Slide the rear,???? the debate will; be HOT
old nfo from 2006 BSB
Talk of British Superbikes and it won’t be long
before you’re talking money. Big money. You could
get excited about rider salaries of £100,000pa and more. Or of
team budgets topping the £1 million mark. Or you could get real
fancy, having bypassed discussion of million-pound television
broadcasting contracts, and get on to the subject of track
ownership, which back in the heady days of 2000 had the Brands
Hatch Leisure Group traded for a cool £120,000,000.
Years ago the money didn’t matter so much. British bike
racing was in the doldrums with little or no TV coverage and
not much in the way of gloss or glamour. Then a decade ago the
domestic racing scene got a much-needed shot in the arm with
a re-structured series and TV coverage.
Since then the profile, and the cash needed to compete in it,
has spiralled. So where is the money? Where does it come from?
Where does it go? And is it all a good thing?
Ian Simpson is a legend. Five-times British champ in the 90s,
he’s also the former manager of the ETI, Dienza and Vitrans
teams, so it’s safe to say he has a vast amount of experience on
both sides of the BSB pit wall.
“There’s too much emphasis on teams and not enough on
riders,” says Simmo. “Even the small teams have to spend so
much on hospitality, plastic plants, flat-screen monitors and
garage boards when they should be concentrating their limited
resources on the bikes and riders.
“To me, bike racing should be about bikes and riders and not
about who’s got the flashiest transporter and hospitality. You
have to pay people to keep the garages tidy and the trucks
spotless and to cook for guests, and that’s what costs. There’s
too much emphasis on image.”
But image, the façade of opulence, was the carrot that got the
TV companies interested. And the current live package with ITV is
a biggie, as is the package show which graces Sky Sports on the
night of the races. Rumour has it that the BSB teams agreed to
forego prize money in a bid to get ITV coverage live at the races.
So, let’s say, for rumour’s sake, the cost of television coverage
for the year costs £900,000. But we decide to cut the cost by
£100,000 by ditching the on-board cameras. That’s £800,000
needing to be found. Hypothetically, of course.
how Much doES iT coST To Run in BRiTiSh SuPERBikES?
whaT do ThE RidERS gET Paid, oR ThE TEaM ManagERS?
BERTiE SiMMondS (alMoST) haS ThE anSwERS
who really
gets rich
from bsb?
Inside look Who gets rich from BSB?
Who gets rich from BSB? Inside look
Kiyonari leads the
Dash for No Cash.
Only a few ride
for real money
EvEn SMall TEaMS havE To SPEnd So
Much MonEy on hoSPiTaliTy, PlaSTic
PlanTS and flaT-ScREEn MoniToRS
TWO’s Spuds
Mackenzie was
earning more 10
years ago than
BSB’s stars do
today. Canny boy
Sponsorship from a title sponsor such as Bennetts may pull in
around £250-£350K, depending on which rumour you believe,
but that still leaves a major shortfall. That money comes from
the teams who pay to take part in the series.
Simmo again: “It’s about £5000 per rider
per year. Which is crazy. Teams shouldn’t
be having to pay to entertain crowds. It’s
like expecting a Premiership footballer to
buy a season ticket!”
In fact it’s easy enough to find out what
the entry costs are. Simply go onto the
MCRCB website. You can in fact have three
easy instalments of £2500, £2500 and
£1500 for your season’s racing. £6500 in
total for the year – for no prize money.
Little wonder that sponsors are the life-
blood of the series. Not only in helping to
pay for television coverage but for the
weekend-to-weekend running costs of the teams.
If you’re lucky you’ll have Wrigley’s Airwaves paying towards
your £1.6 million running costs for the year. That’s how much the
GSE team budgeted for this year. And even then you can bet that
team principal Darrell Healey is soaking up the lion’s share of the
costs. Expect a top-level sponsor like Airwaves or HM Plant to
put little more than around £300,000 into a top line team.
Why does it cost that much to run a team like GSE/Airwaves?
Well, you’re running Ducatis, which (if you can secure them) will
set you back around £150,000 a pop. If you’re on a four-cylinder
machine things may be easier. After the recent theft – and later
recovery – of Shayne Byrne’s two race bikes, Rizla Suzuki (who
didn’t want to help with this feature) admitted that each machine
costs around £100,000. HM Plant Honda has in the past claimed
their machines cost in the region of £100-£200,000 depending on
how heavily the factory back in Japan is involved.
Neil Tuxworth has been running race teams for Honda since
1990. He says: “Without looking at the accounts now, it probably
costs us around £1.3 million to run the two-man superbike team.
This is without standing the costs of assets and Ryuichi Kiyonari’s
wages – that cost is covered by Japan. It’s the same to race in
BSB now as it was to race in World Superbikes a few years ago.
To run a top-line WSB team today you’re looking at nearer £2m.”
Tuxworth confirms that there is no prize money for a British
Superbike team at all. “No, there’s a bonus from the team to the
rider in the case of wins. It costs us more than £10,000 for the
entries alone for the two riders. From your budget, and this is
whether it’s World or BSB, 50 per cent will be for fees, staff
wages, riders wages etc, while the other half will go on hotels,
fuel, hospitality, tyres and the bikes. You’ve then also got to
budget in the use of cars, machine shops, vehicle overhauls,
disposable workshop items, hire of circuits, using people for
press and PR, tests in Spain, depreciation on things like the awn-
ing on the hospitality unit, road tolls, electricity rates, collections
and deliveries, alarm systems etc. Some people don’t realise
before trying to run a team and they don’t consider all the costs.
I’ve been doing this since 1990 and have a good idea of budgets.”
The cost of riders, though, hasn’t increased in line with the
costs of the series. As an example, Niall Mackenzie bagged
£120,000 back in 1997 – including his fee, sponsorship and prize
money. Three years later, Steve Hislop was paid £45,000 to ride
the Virgin Yamaha R7. Today, if you’re top four material you can
command a bit of bargaining power.
Gregorio Lavilla, probably the biggest earner in the series,
more than likely gets his pay cheque from Ducati in Italy. Expect
the canny Spaniard to earn £100,000+ basic, with this rising to
around £150,000+ with sponsorship and win bonuses. Which was
the kind of money our own Niall Mackenzie was pocketing back
in 1997. Neil Tuxworth confirms: “I would expect the top four
riders in the series to be making – and this includes fees and
bonuses – a six figure sum, £100,000 plus.”
Obviously this shrinks to nothing when you get to the middle
of the field, and turns into a negative when you get to the back of
the grid where riders are either running their own teams on a
shoestring, or buying their way into a team with figures of any-
thing between £20-£100,000 being mooted.
While we’re talking costs, let’s not forget team managers. Ian
Simpson says: “Team managers’ wages vary a lot depending on
the budget, but a top one will be earning around £40,000 a year.”
We reckon that’s a bit short for the big teams; a decent man-
ager could be on double that. Remember, to a team owner the
amount he’d spend on someone as an ‘experienced’ manager
with the talent to save money or pull in sponsorship or nurture
and develop riders would mean he’d be worth the extra outlay.
Ian Simpson reckons that, while it’s no more difficult these
days to find a sponsor, finding one with the amount of money
needed is the problem.
“About 12 years ago, you could have a few small sponsors
donating £5000 or £10,000 each and you’d be able to race for
a season,” explains Simmo, “but if someone gave you £10,000
now, it wouldn’t go anywhere. Now you need a budget of more
than £1 million so you need a really big sponsor. A major team
sponsor usually supplies around half of the budget, and the rest
comes from smaller sponsors, the manufacturer and usually a
wealthy, enthusiastic team owner. A lot of team owners have to
make up the shortfall from their own pockets. There’s one team
– which I won’t name – where I’m sure the owner is covering
three-quarters of the budget.”
Running the event itself is another way the money gets spent,
and it’s the circuit owners who are spending just to get the show
on a road-racing circuit near you.
We spoke to Jonathan Palmer, main man at MotorSport Vision
and controller of Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Cadwell Park and
Oulton Park. We thought we’d see if we could find out what sort
of costs are soaked up at the track in a bid to get more people
through the turnstiles and into the grandstands.
He admits that the amount of people going through the gates
are stable year-on-year, but: “ … as to our costs and what we
earn from a BSB event, it’s a very complex matter. There are
direct revenues on the day, direct costs, but the big costs are
It costs in the region of £1.3m to run a top-flight BSB team
for a season. Great big articulated trucks don’t come cheap
How many cameras does it take to film a BSB race? And how many Audis do you
need? And sponsors’ logos on the leathers? Grid girls? Tyre men? It all adds up
ThERE’S no PRiZE MonEy foR a
SuPERBikE TEaM. liTTlE wondER
SPonSoRS aRE BSB’S lifEBlood
WHILE IT’S NO MORE DIFFICuLT TODAY
TO FIND SPONSORS, FINDING ONE WITH
THE AMOuNT OF MONEY NEEDED IS
Inside look Who gets rich from BSB?
Who gets rich from BSB? Inside look
rates, permanent staff etc. It’s a very
complex process that means we don’t know
exactly how much we make. It’s very
misleading to try and peel off superficial
information about one event. It’s also com-
mercially sensitive for us. We have to look at
the whole year and the whole year’s events,
trackdays and such. One single event isn’t
the bottom line for us. Just to give you an
idea of our costs, at Brands Hatch alone our
rates are £700,000 a year. Salary bills are around £500,000
across all of our circuits. ultimately the most important thing is
how do you do at the end of the year, not at the end of one event.”
But there’s a lot that eats into that bottom-line. Before MSV
took over, the circuits had lost £3 million a year for the previous
two years. Add to this, insurance is going up, circuit improve-
ments need to be done, traffic police cost around £6-£7000,
security £12-13,000 and marshals £2-3000, plus marketing and
advertising costs. Meanwhile grandstand seating, entry fees,
stall holder fees and the like contribute to the income.
So, would MSV prefer there to be no actual live coverage of the
races to get more people to the circuits?
“It’s a debatable point,” admits Palmer. “My hunch is that live
TV is good as it gets a bigger audience, but the other school of
thought is that post-produced package programmes shown a
week later give a major benefit in that they motivate the fans to
go and see it live. It’s also less expensive to do live.”
So Jonathan, if it costs so much, why do it? “Simple, we need
these flagship events. We need BSB to promote our circuits and
get people interested in coming. It’s a difficult balance of enter-
tainment and cost. The reason most people do it – guys running
superbike teams, racers – we don’t make a lot of money, we do it
because we love it. I’ve grown up loving it and for me the satisfac-
tion is now running good circuits, with great facilities and the
pride in the venue is immense. Of course to do that we need to
spend and also make money or we’ll go bust. That’s business.”
And we shouldn’t
take Palmer’s point
lightly. Interpublic
Group, the previous
owners of Brands et
al, the guys who paid
the £120m we
mentioned at the top
of the story, went ....
up spectacularly,
with reported losses
across the group of
$900million. Palmer
and his associates,
we dare say, bought at fire-sale values. Being a circuit owner
clearly isn’t all beer and skittles.
So who is making money from BSB? A select few riders,
definitely. A small core of team managers, quite probably. A few
TV and media moguls certainly. And we can see that a few man-
agers and technicians, people who make the teams tick, are in
fact earning a decent wage – sometimes more than the riders.
But is it all worth it? The show, the racing, the TV coverage?
Ian Simpson: “Sure, British Superbikes are working great
at the moment but I can’t see it lasting because it’s stacked top
heavy – all the money is with just a few teams at the top. The
huge cost of racing is keeping a lot of talented youngsters out
of the sport. Even the smallest team in BSB is probably spending
around £100,000 a season.”
Progress does indeed have its price.
Awesome race
