Much of the talk following Liberty Media’s announcement that it is poised to acquire MotoGP parent company Dorna Sports has been about what it will do with Grand Prix motorcycle racing. Still, the American enterprise shouldn’t forget its other new hot property – World Superbikes.
World Superbikes, also under the purview of Dorna is naturally lesser in terms of its commercial and global footprint compared to big brother MotoGP, but arguably offers a greater racing product for Liberty to inject a new lease of life into.
The 2024 season, just three rounds in has already set out to be one of World Superbikes’ best yet. A rookie had never won on debut before heading into this year’s campaign. That’s now happened twice. Nicolo Bulega, fresh from his 2023 World Supersport title success roared to victory aboard the factory Ducati Panigale in the season-opener and Danilo Petrucci understudy Nicholas Spinelli shocked the paddock by winning Race 1 at Assen thanks to a wet-weather tyre gamble and fortuitously timed Red Flag.
Throwing a pegged-back Alvaro Bautista into the mix with added ballast and Toprak Razgatlioglu winning races aboard a much-improved BMW means fans are being treated to an intriguing title fight. Moreover, without the plethora of aero and ride height devices, World Superbikes has a greater propensity for closer racing than MotoGP.
So what needs fixing when Liberty Media come in?
The large and perhaps even overwhelming elephant in the room when it comes to World Superbikes is that it is a World Championship almost only by name. The relatively small 2024 calendar, featuring just 12 events, has just one round hosted outside of Europe. That was the season-opener at the glorious Phillip Island in Australia and one of the remaining nine rounds, a new circuit in Hungary, is reportedly in jeopardy of not being ready in time to host this season.
This issue has come about due to difficulties sustained throughout the covid pandemic and World Superbikes’ position as a testbed for future MotoGP rounds. Thailand and Indonesia debuted on the Superbikes calendar before being struck from the schedule once up and running in MotoGP. There’s no reason why these venues shouldn’t return to the schedule given that both regions have a massive motorcycle culture. Two-wheeled mobility is a huge facet of South East Asian culture and World Superbikes should be tapping into that market.
On the other side of the globe, Liberty has made no secret it will seek out growing MotoGP’s presence in the United States of America as soon as it can play with its new toy. Again, World Superbikes should be following suit.
The other challenge facing World Superbikes is ensuring it remains relevant in a fractured media landscape. The Superbike market is dwindling with the likes of adventure bikes, cruisers and scramblers becoming a more profitable asset for manufacturers. That’s why the Panigale is a super expensive, exclusive road machine – made for the elite and to pass Superbikes’ homologation rules but paving the way for Ducati to market its brand by winning championships to sell its more mainstream models in equally mainstream numbers.
It’s also why Kawasaki has made the bizarre move to pull out of factory competition at the end of this year, handing over the keys to Italian brand Bimota to run a superbike with a ZX-10RR engine. Yamaha too has made the move to only offer the R1 in Europe to track customers from 2025 onwards.
The adage of win on Sunday, sell on Monday no longer applies. World Superbikes needs to sell itself and its competitors as a brand. Communicating personalities and storylines to the wider public is key in making a success of this. Liberty excels in this area and World Superbikes has plenty of narratives and personalities to sell from the record-breaking Bautista to the legendary Jonathan Rea and superstar Razgatlioglu.
So as the eyes of the motorsport world are on Liberty and MotoGP, spare a thought for World Superbikes, an extraordinary series that is ripe for making just as big a global impact as its prototype counterpart. All the ingredients are there, they just need a catalytic nudge in a stratospheric direction.
