Crowd-funded and run race team?

Hi Yall! I haven't been here for many years, but I browsed the forums a bit and it was nice to see some familiar people still active here.

I've been working on some projects to buy a MotoGP team for the past few years and it led me to an interesting idea which I don't think has been attempted in motorcycle racing on any large scale. There's an article about crowd-funded / owned / operated sports team here and I figured it could be an interesting project to execute in motorcycle road racing. It might be better suited in a national series like MotoAmerica or a series like WERA where the costs are much lower and a smaller pool of enthusiastic financially well-to-do fans could collaborate.

The idea would be that the share-holders would all be able to regularly vote on major aspects of the team like which manufacturer to use, which riders to sign, the type of sponsors they wish to partner with, and some key team personnel (team manager, crew chief, etc.).

I figure this forum and its wealth of knowledge could flush out a lot of the potential hidden issues (aside from the obvious). That said, I do think there is still room for it to be a successful endeavor in that it could be built to at least break even and have fun for a lot of people that can't be personally directly involved in racing.

Ok, tear it apart!!!

 

Welcome back! Good to see you still kicking!

I’m poor as hell, but I can be an umbrella boi.

 

Yeah, I can't wait. Future "team building" activities:

 

Do you really want some of these muppets make decisions for your team?

 

I explored this about 10 years ago and went down the rabbit hole for awhile. Ended up abandoning the idea, but I forget why. Great idea! Good luck!

 

so a bunch of people that think they know a lot about how to run a race team, making the decisions on having it succeed. umm.. this is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

I mean in concept its a disaster... get a couple of deep pocket yokels outbidding each other for control while the actual team management is open to suggestions but not implementing them... at least it would be good for a season. .

 

I work a full time job, I don't have the time needed to ALSO crowd fund my racing. It's crossed my mind, but I'm happier only disappointing myself instead of backers.

 

Here's some support on the concept that has already been executed in a number of sports in the US and it should be noted major sports teams in Europe have been doing this for a long time. There are other alternatives like the Green Bay Packers are technically a crowd-funded team being a non-profit owned by fans, but I like the idea of empowering owners further. I'm by no means 100% sold on this idea, but it is definitely intriguing.

DAO is gaining popularity and my personal current favorite because I like the experiment if a crowd-run team can be competitive or implode on itself, haha. To be fair, it is already functioning in other sports: https://aists.org/the-internet-just...ntralized-autonomous-organizations-and-sport/

Stewards LLC focusing on all major sporting markets <NFL, NBA, MLB, etc> in the US: https://theathletic.com/4783026/2023/08/17/fan-cooperatives-sports-ownership/

Successful crowd-funded Soccer teams are sprouting up and improving local market support + provide an opportunity for their diaspora to get involved from anywhere and feel connected: https://www.sportico.com/business/f...orts-teams-regulated-crowdfunding-1234735464/

 

Can you be the first gold level $10k investor? You have a lot of good racing experience.

 

I've thought about this as well, but more in the context of something like the Racing Steps Foundation in the UK. I think they have run teams in past as well as simply sponsored multiple young riders deemd "up and coming and in need"

 

I think the trick to this might be that the majority of the owners are non-voting shares. The team would need to answer to a board of directors who have a sole employee which is the team principal. He/she is responsible for the hiring and firing of all personnel. The share holders can submit suggestions to the boeard who can make suggestions and policy to the team principal, which is non-binding. The Board could also terminate the team principal within the terms of his/her contract. All in all, I think it would be a viable model. The "owners" would all get some SWAG and the right to proclaim themselves as part of a team.

 

We're going to assume this is not a profitable venture, it's a way to spend some of your own capital (wether that be time or money, or both), in order to extract some enjoyment from being involved in racing. If you are talking about starting a for profit business, that is different.

I have been working on expanding into a small team in MA for 2025, started laying the groundwork this year. I have alot of equipment, and I'm spending the money already to deal with alot of the over the road costs. I've seen a few small teams come and go in the past few years and what I basically learned is, it's going to cost WAY MORE than you think. If you don't have that funding up front, you're going to be toast, because even though a sponsor or group of sponsors can decide to spend $X amount, when the bills start rolling in and they're larger than expected, it really sucks the fun out of it and becomes a WTF moment.

The marriage between the money people and the team operations is probably going to be rocky. People who spend money want a say and their ideas aren't always the best ones.

No matter how much you love your rider, in the end you're making a huge effort to fund / enable his (or her) racing- so you had better be ok with putting alot of work and money in for another's benefit. It's basically like being a race Dad, x1o!

Or you could just go race Miatas between motorcycle weekends. Just sayin'

 

@Gino230 keep us updated on your plans. I would certainly participate in a WERA Beeb "Crowdfunding" movement to help your efforts with racing in MA. Anyone who contributes has no say in how you run things - it would just be a pleasure in helping an "Everyday Joe" pursue the dream of professional racing.

 

I think this is really how it starts. I don't know Gino really, but if there's a good person that people like and they're not a rich kid whose family can easily float them for 10+ years, then passionate people can get behind it and support. That model can function rather easily. You don't even need to use a crowd-funding app if you already have the crowd's attention. Just lay out the plans, budget, needs, etc. and go for it. I'd be happy to help someone put this all together if there's enough interest.

I just want to see racers race and I know from having my own team and knowing many others in the racing world that exactly what Gino said are accurate and true. The balance between sponsors and teams is always a bit shaky unless you're the championship team consistently. Even then you can have corporations decide to pull out due to some internal audit, personnel changes, economy, etc.

I want to work on a system that is less reliant on those disconnected corporations that swing one way or another to something more sustainable. I can also tell you from experience that seeing talented ambitious racers with a potential professional career get buried in worry and frustration dealing with sponsors is a sad thing to witness.

 

I'm in no way trying to be discouraging, the sport needs people that want to run teams and go through everything it takes to do so. My thought was that it would be a way for me to continue to enjoy racing in MA even though I'm not competing for points positions (currently anyway )

However, you really have to be in it for the love of the sport, IMO. For example, the rider I would want to help out would be Kaleb. Let's say for argument's sake I helped him get to another Twins Cup championship. What is that going to do for him? Hell I even considered Supersport, (which given today's competition would be alot tougher, not to mention a much bigger expense for me).

Let's say for arguments sake he won the Supersport championship. Then what? Last year he was 2nd in Stock 1000 championship and now what? I want to help out but getting him $150K (+/-) for a Superbike seat is outside of my fun zone.
Europe is the dream, he saw Garrett do it and I believe he could do it, too. But timing, funding, etc. Did I mention FUNDING??

If I wanted to help the kid, I'd be better off getting him a pilot's license.

It's discouraging when you look at it that way. And to be honest, as much as I love the sport, I still have a job, and a small business. And it's not loading trailers and driving RV's. I do that because at the end there's a reward for me, which is to go fast around a track!

 

Sir, you have brought way too much reality into this dream.

 

it's great that folks would want to help riders financially. we all know it's an expensive sport, especially if one has high aspirations.. i'm just not down with the whole "crowd funding" thing. when i see a rider push a "go-fund-me" campaign, with nothing to benefit the person clicking "donate now" besides the satisfaction of clicking "donate now", i am just a bit turned off.

When a rider is offering something, anything .. a t-shirt, a signed post card sent in the mail, whatever, i'm more inclined to send a few $. I always liked what Melissa P13 and JH4 have done. MP13 would send a nice signed post card, often a DVD in years past, and T-shirts. I was happy to send JH4 a few bucks and get a cool personalized knife. Kayla Y has often had shirts for sale (i have a couple of em) that you know help her racing effort. pay for 2 and ask for 1 even is ok.

I'm not against a team getting a campaign behind a rider either and trying to fund an up and coming rider, just not a fan of the go-fund-me deals where it's clearly "you should give me money so i can go race" , and that's it. nothing more. Am I crazy ?

 

Direct democracy doesn’t work at most scales (see: California) and I can’t think of any cases where it genuinely has even at the scale of a single sporting team. I think you’re conflating the benefits of crowd funding (which has been proven viable in some circumstances) with direct democracy. It’d be more theoretically workable if you set it up with a more traditional corporate governance model, wherein your shareholders elect a board and you allow them to vote on key decisions. Good decision making and popularity are often at odds, something which minds greater than my own have written about in depth for millennia. I like the idea, but allowing people to vote on something as granular as what riders to sign? It would collapse quickly. You could get the same benefit of wide participation by setting up advisory committees and somehow involving them in decision making (with management having a veto).

 

Ditto