What Motocross Brands Want: The Dealer, the Shop and the Kid Everyone Copies

Motocross has a sales chain most riders never think about. The gear, bags and helmets you race in usually don't come straight from the brand. They come from a dealer, a powersports shop or a mail-order house. When I opened the Motocross Sponsorship Summit at the Troy Lee Designs studios with a panel from Thor, Troy Lee Designs, OGIO Powersports and Wahoo's Fish Taco, that chain explained most of what these brands look for. A rider who helps the shop sell product is worth more to them than a rider who only wears it.

Most moto brands don't sell to you directly

Josh Shorter, brand manager at Thor, said the most important link in that chain is the dealer. At the amateur level, he explained, it starts with "the support especially through your dealers. We've all got dealers that support racing." The rider races, sends the local kids back to that dealer, and the cycle keeps itself going. "We don't sell direct to consumers, right? The dealers mean everything to me... Some of those great mail order guys that support the industry and racing as a whole, that's where it means a lot to us." ▶ Watch Josh Shorter explain this

Pat Lopez, athlete manager at OGIO Powersports, said this is what makes motocross different from car racing for his brand. With car racers, he pays closer attention to social media "because those people are generally driving traffic to the website, the OGIO Powersports website. There's not a real big retail sort of outlet for them. Whereas with motocross, skateboarding, BMX, snowboarding, there's specific retail stores that will carry the brand." ▶ Watch Pat Lopez on this

So a moto pitch that only shows follower counts misses what the brand needs most. It needs product moving through shops.

Expect to be asked where you shop

Lopez runs his program through the same network. "I really believe in sort of that core shop, you know, who's the local kid regionally that's killing it," he said. Often he hears about riders from the people who sell his bags. "I'm hearing it from one of my sales reps who I respect, and so I have a lot of foot soldiers on the ground through my sales kind of framework throughout the country." ▶ Watch Pat Lopez on OGIO's approach

When a rider approaches him, he starts with one question. "I have a list of questions that I ask people right off the bat. The first question I ask them: where do you shop? Where do you buy your bikes? Where do you get your parts?" The answer tells him whether he knows the shop and its parts manager. Sometimes he can help the rider get a better deal there instead of a straight discount from OGIO, "and then he buys my bag out of the shop, right? And that just keeps our industry, I think, healthier." ▶ Watch the full answer

If you're a rider, know your answer before he asks. Name your dealer, your parts counter and the people who work there. A good relationship with your shop is part of what you're offering.

The fast kid the other kids copy

Randy Valade, moto brand manager at Troy Lee Designs, explained why TLD hand-picks a few elite amateurs around the country. They travel to a lot of races, and younger riders watch them. "These new kids come into the sport are looking up to these guys, like, man... they got custom paint helmets, they look awesome, like, I want to be like them." That influence on younger riders is what TLD is paying for. ▶ Watch Valade on amateurs

Valade added that the brand wants riders to feel like insiders. "People want to feel like they're a part of something, and I think that's what we're trying to do at TLD: find these athletes, find these influencers wherever they may be, and bring them in and let them feel like they're a part of the brand. Once someone starts feeling like they're a part of it, they're so much more willing to go out and promote that brand for you." ▶ Watch Randy Valade on this

Fast isn't enough at the pro level

Valade was blunt about pros who win and do nothing else. "You could have the world's fastest guy, and if he's not marketable or he's not good with the people that are at the races, then is it really worth it? Yeah, it's great he's winning, but he's kind of a dud at the end of the day." ▶ See the exchange Shorter agreed that a rider has to be a well-rounded package.

Wing Lam, co-founder of Wahoo's Fish Taco, put it in terms every rider should remember after signing. "I'm going to give you 100 tacos or a thousand bucks, whatever that means, right? What are we getting out of it? So you have to realize that you're on the payroll now, and you have to do what you need to do to earn that keep." ▶ Watch Wing Lam on this

Sponsor a rider, support a whole program

At Thor, a sponsorship rarely stops with the rider. Shorter described the support Thor sends to a big team like Star Racing Yamaha and why it reaches the crew and families. "It's not just those guys on the track. It's the guys and gals that keep them on the track. And if their parents want a T-shirt and a hat, I mean, what do I say? No, tell them to go buy it somewhere? You got to take care of the whole network, that whole community." ▶ Watch Shorter on supporting teams

He also described limited apparel collections Thor builds with manufacturers and teams, such as KTM and Star Racing, around the athletes they share. The teams keep asking for more of it. Riders who help their sponsors find projects like that make each relationship more valuable.

What a beverage brand buys

Monster Energy's CFO, Tom Kelly, dropped into the Summit unannounced and gave the view from finance. Measuring sports marketing "is very subjective," he said, because "one dollar of spend doesn't necessarily translate into one dollar of sales or profit." What Monster pays for is conversation. "It's the buzz that you create out there, and people talk. So a lot of people talk Monday morning: hey, did you see that over the weekend?" ▶ Watch Tom Kelly's surprise appearance

Kelly said that when he joined the company, sales were about 50 or 100 million dollars a year, and Monster now does around 6 billion. He credited much of that growth to early marketing with action-sports athletes. "One of the things that Monster always wants to do is be cool, and so to associate our brand with cool people." Endemic brands want riders who move product through shops. A non-endemic brand like Monster wants riders people talk about.

Mind the calendar

Timing matters too. Valade said Troy Lee Designs opens its sponsorship applications "between September 1st through the end of October." It's an online application. TLD makes exceptions here and there for a standout rider, but the window is the rule. ▶ Watch Valade on the window

The takeaway

• Lead with your dealer and shop relationships: where you buy, who you know, and how you send riders their way.
• Be the local rider younger kids want to copy, and show the brand that influence.
• At any level, be the rider people enjoy working with. Speed alone doesn't keep a deal.
• Treat a sponsorship as a job, including the parents and crew who represent you at the track.
• Put every brand's application window on your calendar, and build the relationship before it opens.