Full disclaimer, I wrote this for my own blog. Yes, I know, literally nothing is more cringeworthy than having a blog in 2024, but I have my reasons (which I'll spare you all from now).
Copy Paste Here - I guarantee I'll clean this up later because its rife with typos. If you want to follow along, www.jeffbrines.com
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With silly season news finally trickling in, I wanted to take a moment to write about one of the more interesting phenomena in the outdoor industry, world cup downhill mountain bike racing.
Today I woke up to the news that Greg Minnaar had signed with Norco Bicycles, a move nobody had on their bingo card in January of 2023. Greg is to mountain bike racing what Ted Williams is to baseball. He's commonly referred to as the G.O.A.T. and despite being over 40 is a real podium contender week in, week out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt3B1ahTFBs
For those who don't follow the sport of downhill mountain bike racing, its got elements of downhill ski racing, motocross and "old fashioned" mountain biking all wrapped into one Thunderdome style showdown that happens seven times per year throughout the world*. There are three classifications - Junior, Women and Men - all fighting for a limited number of spots in Sunday's final show.
TV coverage has waxed and waned over the years, with Red Bull TV famously doing an incredible job propelling the sport more into "mainstream" viewing (as mainstream as RBTV could be anyway). Since, the series has been sold to Warner Brothers which has arguably been a big step backwards in terms of how engaging the series and the coverage has really been.
Like many other forms of racing, any given weekend sees a small percentage of the field fighting for the top 5 spots, with only your most diehard fans knowing (or caring) who finished outside the top 10 (in the men's field). Important to note because for most of the field nobody cares.
Here is where things get interesting - to field a top tier team in 2024 will cost millions of dollars and its almost impossible to see how the investment is going to offer an ROI that is the best allocation of that capital against everything else in the marketing manager's toolbox. Lets explore.
Nobody Buys DH Bikes: I'm opening with one of the weaker arguments here, but its important for the rest of the article. Nobody buys downhill mountain bikes anymore. They are literally the least purchased form of a mountain bikes, being you must be able to shuttle to the top of a mountain/ride a chairlift and have terrain worthy of these types of steeds, which is in very short supply. So even if you prove to the world your bike is possibly the best, the only people who care are DH racers who never pay retail, live in their vans and would otherwise be considered the worst demographic you could ever try and build a business around.
The TAM of Mountain Biking is Small: Though the sport is bigger than ever, the total addressable market of the specialty bicycling industry, specifically those wow'd by the gravity side of things, is very small relative to say - auto enthusiasts or football fans. According to most market research the size of the the entire global mountain bike market is roughly $6-7B. For context the size of the entire pickleball market is estimated to be worth around $65-66B. Mountain biking is very fragmented, too. With a myriad of different applications of the over arching idea of "the mountain bike". While DH may be the most fun to watch, gravity riding/racing/equipment is a fraction of the entire market and has virtually zero non endemic fans (people who watch the sport but don't mountain bike). This means your marketing dollars spent on WC DH are fairly limited in total reach based on market size & interest alone.
Formula 1 It is Not: One analogy that is often drawn is "DH MTB is akin to formula 1". After all, this would justify the "nobody buys DH bikes" problem (being nobody can buy a real F1 car). This case is best articulated by the mythical Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction stating "...its not in the same ballpark, its not even in the same league." MTB o F1 is akin to your 4 year old nephew playing with a toy airplane saying to his Delta-flying pilot uncle "I fly airplanes too". Its embarrassing we even try to make this comparison. Formula 1 an absolute bemouth of a machine for many reasons including size of market (huge), size of audience (biggest in the world), mainstream-ness (covered in every language), myriad forms of coverage it gets, number of billionaires with FU money who are adjacent to the sport (many) and the 100+ year prestige of auto sports. Mountain biking isn't even a rounding error on the F1 yearly GDP...and that's a fact.
Moto isn't MTB: Another often made analogy is for us to look at supercross or motocross racing. To start, SX/MX aren't exactly thriving when you dig into it, but I do agree the moto teams have a more sustainable rationale with respect to supporting very expensive racing series which is simply this: Supercross events make real money and gets real exposure. Go to a supercross race. They are AWESOME. You can see the entire thing in a stadium somewhere in "normal America" then get in your car and be home in under ~30 minutes. To add, you often get kids who don't participate in the sport falling in love with the likes of Eli Tomac, Ken Roczan or Jet Lawrence. Heroes. Legends. The sport bleeds outside the boundary of mere participation. This type of exposure and model drastically changes the dynamics of the sport. To add, the bikes most of these racers are riding are in principal closer to the bike a random Joe can go into their dealership and buy. Lots of people ride on the MX track relative to the percent of people who participate in true DH mountain biking (on a DH bike). This makes it much easier to justify the racing efforts in an apples to apples sales kind of way for the brands and is where the motif "win on sunday sell on monday" likely came from.
Olympics: We as a species do weird wild things for the Olympics. In some obscure way this kind of makes sense, as it can be viewed as the ultimate showdown of human athleticism (I no longer believe this). Plus, like Visa proved, you can get a crap ton of positive exposure through the Olympics (if you are...Visa). I know, this debate likely doesn't hold much water but it doesn't even matter because DH mtb isn't even in the Olympics and there is no plan to make it an Olympic sport.
Ball Sports Teams vs Marketing Teams: This is an incredibly important distinction - the Dallas Cowboys are operating under an entirely different model than Santa Cruz Syndicate. in the former example, performance is directly tied to revenue generation and value. In the latter, is much more obscure and the real performance metric we are after is that of clicks, eyeballs and selling a bicycle (not a ticket). This is an important and critical delineation to make, and one that should level set all other forms of marketing against that of the "WC DH team".
Billionaire Backers: Unlike Liv golf or similar, DH mtb does not have some downhill loving billionaire or sovereign state looking to synthetically change the supply/demand dynamics for the athletes, teams, brand and sport. Its worth noting the extremely wealthy often have a hand in supporting other forms of racing, which is sometimes required to stabilize the base and athlete pay within the sport.
The Marketing Backdrop Has Changed: The late 90s were considered to be one of the best times to be a DH Mtb WC athlete. Though I'd argue the last 5 years may in fact be better, the sport finding the limelight in the late 90s actually made a lot of sense based on one huge factor: there were fewer alternatives to allocate marketing budget. You didn't have targeted social ads, YouTube reviewers, apps you could build, podcasts, VitalMTB/PB, Google Adwords, etc etc etc. The toolbox a marketer has now is exponentially bigger than it was 20 years ago, yet culture hasn't updated to reflect this.
Measurement: This is the one I struggle with the most. The tools a brand has to really measure the short, medium and long term impact fielding a world cup team can have on their underlying brand equity & topline sales is very challenging with a number of variables that cloud the equation. If sales go up, it could be because the broader industry is doing better (macro), the company releases a new suspension platform that proliferates through the range (technology), pricing is attractive, a handful of reviews are very positive and/or your athlete puts the name in the limelight. How does one assess what's what? To add, the entire racing space is very cloak and dagger-ish with nobody really talking about who is getting paid what, and how brand's are really measuring success. This hurts everyone involved, from athletes to teams to the brands themselves.
If I'm placed into the role of a "CMO" or "VP of Marketing" at a bike company looking to grow am given the budget of a World Cup mountain bike team, I'd scrutinize what else I could do with that amount of capital and make sure I'm aiming at solving the problem with the best tool (or set of tools) at my disposal. I'd Billy Bean it. I'd play some Moneyball (Moneybikes doesn't have the same ring to it) and I am nearly 100% positive I could come up with a number of better ways to allocate this capital that is more measurable, less risky, higher ROI and offers broader improvements for the entirety of the company. To be fair, there has been a notable pullback in the racing space from 2023 to 2024 likely due to what I'm writing about, with a number of teams shuddering their doors.
...just an example via a quick google image search of the ad channels now avalaible
Don't misread, I'm not asking for DH mountain bike racing (or teams) to go away. Ultimately, my personal opinion is that I'd love to see a more stable, sustainable form of DH mountain bike racing to come into the foray. Currently, most talks surrounding "improving" the series focus on potentially reducing the size or similar. This is an attempt to optimize a non-critical function, and will not result in the type of material change needed to get the sport to a materially better place. Improving the value of the series will come from top tier production, promotion, creativity, cost management and leadership, all of which is currently absent from the series.
...all that said, I'm still excited for the racing to come this year. Cheers everyone!
DH has the pull that it does mainly because EWS, and EDR have failed to deliver an equally entertaining product. Even if the DH bike market is miniscule, I think that bike companies realize that DH is their best marketing opportunity for trail bikes and enduro bikes simply because there isn't a popular racing series for those kind of bikes. As long as a company's bike design language is consistent, I can definitely see DH race results subconsciously affecting consumers' purchase decisions. So basically manufacturers are all-in on downhill because other than XC racing, DH is the only MTB racing series that gets (relatively) high viewership.
I think you are misreading. I'm not suggesting DH racing sucks to watch overall (though it has gotten worse the last year). I love the sport. I'm suggesting that the business of running a team makes zero sense and actually does *not* translate to the whole "win on sunday sell on monday" motif that seems more grounded in yesteryear motocross and is not quantifiable for brands today in mountain biking.
Again, I don't know how a marketing manager can justify the millions into a DH team relative to the reach, ROI, boost in sales, boost in brand equity etc other (cheaper/more measurable) forms of marketing can elicit.
The other elephant in the room when talking DH sustainability, and marketability is E bikes IMO. How many people that swore they would never own an eeb, are now planning to buy one as their next bike? EDR is the most high profile series for racing e bikes, but without looking at the numbers I'd wager that ratings for that series are much lower than DH. That kind of begs the question that if someone can turn EDR and E-EDR into ratings juggernauts, what does that mean for DH racing in the future?
DH is great to watch. I'm saying that EWS is boring to watch, so companies focus on DH because they know that nobody cares about watching EWS.
I think most DH Teams are run out of a passion for racing and everything else is done to support that desire.
Jeff, I think that I know a lot about MTB marketing, but I don't know what approach I would recommend to a bike company in 2023. There was a glorious time in the recent past when there were just a few channels of information that all bike customers used to learn about products, brands, and bike culture. Now it feels like "Everything Everywhere All At Once." There are youtube influencers, instagram and TikTok influencers (and that's different), review sites, long form web articles and photo essays, coaches, trail building orgs and advocacy, racers that influence, influencers that race, PB and Vital, and a million little subcultures that can be locally based (geo specific), affinity-based (not geo-specific), and the constant choice between farming out content creation to a million ad-hoc freelancers or much more expensive original brand-driven content that's typically higher quality and made in house. And back in the day it was only XC, DH, general trail riding, or dirt jump/freeride/stair gap shenanigans. Now it's all of those categories plus ebikes, bikepacking, enduro, gravel, snow bikes, and more.
The only thing I know for sure is that you simply cannot do all (or even most) of those things well. My only recommendation would be to pick one thing or a couple things and smash it out of the park. That could be DH racing, but only if you're committed to making lots of noise with your team. It could be trail building, but if that's you, do what Santa Cruz or Specialized is doing with Paydirt grants or Soil Searching and make it a big part of your brand identity. If you're going to have a youtube influencer, try to have the best one, or at least the loudest. If it's 50:01 and the Cannondale Waves Team, go all in. So if you're Norco and you want to pick up Greg and spend a billion dollars on your DH team, you'd better make a bunch of noise to make it worth it. This is something I think Santa Cruz did very wisely and shrewdly in the 2000's when they created the Syndicate. They way overspent on DH racers, relative to the size of their business, but I think that brand identity has paid dividends ever since.
The only thing that doesn't make sense to me in this very busy and disconnected media landscape is half-assing a lot of things in an unmemorable way. That approach might seem conservative and safe to the corporate office, but it looks like death to me on the media/marketing side of things. As Ron Swanson would say, "Whole ass one thing."
I would speculate that the European market generally responds better to marketing in the form of bike racing (whether it be world tour cycling, cyclocross, world cup XC, or world cup DH) compared to the North American market. As evidence of this, it seems like the overwhelming majority of non-endemic sponsors of various bike racing teams, or series, do not sell their product in North America or at least are based in Europe. Elite level bike racing is also increasingly easier to view in Europe compared to North America. If this speculation is correct, I think brands targeting the European market receive reasonable ROI on team/event/series sponsorship.
I think brands marketing sporting (not commuting) bikes to a North American audience would receive better ROI by contracting ambassadors in MTB/bike riding adjacent sports that have a much larger and mainstream following such as climbing, skiing, running, or SX/MX. Specialized does a great job of this currently - Alex Honnold is always using their stuff in videos where a bike is used to approach an objective, Michelle Parker uses their bikes and gear in her stuff, Jim Walmsley has used it in various pieces of trail running content, and they have a long history of partnering with SX/MX athletes at this point including the Lawrence brothers. I think athletes like those mentioned can provide much more brand exposure to both potential new riders, and current riders, in North America in a handful of videos, photos, or social posts than someone like Loic Bruni could in an entire career.
"Formula 1 It is Not."
No, but it's actually a lot like MotoGP where the world's fastest motorcycles are raced to gain brand recognition and hopefully sell more entry level bikes, and scooters in developing countries around the world. Just like in MTB, the market for the Fastest, most capable track bikes is tiny compared to the market for simpler, more utilitarian models. As the most popular racing series for streetbikes, MotoGP is essentially where OEM's go to advertise to the largest motorcycle market on the planet, the Asian motorcycle/scooter market.
Some great points here (as always).
One thing I want to be extra clear about is I'm not suggesting any alternative approach that is half assed will work. Moneyball really is the best analogy here where thinking critically and from a "first principles" approach will likely result in you finding a better way to allocate capital than throwing it at a WC DH team. Its going to take a number of different approaches all done "right" but if you do this you are likely going to spend less and get more. This doesn't make it easy, nor does it mean you can just write checks and hope for the best. It actually means you have to do your job as a marketing/advertising manager for a brand and take risks outside the 'cookie cutter mold'
Maybe! I'm not so sure however. MotoGP has an audience that is completely decoupled from the sport itself. Go to any cafe in Italy during an event and its likely going to be on. The starts of MotoGP are like rockstars, they transcend the sport itself. This is not the same for DH MTB (at the moment) and this is very much why I wrote the last paragraph. If we want the ROI to really be there for running a team, it needs to be more like MotoGP (or similar) but we're kidding ourselves if we think this is the case.
I think one of the biggest issues is most top end dh racers aren’t using publicists to reach a wider audience. Very few are like missy giove back in the day who would hustle a ton off the bike to build her brand.
Good question. Those that think it's worth it, will stay in the sport, but it's increasingly looking like many don't think so.
However, as someone who watches a lot of different sports, MTB is pretty awful at promoting itself to the wider world; whether that is the teams, riders, or even the various series. And there is the problem of road cycling sucking up all the money, sponsors, and media coverage. It doesn't help when lots of MTB teams go into hibernation when the season finishes. Compare to the road scene; where there's always something on social media, etc throughout the winter.....
6-8 World Cups a year behind a paywall is not enough if you want to be a 'global' sport......
I wanted to throw a comment in here after the Neko/frameworks announcement and interview. If more teams ran their ship like Neko is running his team, I would throw this entire hypothesis in the trashcan. Few reasons why...
1) He's running the team on "bike industry adjacent" money. The real capital commitment on behalf of him or the Frameworks brand seem to be minimal beyond the actual product, which is basically immaterial to his P&L. When you compare this style of budgeting to what I've heard other teams do (like the Big S), Neko is very much the exception not the rule.
2) He sniped the best up and coming rider in the world* (arguably)
3) He also sniped a real podium contender for a really solid deal.
4) He's running the team incredibly tight; no superfluous use of capital period.
Neko is Billy Bean. Neko is also one of one. Nobody else has his real world experience, network, understanding of racing and understanding of engineering. He is on his own team and is no slouch by any stretch of the imagination. There is no better use of resources for his brand than building and running a WC team the way he's doing it. He's also arguably doing this as close to perfectly as you possibly could. Again - he's the outlier, he is not the rule. If this flipped, I would throw my entire hypothesis in the trashcan.
Don't forget that he's good at marketing and entertainment. Neko's able to tell a unique and compelling story that viewers will tune in for, beyond the industry standard "look at a video of us racing and talking about the race." We obviously watch Neko's race videos, but typically that's because the individual races are touchstones in a bigger narrative that we're hooked on. The story guy knows how to get consistent clicks and views! (TELL A GOOD STORY)
From Pinkbike
Until something like Hard-line has a deeper field of world-class riders and larger crowds it can't compare to World cup downhill racing.
I've found watching g the same Hard-line venue for a decade become rather boring. The decision to hold an event in Tasmania was a great idea to freshen it up
Just so I'm clear, I never implied DH won't draw eyeballs, especially from the nerdiest of participants (of which I am one). What I am asking is what kind of ROI you really get for fielding a team as the headline sponsor (Specialized, Trek, etc) vs alternative uses of that capital.
The survey I'd really love to see is "how much has a DH team changed your buying behavior".
From a pure numbers perspective (cost of running a factory team vs. sales generated from the team) I don't believe DH racing has ever made financial sense.
That doesn't mean there isn't a bigger return for the company.
DH racing is a halo product for an entire brand. DH racing has a huge impact on the brand image. The brand image helps sell bikes.
DH racing also helps develop technology that transitions out to other types of bikes.
Jeff, you're wrong
In 2024 the most cringeworthy thing is having a podcast and calling it a "Pod"
Aron Gwin said something really smart in a podcast (don't remember where) regards the marketing side of DH.
From memory he said viewers/fans of DH own around 3,2 bikes, and viewers/fans of XC and road owned around 1,5 bikes each (in the ballpark,). By that it means 1 fan of DH is likely to buy more bikes from said company for each use. But the hardcore XC/road fans often has one high end/expensive bike.
With that in mind maybe the long turn ROI of a WC DH team isn't as bad as it looks? And I'm sure temas don't throw money at it for fun.
It's not hurt Yeti for the last few years.........
Yeti has been doing the same thing with Enduro racing.
Essential all racing is the same, it's about brand image not direct return on investment.
Racing also keeps frame manufacturers up to date on the latest and greatest technology from tire, wheel, and suspension manufacturers. Technologies like Flight Attendant/ LiveWire, or new tire patterns are prototyped for years sometimes on the racing circuit before they are ready for the retail market. That's a big advantage for product managers to already have solid data on new components before other companies have even seen them in person.
It doesn't make sense for companies to be doing R&D in a vacuum, when they can do it on the race track AND get exposure at the same time. If it makes sense for a small company like Frameworks to go racing just based on the exposure they're getting, then really it's a no brainer for all these other companies who are many, many times larger.
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