Mladin's pay

 I know this has come up before, but there's a column in MCN about it
today - apparently Mladin gets into the top 100 paid sportsman in the
USA, on what it quotes as £3.3 million pa.  I guess this is a
conversion from around $6.5 million US.  This is reckoned to be at
least twice as much as Bayliss is paid in WSB.

My question is how Mladin's employers can afford this.  Is he paid by
Suzuki America (the importers), or who?  Is it really worth that much
money to Suzuki to win in the AMA?
--
Champ

 

Although this isn't the crux of your question, I doubt he's in the top 100

here's the top 25 in baseball alone:

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/top25.aspx?year  06

and football:

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/top25.aspx?year  05

and basketball:

http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/salaries/top25.aspx?year  05-06

At $6.5 million US, he probably wouldn't even crack the top 200 or 300

 Carl Sundquist wrote:

The number I saw in Aussie dollars converts to US$5.5M, and this
probably includes all his income, including side businesses and
investments. So maybe what he earned from Suzuki is something like
50-70% of that. If you assume he is at around $3M a year, the comparison
to make is Rossi at $15-20M a year, since they can directly be compared
in terms of ability to win races and championships within their
respective arenas. For Rossi, the benefit is mostly confined to Europe,
because I doubt he sells a lot of motorcycles for Yamaha in Qatar,
Malaysia, China and other places he races, even the US. So you have to
compare the US and European sport bike markets.

Mladin's value is directly related to his ability to win and even
dominate, because he isn't a personality who's worth much more than
that. That's where getting beaten by Spies really reduces his value to
Suzuki, although having those two first and second all the time does
reinforce the superiority of the GSX-R, I guess. I'm not sure who pays
his salary at the end of the day, but I have to believe the cost of the
US racing program in total probably has to be signed off in Japan, and
they may supplement that as part of an overall marketing strategy. That
Kawasaki in Japan determines which classes the team here races in
(according to Preston) confirms the level of direct involvement they can
have.


Yes, you're right. What was more interesting to me is that he's
apparently in the top ten in Australia among sporting incomes. And that
an article there stating this referred to him as a "virtually unknown
motorcyclist"...

 On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:09:14 -0800, Mark N


I think this is faulty logic.  Sure, the US and Europe are the two big
markets, but the GPs are followed everywhere.  While I agree that the
market for R1s is probably quite small in China, I bet Yamaha expect
to sell a few million scooters and commuters there.  What they're
building with their racing program is a brand.

Conversely, only die-hard race fans follow the AMA outside the US.
Hell, I don't really know much about it (no TV coverage, few articles
in the UK press), and I like to think I'm a mc racing fan.
--
Champ

 


While Gixxrz aren't my fav's, no one can diminish anything Mat has done to
make them the top brand in the US market,(what, 7 titles?) evidently Suz
agrees. Neil, never take your eye off the bottom line...