Riders with Feld's Nuclear Cowboyz crew go vertical.
In September 2008, Feld Entertainment made what Chief Executive Kenneth Feld called “the single biggest expansion in the past 40 years.” For approximately $175 million, Feld bought Live Nation’s collection of motorsports properties and saw an overnight 20-percent bump with 5 million new motor sports fans to entertain.
With the acquisition, Feld took over operation of long-standing events such as the International Hot Rod Association, Monster Jam and Freestyle Motocross which, combined, accounted for more than 600 shows annually. Since the acquisition, the Feld team has added theatrical motorsports extravaganza Nuclear Cowboyz and spun off IHRA, all while relocating their global headquarters to a massive new campus in Ellenton, Fla. Now, with the company’s position as the leader in family entertainment further solidified, Feld is preparing to put its plans for expansion into overdrive.
“We had to play catch-up in the first few years because the global economy was not as stable as we would have liked,” said Feld Motor Sports President Charlie Mancuso. “But we’ve had great success in 2012 and 2013 and are looking forward to more aggressive growth over the next two years.”
Part of the aggressive plan is to parlay Supercross’ first trip to the New York City area into a regional takeover. Supercross will visit MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., for the first time in April.
Mancuso is banking on kicking the door down to the surrounding major markets such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., where they have not held events in the past.
“Prior to being owned by Feld, we didn’t pursue the New York market because of the financial risk of doing so,” Mancuso said. “With Feld, we were able to invest the money it would take to move this event from Salt Lake City all the way to New York.”
Feld’s 2008 purchase marks the seventh time the motorsports property has changed hands. Formed in 1965 as Pace Motorsports, the company was first partially sold to SRO Entertainment and then sold to Madison Square Garden Entertainment before being bought back by Pace in 1996. A year later the company was sold to Bob Sillerman’s SFX, which was then sold to Clear Channel and eventually spun off to Live Nation.
“Our previous owners were more often than not publicly traded companies,” Mancuso said. “We were a means to an end when it came to financial performance. While those previous owners left us alone to operate autonomously, they didn’t really invest in the business in order to grow it.”
Ending the Leave-It-Alone Strategy
Within days of the acquisition, Mancuso said, Kenneth Feld was talking about taking more events overseas. Under Live Nation’s watch, fewer than 10 percent of the annual 6 million attendance came from outside the U.S. Feld saw it as money left on the table.
“The reason we wanted to acquire motorsports is because we saw a lot of growth opportunity,” Executive Vice President of Feld Entertainment Juliette Feld said. “We’ve been committed to following through on that. We’re excited that we’re expanding our international footprint for Monster Jam.”
While expanding from a largely U.S. and Canada operation to places like Abu Dhabi or Australia isn’t easy, Feld had the resources already in place. The majority — about 55 percent — of their total business comes from abroad.
“We got our marching orders on the first or second day after Feld’s purchase that Monster Jam was the type of entity that translated to any language,” Mancuso said. “Australia was a dream of ours, but a terrifying dream because of the cost of shipping the 16 trucks from North Carolina to Australia.”
They achieved the “terrifying dream” this year, selling more than 50,000 tickets in Australia. And with success Down Under, they now aim to take Monster Jam even farther overseas with plans to expand in Europe and the Middle East.
“It looks like we’re going to do very well,” Mancuso said. “That will lead to a lot of opportunities in the Asia Pacific area.” Feld has also been in discussions about landing in Latin America, South Africa and Brazil by 2015.
Made For TV Monsters
Expanding their major motorsports entities — which now are made up of Monster Jam, Supercross, the theatre-like show Nuclear Cowboyz and Arenacross — doesn’t necessarily mean simply enhancing the schedule. It also means grabbing the attention of potential fans. They’ve done so through improved TV broadcasts, social media usage and unique licensing concepts.
Back in ‘08, the TV coverage of motorsports was limited to tape-delayed broadcasts. Only a handful were live and viewership was limited. Feld decided that needed to change. They invested in top-end video production quality and fought for live-to-air broadcasts – no more tape delays.
In 2014, 15 of the 16 total Supercross events will be broadcast side-by-side with several of the U.S.’ major sports on the newly-launched Fox Sports 1 — an all-sports channel that features racing, college football, Major League Baseball and soccer.
“What really sticks out is the change in philosophy in the way we produce the TV shows that represent our properties,” Mancuso said. “How we can be cutting-edge with technology and invest wisely in the value of the production to drive ratings, households and eyeballs.”
Five years ago, when they were pouring money into making their broadcasts better, Feld realized there would be more outlets in which to show off their product — and new video quality — than ever before. They created a social media department and have continued to hire more people to operate it.
Videos now score highly on sites such as YouTube, where Feld Motor Sports enjoy over 100 million plays, and Facebook, where Monster Jam has 1.4 million “likes.”
In terms of licensing, Monster Jam formed a partnership with Marvel in March to create themed monster truck shows around famed comic characters.
“One thing that goes understated is how much we’ve grown and learned as a company as a whole because of the acquisition of Motor Sports,” Feld said. “There are certain disciplines that we have gained from Motor Sports in sponsorship, licensing and TV production that weren’t as developed.”
How do they plan to continue the growth? Feld said one of the company’s main focuses in the next five years will be building a grassroots-type following via Arenacross – which acts as a type of minor league system for the top motorcycle riders in the Supercross system.
That and a constant retooling of each and every event.
“One thing you can always count on is that we’ll be making changes,” she said.
Interviewed for this story: Charlie Mancuso, (630)566-6305; Juliette Feld, (703)448-4000