Is there more than just a new logo for MotoGP?

What has this to do with MotoGP? Peripherally, more than might be obvious. Dorna closed off the 2024 season with its own rebranding exercise, with its own soft-edged new logo. Meant, you might conclude, to appeal to people who aren’t very interested in motorcycle racing.

Facetiousness apart (though that’s difficult when the “more than just a new logo” had such a breathless launch, and its design process was implausibly described as “incredibly exciting” by the normally gruff and taciturn Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta), the rebranding comes at an important, even crucial, time.

The controlling share in Dorna has changed hands for the first time since 2006. Also for the first time, its new owner is not a financial investment company. Its fourth owner is Liberty Media, the US sports-marketing giant that has so generously boosted the fortunes, and the fanbase, of Formula 1 since taking over in 2016.

Denizens of the bike racing paddocks (Dorna also owns World Superbikes as well as MotoGP) are excited by the prospect. Previous owners have done nothing other than provide financial security, while of course reaping very worthwhile profits. Liberty Media is expected to play a much more active role.  Motorcycle racing is used to playing the poor relation to F1, but this need not be uncomfortable, if there is plenty to go around.

Liberty has left Dorna’s management structure unchanged, at least for now. This makes sense, at least up to a point. Ezpeleta and his team (heavily biased towards family members, by the way) have grown MotoGP considerably in the three-and-a-bit decades since they gained control of the commercial rights in 1991. Which occurred at least partly because Bernie Ecclestone lost interest after coming close to taking over.

Dorna oversaw the transformation from a loosely-knit international series to a unified whole, the all-important TV rights under a single umbrella. They weathered the storm of the loss of tobacco sponsorship, and grew the series to a current 20 races.

Not surprisingly, motorcycle world championship racing became very Spanish in the process. Not only with a number of races on the Iberian peninsula, but also with Spanish riders elbowing the Americans, British and Italians aside, thanks not just to the bike-friendly weather and large number of circuits in Spain, but also a clearly focused and well-run pre-teen-to-superstar conveyor belt of talent.

Dorna has also moved firmly into South-East Asia, the liveliest motorcycle market this side of China, serving the interests of the manufacturers.

They have been less successful in serving the interests of the traditional fans, however. Interest in the USA has always been tenuous, but with the supply of riders drying up MotoGP became an even more niche sport.

The consequence inside the paddock has less to do with trackside footfall or even TV numbers, although these remain significant. What matters behind the hissing, sliding doors of the team hospitality units is sponsorship, and that is what everyone is hoping Liberty will bring in. Without losing ground in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and India – where motorcycle markets are growing – MotoGP needs to gain (or regain) ground in Britain and Europe, and most especially the USA. Places where potential fans aren’t necessarily buying commuter bikes or even motorbikes at all, but can be hooked on what is a very exciting and small-screen-friendly sport all the same.

Since Liberty is an American company, increased penetration in the USA seems almost a given. It’s a combination of the right kind of marketing skills along with heavyweight media clout. Exactly as they have done with F1 since taking over in 2016.

They have grown the F1 fanbase from being Eurocentric and somewhat special-interest into a much younger mass-media-focused demographic. Petrolheads joined by thrill-seeking fans.

The Netflix Drive to Survive series was massively influential, helping to take the focus away from the nuts and bolts to the drivers and team managers instead. Personalities trumped horsepower.

MotoGP’s attempt to do the same with Amazon flopped... and not least because so many of the riders and their teams expressed their personalities in Spanish. Dubbing proved disastrous, sub-titles unwieldy.

Time will tell exactly how Liberty will find a way round this. But there are other ways and means. We shall see.

Hopefully the interest will build quickly enough to bring in the sort of sponsorship of the cigarette boom years, and there will be financial relief beyond the few currently well-heeled top MotoGP teams, reaching down to the support classes, where are there are still too many talented riders condemned to obscurity in poorly financed pay-to-ride teams, with substandard machines or infrastructure.

Or will it be another case of the rich getting richer?

Rider images courtesy of Motorsport Images.