I've sussed it! (The racing problem)

[Lou Girardin]

It also helps if there's strong bike ownership, one reason why the sport is so big in Europe. Every 16 yr old with a Haga rep Aprilia scooter thinks he's a racing God and goes to the meetings.
It's no co-incidence that racing was strongest here in the 70's and 80's.
Cheap import cars have nearly knackered the bike industry and it's mainly we baby-boomers that have revived it. But we need a decent track in Auckland, I loath Puke, it's a shithole and I only go to the odd big meeting.

[Motu]

1 There is so lttle coverage on TV

2 As road users we are a minority.

.

Bottom line you would need heavy sponsership and I just don't think there are enough of us to warrent the expenditure for this to happen in New Zealand.

Skyryder

In the 70s there was no TV coverage at all....and the meetings were packed,sponsership was unheard off....and the meetings were packed.As Lou says,less bums on bikes and so less interest - riding bikes is a leasure time activity now,and I prefer to spend my free time riding not watching races.

[Brian d marge]

In the 70s there was no TV coverage at all....and the meetings were packed,sponsership was unheard off....and the meetings were packed.As Lou says,less bums on bikes and so less interest - riding bikes is a leasure time activity now,and I prefer to spend my free time riding not watching races.

There was 88 000 at that italian MotoGp 88000 ... there was about 15000 at waganui and Paroea
you can do a lot of advertising with 88000 .....

Sort of clarifys everything really

My biased opinion .....Televise MX ...and enduro ....Real mens sports
non of this poofie roundy roundy no bumpy sandal wearing doliphin watching moto geepee

Stephen
must dash as the Motogp has finished downloading

[gav]

What was the crowd figure at Qatar and China?

[TwoSeven]

New Zealand really needs to learn that its a small country on the event side of things and start planning things that way.

When you live in a european country such as Italy and have a population of 58 million you can plan an event of some size assuming that only 0.001% of the population will actually turn up for it. That will give you a crowed of about 88,000 that if charged $10 per time returns $880,000 - event hosting cost + tv rights.

The important figure is to calculate the actual interest base of the sport. Get this wrong and you lose money big time. Using the same figure 4,000,000 * 0.001% = 4,000 people out of the TOTAL population are likely to want to turn up.

Now you have to modify that with the total population that have ACCESS to the event - ie. live in a city within half a days travel. Suddenly you find have a much smaller event turnout - probably half that or about 2,000 people max in the north island and maybe only 500 people in the south island.

Now thats the numbers if you assume people are only interested in bike racing. What you need to do with event planning is target all the people who DONT like bike racing - but want a day out. Thats what wanganui is all about - I suspect you'll find that many of the 15k that turned up were only going because its a place to drink have fun and be with their mates/family.

Anyone thats been to a sbk or MotoGP event at philip island or even looked at all the promo material will see thats where its aimed.

The other way of doing it is make the event for TV coverage only (MotoGP, World cup rugby, olympics) - but that requires a huge capital investment (including tax funding) and is well beyond NZs general capabilities (we cant even afford a new stadium for auckland that meets the optimum criteria for the RWC final).