As long as there has been
motorcycle racing there has been tobacco advertising gracing side fairings.
Lucky Strikes, Marlboro, Gauloises, Camel and Chesterfield have all enabled
champion riders such as Kevin Schwantz to ride winning machines developed by
the likes of Suzuki, Ducati and Yamaha. But in the mid 2000s began to change.
Teams such as Camel Honda would replace the ‘Camel’ on the bikes and leathers
with ‘Bayliss’ or ‘Biaggi’ as more and more countries began to ban tobacco
advertising. Some teams, such as Ducati, kept the sponsorship and instead had
fairing or leathers that were similar to well known tobacco brand’s logos.
But for the majority of teams the wealth of tobacco money was gone.
Since then the number of teams in
all classes has shrunk, the quest for sponsorship not helped by the world’s
economic troubles. Spanish and Italian companies, were MotoGP gets the majority
of its viewership from, helped from a while but now even they have began to
fade. Although a new industry looks to perhaps have a small amount of the much
needed sponsorship money, energy drinks. The multi-billion dollar industry
isn’t new to sponsoring MotoGP teams, sponsoring the Yamaha of Garry McCoy
(amongst others) in the 500cc days of yore.
Energy drinks have seen an
explosion in popularity from the early 2000s when Red Bull first came onto the
market, now dozens of brands exist and nearly all of them seem to have an
interest in MotoGP. Smaller brands such as ‘Go & Fun,’ which also make a variety
of other energy products, have replaced San Carlo as Gresini’s title sponsor.
ArmA has been sponsoring Scott Redding and the Marc VDS team for over three
years and even budget energy drinks such as ‘Mad Croc’ have sponsored riders
such a Ricky Cardus.
The two biggest brands, Red Bull
and Monster, look as though they could potentially be sponsoring Honda and
Yamaha’s MotoGP efforts. Red Bull have been sponsoring Dani Pedrosa and soon to
be factory rider Marc Marquez for years and recently stepped up their support
for Stefan Bradl and the LCR team, even being rumored as a title sponsor for
them. Red Bull clearly has an interest in supporting Honda.
Monster, one of the newer companies
in the energy drinks competition, have shown a huge interest in MotoGP.
Sponsored riders include; Pol Espagaro, Valentio Rossi, Ben Spies, Andrea
Dovizioso and the Tech 3 team. With Rossi’s move back to Yamaha it looks, if
the rumors are true, as if Monster could now be a major, if not title, sponsor
of the factory Yamaha team. Recent reports have it that Yamaha have bought out
Lorenzo’s Rockstar contract for an estimated 2 million Euros, clearing the way
for Monster, Rossi’s personal sponsor, to be a major player on the Yamaha’s
fairing. It is estimated that between Eneos and Monster Yamaha could be gaining
7 million Euros, the same money Fiat once brought them.
If the energy drinks market
continues to grow as it does and the world’s economic problems, hopefully,
lift, they could offer a large amount of sponsorship for the struggling GP
championship. Obviously energy drink money alone won’t be enough, but hopefully
combined with Dorna’s cost cutting methods we’ll see the GP grid grow and just
maybe more exciting racing on a regular basis.
