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A shadowy 65-year-old sports league is spending millions of dollars rebuilding its loyal and lucrative supporters.
American Flat Track, the series starring competitors who are dragging their motorcycles around a clay oval, opened its third season in Daytona, Fla., Thursday, hoping to create a new name. well known.
"We will do everything we need to do to broaden the footprint of the sport," said CEO Michael Lock Fortune.
Interestingly the series, which debuted in 1954 as AMA Pro Racing, has blurred over the past few decades with the rise of other motorcycle racing styles.
Lock, former CEO of Ducati, renamed the series under the name of American Flat Track and began implementing measures to resurrect the sport, ranging from the increase in ticket prices to creating a play area for children.
Efforts seem to be paying off: ticket sales revenue has increased to a double-digit figure since the start of the rebranding project. In 2017, 9,500 people participated in one race, more than the estimated 4,000. Last year, the crowd exceeded 10,000 people twice.
Meanwhile, Lock plays on the appeal of grbadroots football by focusing on the drama of the flat track as well as on the talent and bravado of his competitors. A flat track racer, Johnny Lewis, compared the lack of grip and balance of the bike to a "ballet on earth."
"There is still not enough money in the sport for athletes to become cynical," Lock said. "They run like old athletes."
To create an audience, American Flat Track is committed to the high-end offering benefits such as reserved seats, preferential parking and concessions delivered to the stands. "The first users buy the most expensive tickets," he said.
The competition to attract the attention of consumers and portfolios is fierce, especially for a one-day event.
"It's not that hard to convince people to do something short and finished for a few hours, or longer as a two or three day music festival," said Lock, "but to say "Come do something for a day or three quarters of the day, it's getting murdered.
In the meantime, the series also needs to understand how to attract home viewers who could live streaming the races.
"It's a convincing case to do it," Lock said. "Sometimes, more convincing than attending an event at two, three or four hours."
American Flat Track has also begun broadcasting on NBC but needs at least half a million viewers to sign top notch sponsors like Coke or M & M's. "I do not think we can get there with a delayed show," he said. Reach an audience of 500,000 people "change our world. "
He also considered placing the content of the series behind a payment screen, but "everyone I talked to said that you will lose 75% of your audience".
Meanwhile, Lock is exploring ways to raise the profile of the sport internationally, thinking that it may be of interest to viewers and sponsors, such as US motorcycle manufacturers seeking to expand beyond the US. United
"Motorcycles are universal, whether you are in Bangkok or London," he said. "We have a product that is completely packable."
Lock said that American Flat Track could use a strategy similar to that of the NFL, which held exhibitions in London, before adding regular season games likely to test the climate conducive to a local franchise.
Lock said, "They're developing a fan base for something that was inconceivable 20 or 30 years ago."
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