We recently caught up with Matt Bates to discuss Arenacross and where he wants to take it the series in the future.
On his future envision for the Arenacross Tour…
What I would like is that the FIM and the main organisers of championships around the world work closer together. By that I mean I see Arenacross as two great things. It’s a great feeder series to Supercross because if you think about World Supercross and Supercross as sport, there’s actually nothing for these youngsters to progress their talent – Arenacross is that platform.
So, I would like to think that in the future that we’re working closely with those guys because if you look at it all, Arenacross, World Supercross, MXGP, it’s all really close in skill set. It’s very closely linked. To be a great motocross rider now, you’ve got to have those Supercross skills.
And those Supercross skills don’t come without Arenacross. My vision is, in five years’ time, we’re all working really closely together where we all benefit from a much broader talent platform, and the world of dirt-biking is elevated to a much broader market.
On the series opening up to allow the International riders contest all the rounds and the series heading more oversea events in the future…
Would we be open to international riders for all of the events? Yes, absolutely. For the future, we most definitely would be. The future means that we will be staging less UK rounds and more international rounds.
On the Arenacross streaming package which costs £20 per round…
It’s a balance and I understand those comments, but I pride myself on doing things the right way. So, if you’re going to do a live stream, don’t do a live stream that I’ve seen British events try to sell in the UK.
I get the point, but what I’ve got to be careful of is that a group of people that would normally come to Arenacross all of a sudden buy the £20 live stream, and then they all sit in one room and watch it. I’m effectively giving away something that’s cost me so much money to deliver – and our model means that we still heavily rely upon a live fan in the Arena.
Every night I come to Arenacross, I risk half a million pounds to stage it. I can’t give it away on a live stream, and as much as people might think it’s expensive, they would be right. But I believe we deliver a quality product, and that product isn’t free to produce.
The British economy isn’t in a great place. To do anything is expensive. For me to live stream an event tonight, I’m going to spend £50,000, and I’m just not going to give it away.
You can read the full interview, here.
