We are on the countdown to the 2023 MXGP World Championship season getting underway in Patagonia, Argentina. Live Motocross will be following the full World Championship this year so make sure you follow our pages and stay up to date via our website for everything MXGP. With 40 days to go until the gates drop we hear from David Luongo.
In less than two months the 2023 MXGP World Championship season will start! We cannot wait to start the engine on the exceptional track of Villa la Angostura in Patagonia, Argentina. I have no doubt that the upcoming season will be very exciting and unpredictable. All the stars of the championship are now preparing themselves to be ready for the 12th March and the first GP!
January has been a busy month for us, as we were able to publish an updated calendar of the upcoming 2023 season. The comeback of the MXGP of Switzerland is the great news of the month! After several years missing in the calendar, thanks to the tremendous work of the organizing committee of the Swiss Grand Prix leaded by Willy Laederach and all the support of Infront, we have been able to bring back the FIM Motocross World Championship to Switzerland. The patriotic Swiss fans of Jeremy Seewer and Valentin Guillod will be able to cheer for them! This Grand Prix will have the particularity to be organized on 3 days. The Saturday program will take place as usual, then the Easter Sunday will be a day off and finally the racing on Monday. We will put in place some activities in the paddock on Sunday for the fans who are present onsite the 3 days. Then Riola Sardo in Sardinia has also been confirmed as the first Grand Prix of the season in Europe, on a track that the whole paddock knows very well as most of them are training right now in Sardinia.
December and January are the months we receive the surveys and the reports about the MXGP audience on TV and the different economic impact analysis of the events on the countries, regions, and the cities where a GP takes place. It is always very rewarding to understand how much interest a Grand Prix brings to a region and a country. In Europe, most of the time, we talk about more than 20.000 people traveling for the GP weekend and using the facilities, hotels, restaurants of the region, visiting some touristic places and having a great time during the Grand Prix. Concerning the TV audience, we reached an impressive 44 million of unique TV viewers on the different broadcasters which are showing MXGP Worldwide (the data are presented by Nielsen, the world sports data analyst’s leading company). This represents more than 15% increase compared to 2021 season.
The fans of MXGP are also young and very dynamic people, our social networks continue to grow with more than 3 million fans on Facebook, 1.2 million followers on Instagram and more than 15 million views on YouTube during the last season with 50% of MXGP audience between 18 and 34 years old! The new MXGP-TV pass for the upcoming season is already available with an Early Bird promotion. MXGP-TV will also receive some extra program in the upcoming season, giving more focus on our legends and riders to enlarge our offer other than LIVE sport.
On the novelties side for the next year, the freight allowance for the private teams that come to the overseas will increase. We clearly witnessed during the last years, especially during the Covid time, a big increase of the costs for the transportation. This situation is clearly affecting all of us. On another way it is also very clear that the MXGP World Championship has to go worldwide and to continue to develop our favorite sport in new markets where fans are growing, too. It was important to adapt our support to the situation. Therefore, we are sensibly increasing the support for the private teams and riders, this will allow a better and more comfortable participation to the overseas Grand Prix for the teams. The beauty of motocross has always been the fact that the man counts more than the bike and we always had great stories of riders coming from the pack and winning races or having great results from a private structure. In the upcoming days, more novelties will come and I will be able to present them in my next editorial.
The wintertime has also been the occasion to renew some very important historical partnerships. On TV, we already renewed some important markets like Motorvision, TVG and USA with CBS SN. More will come in the upcoming days.
I would like to thank all the MXGP partners, the FIM, FIM Europe, the manufacturers, the media and last but not least all the MXGP fans.
I wish you a great 2023 year.
David Luongo, CEO of Infront Moto Racing
Lead Image Photo Credit – Ray Archer
