With AMA Supercross season already reaching a conclusion and the MXGP World Championship two rounds into the season, it’s easy to forget about World Supercross. A series that started in 2022 to take Supercross global.
We are already in April and there’s still no calendar for the 2024 series – last year the series got underway in July.
In the past, WSX have been great with the media sending out plenty of updates but lately they have been working in silence to propose a new format in 2024. As SX Global haven’t been communicating we did some digging for information we could find out about the series ahead of the 2024.
We understand that there is going to be a big change in the format in 2024. Previously the last two years, WSX has ran a 250 and a 450 class but we believe that is going to be changing. We understand that they are going to focus on one class – a lone 450 class which means no 250 class. It does seem a bit of a shame because the racing in the 250 class was exciting and arguably more entertaining than the 450 class. It is thought that the decision has been made in order to cut costs.
However, with only one main class for 2024. How will they fill an evening program for the spectators? There will also now be less rides provided by the teams due to one class. We believe that SX Global are hoping to run their series with National SX/AX championships. This is actually similar to what they already do in Australia.
For the Aussie WSX round, the day/night before, they run the Aussie Supercross series and then WSX the day/night after. For 2024, this is now likely to be done in one day as oppose to two.
With regards the 2024 calendar, we believe the WSX calendar will head to places such as: Asia, Australia, Abu Dhabi, South America and the Middle East.
In Asia, the Indian Supercross Racing (ISRL) had it’s debut season last year and it’s thought that SX Global will run one of their events alongside the ISRL championship. It’s also possible that Japan could run it’s national series alongside WSX. With regards South America, both Brazil and Argentina could be options.
With the return of Abu Dhabi, this is the most challenging race to host alongside National championship. There has been rumours that’s where the Arenacross UK series could come in. Matt Bates has stated on record that he hopes to have at least one round outside the UK in order to help the series grow and it’s thought they might just run a round in Abu Dhabi alongside the WSX series. But as of now that is still to be confirmed.
There’s clearly a gap in the market for Supercross on a global scale but it looks like for 2024, the WSX series won’t have a round in Europe. In 2022 and 2023 they did hold two races in the UK – Cardiff and Villa Park. They had scheduled to go to Lyon and Dusseldorf last year but both events got cancelled and the series doesn’t look to be heading back to Europe in 2024. It is a shame as it is hard to see the series really be successful until they master rounds in Europe but it is also hard to sell out big stadiums in Europe without an AMA SX rider line up – this is the challenge they have for the future. Organizational costs and stadium rentals are also very expensive in Europe.
Last year also saw two new investors for the WSX series in the form of Kyril-Louis Dreyfus and Juan Sartori who are involved in the football world as they own Sunderland FC. We believe that they have been trying to cut costs as the money invested by the first investors isn’t sustainable. The issue with this is that the ten teams currently involved in the series all signed five year contracts with WSX. With the arrival of new investors with new ideas and a reshuffling of the budget came the need to sign new contracts, and above all to get the teams involved to accept them.
The new calendar won’t be released until WSX agree new conditions with the current teams and until the teams agree the new contracts, there will be no riders behind the WSX so the teams look to have the power in this case!
Article: Andy McKinstry
