With the announcement of the SuperMotocross World Championship yesterday, and the partnering of Feld Motor Sports and MX Sports (the promotors for AMA Supercross and AMA Pro Motocross, who have worked separately in the past), fans may be wondering what it all means. For the riders it means bigger purses and more money, for the fans it means one extra race to watch next season (Feld Motor Sports gave up the Monster Energy Cup and MX Sports is going to an 11-round series for 2023, so the addition of a three-round playoff is really only one extra race on the riders' busy schedule). But the best part is that it will all air on the same streaming service, Peacock. No more buying multiple subscriptions to follow the sport we love! We caught up with Vice President of Supercross, Dave Prater, after yesterday’s press conference to get more information on the changes.
Racer X: SuperMotocross World Championship announced today. Let’s go back to the beginning. You talked about how COVID happened, and you guys had to readjust your strategies and everything like that. Give us a little brief timeline of when this started, when you and Carrie Jo [Coombs-Russell] started working together, and when this all came about.
Dave Prater: In March of 2020, it was Daytona Supercross. I think it was March 7th, if my memory serves. But we went and we met with Carrie, we met with Davey [Coombs], and just really in an effort to talk about how we could grow the sport, even if it was just promoting each other and helping out, because we truly are one sport and we’ve never acted that way before. So, we met in Daytona and walked out of the meeting feeling good and everything was great, without any really big plans. Just we’ll run your videos at our events, and you run our videos at your events, and we’ll promote each other. Then the next week, Indy supercross was shut down and we were all sitting around going, 'Oh no. What do we do?' So, we literally went from that initial meeting to the next week working together and bi-weekly meetings and talking about how we’re going to get the supercross championship finished. We had seven rounds left to go. We knew we were in a tight crunch because it was March 14th or so and we had to finish by May 5th, and MX Sports was going to start the Pro Motocross season mid-May. So, we knew we were in a tight crunch, and we needed to get some stuff done. So, we started working together right then. Carrie and team were extremely, extremely helpful. They ended up shifting the Pro Motocross season and doing it later, so we would have time to get those seven rounds in in Salt Lake City. From there, Carrie and Kenneth [Feld], this relationship just grew. Like they said in the press conference, they’re both family-owned businesses, second generation. They’ve got a ton in common that I don’t necessarily know if they would have even had the opportunity to even get to know each other like they did, but COVID forced them to do that. They’ve really built a true partnership and friendship out of this. So, I think really that was the genesis of it. Then two-and--half years later, here we are at the LA Coliseum announcing the SuperMotocross World Championship. So, it’s been exciting, but it’s been a lot of work over those two and a half years.
Obviously, there’s been some give and take. The nationals are going to be one round shorter. You guys had to give up Monster Cup. How was navigating those hurdles to come to a conclusion on who would shorten the series, who would do what, so you could actually fit this in at the end of the year?
Yeah, it was a lot of negotiations. Both companies had to sacrifice. Feld Motor Sports and Monster Energy Cup were extremely important to us. It had become a marquee event. The same with Pro Motocross and Carrie and having those twelve rounds. But collectively, you had to get together and do what’s best for the sport. So, Pro Motocross, as you said, gave up the one round. We gave up the Monster Energy Cup, and SuperMotocross was born out of that.
Right now, the finale next year is going to go into October, October 12th. Is the plan moving forward to go that late in the future, or are you trying to condense the schedule in any form? Or how will that work?
Because the LA Coliseum and USC plays here, the college football season, the schedule is not announced until November. But they do know they’re playing Notre Dame on October 14th away. So, unfortunately, we had to push it to October 14th this first year, but moving forward, we would end the season September 30th or before. But another great thing about us working together was the overall schedule. So, we’re able to do a better cadence of breaks for the athletes, for the teams, throughout the season. So now instead of doing 17 races in 18 weeks, we will actually have a second break within supercross. So, we spread out the races in an effort to give guys time to recover.
Then obviously the TV deal announcement today, signing with NBC and NBC Sports moving forward. Going to be on Peacock for all 31 races. How instrumental was it to get that hurdle done as well? Obviously, you guys have been kind of flip-flopping with your TV deals and stuff like that, and now you’re one, holistic schedule with the TV as well.
That’s actually, besides the COVID situation and working together to get the championships done, that was the initial really strong push post-COVID is to take the media rights to market together. So, it’s been a challenge in the past. You watch supercross on one platform and you watch motocross on another. So, this is going to be great for the fans because you know you’ll watch Anaheim 1 on Peacock and NBC and you’ll watch Pala on Peacock and NBC, and you’ll watch the LA Coliseum on the same platform. So, simple, easy to follow, and really that was a huge hurdle because obviously it’s a lot harder if we don’t have a strong media partner. So, that was one thing that right off the bat, exponential growth and exponential excitement when we went out to market with media companies. Once we came up with the playoff, everybody got excited. So, we knew we had something.
Obviously, the purse has increased as well. You have the million dollars for the champion, the 500,000 dollars for the 250 champion in SuperMotocross. How important was that to Feld as an organization to kind of hype that up to a degree to get the riders more excited about this series as well?
We’ve always wanted to make a larger purse, and the fact that we were able to come together, again it goes back to the exponential value of bringing the two together rather than two fragmented parts. It’s worth more. The riders are going to see an elevated platform, so not only the purse, but I think there’s going to be more opportunity for them to make money with sponsorships and other things because we’re going to have this elevated platform that’s now one, as opposed to again, fragmentation.
A side note to this today a little bit is that the supercross schedule was also announced, so for you guys personally, we get to see the full 17 rounds. We’re going back to some places. We’re going to some new places, like in San Diego at SnapDragon Stadium. How excited are you for the 17-round supercross season in ’23?
I’m super excited. I love it. Anaheim Angel Stadium staff was here today for this announcement. They’re excited. A1 is special, but you’re right. We’re going to SnapDragon Stadium in San Diego which is new. It’s brand-new. They just opened it. It’s back in the parking lot where Qualcomm was, and that Qualcomm experience. We love Petco. Petco is beautiful. It’s a beautiful place, but the race day and the fan experience at Qualcomm and now at SnapDragon, there’s just so much more parking lot space, tail-gating, that type of thing. So, excited about that. excited about going back to Nashville. That’s going to be a big one. Nashville was a fan favorite when we went there a few years ago. Been working to get it back, so it’s exciting. I’m loving it. It’s funny because I’m used to talking about supercross. Now I’m loving talking about motocross as well. So, the entire thing and announcing the schedule together is just kind of icing on the cake. We know what’s coming and we’ve got that January 7th date to look forward to.
Watch the full interview with Dave Prater: