Despite the 2022 Supercross tilt being six months out, a major piece of news just dropped. The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) announced that their agreement with Supercross’s parent company, FELD Entertainment, will not continue into 2022. This means that Supercross will revert back to a national series, as opposed to an outright World Championship. It is a bombshell that certainly feels out of left field. With the AMA and FELD in sole control of Supercross, here is what it all means going forward.
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FIM Statement
In their Tuesday afternoon press release, the now-former co-sanctioning body of Supercross had this to say:
“The long-standing dual sanctioning agreement has been in place for the last two decades and has seen a strong and successful relationship forged between the FIM, Feld Entertainment, and the AMA. The FIM’s involvement started early in the new millennium, at a time when the international expansion of events was seen as the next growth area for the sport. From 2002 through to 2006, the series started in December and visited Switzerland, Holland, Spain, and Canada before settling into a recurring domestic schedule…
The release went on:
…The Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship continues to attract some of the best talent from all corners of its home nation and from across the world, including strong representation from Germany, France, Japan, and Australia. Additionally, Feld Entertainment will also continue to expand its global partnerships and licensing agreements plus worldwide TV outreach including through its own viewing platform that now boasts subscribers in over one hundred and thirteen countries.”
Statment from FIM President Jorge Viegas
“Firstly, I would like to say a huge thank you to Feld Entertainment not only for such a long and great partnership but also for their immense work in making the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship the wonderful product it is today. I firmly believe under normal circumstances that this is an agreement that would have been extended for a further period and that would have continued to go from strength to strength.
Viegas continued, saying:
That said, we fully understand the current situation and respect the decision that has been taken. With the ongoing support of our national federation in North America – the AMA – I am confident that the series will soon recover the levels it enjoyed before the pandemic and that in the future we will have the opportunity to explore a new agreement. In the meantime, on behalf of the FIM, I would like to wish our American friends every success.”
Potential Benefits and Takeaways
The biggest benefit is a significant one. With the split, Supercross no longer needs to use WADA for drug testing. Quite frankly, that has has been a disgraceful system in several cases. James Stewart received a full-year suspension in 2015 for failing to submit paperwork for Adderall. Christian Craig was forced to wait 10 months to find out he faced a two-year suspension for a 2018 violation. Additionally, Broc Tickle had to wait over a year to get a hearing for what ended up being a two-year suspension. If USADA takes over, it is unknown if they will be significantly better, however being worse than WADA would be a tall task. This is good news all around for the sport.
Despite the 450 champion not receiving the title “World Champion”, in essence they still would be; though not in name for the foreseeable future. It also would be a hard sell if the FIM backed a new Supercross series and crowned a “World Champion” in a lesser series. A slight negative here, but not much of one, if at all.
Where the AMA and FELD Currently Stand
As it sits, the two major players with regards to Monster Energy Supercross are the AMA and FELD Entertainment. The Feld family has owned Supercross since 2008, in addition to Monster Jam. The latter of the pair they’ve done an absolute bang-up job running. Unless anything more out of left field happens, not much will change with these two parties.
FELD still has the contracts to run events at a wide majority of stadiums in the United States. While the AMA will likely keep what they have already been doing for ages in regards to sanctioning the sport, with the FIM out of the picture perhaps the two parties can accomplish things that maybe the FIM were not in favor of. Regardless, this split could actually end up being for the best for all involved parties.
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2 Responses
The current TV package is horrible.