't the primary obvious objective to fight for a win in the same exact way Marc did at Silverstone, where he didn’t have this particular score to settle! No, no, it wasn't the standard operating procedure we see when a shark like Marquez smells the blood of a possible win in sight. The same compelling tenacity that we've seen countless times at places like Argentina, Assen, Mugello (against Lorenzo) Philip Island ("to help Lorenzo"). No, Marquez put in that last lap performance because...wait for it: Rossi’s ....... fans!
That's why Rossi is so popular Michael, because every possible narrative revolves around Rossi. Not the least being ........ acts of "democracy" to reinstate a previously almost unanimously rejected tire. Here too Hack Oxley (and Krops) jumped into service, redirecting the perceptions of reinstating #70 tire did not pass the stench test, they declared in chorus-- 'no, it's not a tire conspiracy.' Classic, "the lady doth protest too much."
So to answer your question, there are several reasons why Rossi became 'disproportionately' so popular, one reason is skewed and gutless media covering the sport.
If you live in a glass house don't throw rocks.
To be fair I think his teenage persona was not such an act, he had genuine wit and charm, the antics back then were genuinely amusing, and his approach and riding were Marquez like, except that his was the apotheosis of a traditional riding style rather than being right out there like MM now.
If he had retired after 2009 I would not have disputed him being called the GOAT, but like Povol I now see him as one among a number of greats of the sport. As our recent new poster (EDIT Repsol 93) said, the problems are the Valeban and his attitude when confronted with rivals who are actually genuinely competitive or close to competitive with him.
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