Inspired by ESPN Magazine’s column with an anonymous NFL player on how life in the NFL really is, I thought that I’d try to do the same thing. I called a couple of riders and promised anonymity if they would go off about whatever topic they wanted. This one chose to let the people know all about the money and what to say to people who think riders are overpaid.
Inspired by ESPN Magazine’s column with an anonymous NFL player on how life in the NFL really is, I thought that I’d try to do the same thing. I called a couple of riders and promised anonymity if they would go off about whatever topic they wanted. This one chose to let the people know all about the money and what to say to people who think riders are overpaid.
I’m not going to reveal their identity except to say this guy is a pro in the prime of his career and a top ten guy most times. I don’t agree with everything that he said but here it is in its entirety-
There are a lot of people that say we’re overpaid and they may be right in some cases but we’re the ones taking the most risk. We could break our arm badly, we could hurt our knee which will bother us for the rest of our lives or we could die. That may sound dramatic but it’s true. We are making a lot of money compared to the average guy but we’re the talent. Without us the mechanics wouldn’t have a job, the teams wouldn’t exist and the whole sport would collapse. We’re the guys that are risking our lives out there and if you don’t think that’s true, ask the family of that kid that died at San Diego a few years ago.
These people on the internet drive me nuts, overpaid compared to what? If any of those keyboard racers were offered money to ride a dirt bike, would they take it? Would they give it back? Are you going to tell an Eric Kehoe or whomever that’s offering you money to take it back, you don’t want it? Are you going to go up to Jimmy Button, Ernesto Fonseca or Doug Henry and tell them they were overpaid while they raced? That might change your perspective on that. Or maybe go tell a family whose kid died racing that he was making too much money. Take everything into consideration when you’re thinking about it. Baseball, basketball guys are all making way more than we make and if you think about the investment that a family puts into a baseball player vs the investment that parents make to make their kid fast, it’s peanuts. Yet we’re overpaid? If anything I think motocross athletes are tremendously underpaid along with the core people in the industry.
When a rider shows up with his trainer, he’s got a practice bike mechanic, a water truck, a bitchin practice track and everyone looks at that like it’s so cool to have but it all costs money. And if you want to beat the guys you’re racing against, you have to have this stuff also. It is cool to have but it’s an expense. You’re spending a ton of money on simply up-keep. It seems that every year guys up the ante until, well basically now, because of the economy. It went from the guys in the mid-90’s having nothing to now guys have an entire little community and people on payroll and everything. They even went to private jets which I think is a little ridiculous but whatever…
Now the guys have two supercross tracks and what’s next? Two outdoor tracks? Those things aren’t cheap to build, maintain and insure. We are spending a ton of money on all this stuff. The top guys are giving back to the moto community in a way with all their spending. We aren’t just taking the money and running with it. As far as figures go it’s 20K for a sx track, 30 to 40K for practice bike guy, you have to have the land that can run you half a million dollars. It’s 30K for the water truck, 20K for a tractor. You have some guys with full-on dozers that are 60, 70K. The practice guys need places to live or some riders pay their guys more so that they can move from wherever to wherever.
We also all mostly have disability insurance and that can run pretty high. I heard that Chad and James pay upwards of $300,000 for disability. Some of the other guys are 20 to 30 thousand. That’s so if it all ends tomorrow, we’re taken care of at the income level we’re at right now. Plus people always seem to forget about the taxes, if you’re making a ton of money most likely you’re in the 50% tax bracket. That’s right off the top, with write-offs and everything like that, you could be in the 40% range. That’s still a lot of money to Uncle Sam. An agent can make from 7% to 10% of your salary. I’m hearing now that the agents are getting a percentage of a riders bonuses and that’s bullshit. My guy gets 8% of everything that I make salary wise. Their job is to sell a rider and that’s all you should get. You didn’t earn those bonuses. A guy making ten million is now making five and they have upkeep and investment into their riding. I’m not saying poor riders or anything like that but maybe people should realize some things about us.
A lot of guys have places in California and on the east coast now because the factories want you out there to test so much. That’s another house, another car, another set of furniture. You want to make it as easy as you can to do as well as you can as a rider. Living in an apartment with no garage or whatever isn’t the best way to do well. You basically have double of everything when you do that.
To be honest, I’m not surprised at these kids that blow all this money and are broke. Guys like Hansen are not a surprise to me and that’s only because of all the stuff I spoke about already. You pay more taxes, more property tax, you want to have a nice house and a nice car because you feel that you earned it with your hard work. And at one time, Hansen did work hard to get to where he is now and people don’t realize that you pay more than a normal person would because you have money. People and companies see you coming a mile away. To see the kids go through it is not surprising, you’re kind of famous in a way so you spend money, people scam you and you’re not very educated. You’re young and the people that are maybe advising you have never had this much money themselves and now they’re telling you what to do with it? Agents, family or whomever aren’t always the best judges of what to do with your money. Or it can go the other way where the kid comes in, makes a ton of money and tells his family to screw off and he can handle everything now. Soon, he’s broke also.
Another thing that’s amazing to me is how underpaid the mechanics are in the industry. You got some guys making 20K to work on a team and expected to live in California for that much. He’s in charge of a bike with an athlete making maybe over a million dollars a year on it. If that guy leaves a bolt loose or something like that and the rider crashes, that’s a big bucked guy on the sideline all because you could only afford to pay a guy 20,000. You get what you pay for and it’s amazing that these teams try to cheap out with team personal.
There are a lot of things people don’t think about when they type things out. They all probably wanted to be a rider like us at one time or another and didn’t make it due to not being good enough or not having a family to help them out. I think a lot of that hate on the forums comes from jealousy.
Salaries are definitely on the downward ways right now, the good days are over and I’m lucky I got a deal. I heard that McGrath in the day was lucky to make 2 million a year. The guys that are as dominant as he was are making 6 to 10 million. Now times are different and all that but I heard that MC is making as much now as he did in his glory years. Our sport is f**cked up in the sense that the guys in 5th to 7th is making 500,000 or less and the guy four spots ahead is making 10 times that. The rider in fifteenth is maybe making 30,000 a year and his team is probably looking to screw him out of that.
A rider like Ivan Tedesco or your guy Tim Ferry probably makes around 150,000 for everything they wear head to toe. That’s probably being on the high side. And that’s if you make every race because if you don’t and get hurt, you get docked from all these companies. And we’re all going to get hurt at one time or another. Some companies are less forgiving than others, some gear contracts are broken into 28 races and every race you miss, they’re taking a 28th of your salary. If you miss the whole year, you’re out but yet they get to keep using your likeness for ads. Like I said they don’t all do that but they all dock you for missing races. The people think we’re happy to be at home and getting paid all this money but that’s not entirely the case. There’s a real small group of riders that like to get paid to stay home, we’re not all Davi Millsaps. Most of us feel the pressure to perform and want to come back to race asap, you will see guys come back after being out for a while and that’s because sometimes, they simply need the money and willing to ride hurt.
For me, and maybe this is jealousy but it’s tough to see the top guys fly in a private jet, get picked up by a motorhome driver, get everything they can in their favor and then the guy in tenth place is making 100,000. The gap in our sport it too big, there’s not much there for the guys further down. Not to say the first place guy doesn’t deserve it but the industry shouldn’t put so much emphasis on the on the winners. There are drivers that never win in NASCAR but are marketed smart and can make a living. We don’t have that, why can’t the industry companies market riders and not worry so much on results because there isn’t much separation from 3rd to 15th. Why doesn’t some goofball company hire Jason Lawrence and market him to a segment that they want to sell to? Nick Wey is an example, he’s built a great image through MSR and he’s not close to winning. He’s all over the magazines. If there isn’t a tenth place guy, there’s no race. And you can’t say that there’s a ton of guys ready to take that tenth place guys spot because there isn’t that many guys that can ride supercross. You can’t have Stewart lapping the guy in three laps. That doesn’t look good.
What drives me nuts is the people that are getting paid to do nothing. There are so many people in our industry that are overpaid and underpaid, it’s ridiculous. You have mechanics that are working over a hundred hours a week, I mean, just stupid hours and it kills them. Then you have guys that just hang out and do nothing. I mean guys that do the gear, sometimes the riders pay guys to hang out with them and maybe goggle guys. I know they do things for us but do we really need someone to hold our goggles on the line, pat us on the back and wish good luck? We’ve gotten to the point where the companies all want hold our hands and think we want that. There are a hundred guys that can build goggles and we’re going to pay them more than the small percentage that can split cases on a four-stroke?
There are a lot of guys that get paid to hang out at the races, be the cool-guy and deliver energy drinks to motor-homes and then there are guys that are struggling to make a 1000 dollar rent payment.
What we’re seeing right now is the sport changing a bit. Some guys that are rich are coming in and starting these teams and when they realize that they’re not making money, they fold the team or fire the riders. There has been a bunch of riders that try to sue for contract money but the owners are rich and know that any tiny settlement will be ate up by lawyers fees and the riders aren’t in that circle where they can get a free lawyer. They’ll just give up. The teams know it, there are riders everywhere that haven’t been paid what they are promised. I guarantee you that Chad and James have even been screwed over by somebody at some point. What makes it worse is that these owners have the money, their families don’t go without but the riders do. The mechanics, truck drivers and people like that get paid because the truck needs to get to the races so the sponsors can see everything is ok. In some case these guys aren’t getting paid by their sponsors so they can’t pay the riders and they don’t want to dip into their own money to make things right. I guess that’s how the rich stay rich (laughs.)
