Slopestyle Riders Boycott Crankworx Rotorua Because of Low Prize Pay, Lack of Appearance Fee

Doesn't Red Bull only broadcast the event not own it?  So why would it be on them to pay more.  That would be like saying a tv network should pay pro players more.   

If one thing is clear its that we are all broadly speaking with very little data (myself included). We don't know the structure of the event with respect to certain parties involvement (like Red Bull), what kind of revenue it produces from sponsorship, ticket sales, streaming, government subsidies (though great job on behalf of the other poster here) etc. 

This is one of those situations where transparency at least to the riders would go a long way. I don't think anyone is against the riders getting a fair cut, whatever that may be, if real money is changing hands. 

I think the assumption I came in with is most events are run at razor thin margins (or a loss). Maybe that's not the case here. Regardless, riders need to shine a light on the P&L if they really want to have a leg to stand on (IMO). 
 

It would be very interesting to see what the a P&L looks like for the organizers... Typically, it's usually not as good as the riders think..  If I was talking to the riders, I would put all the numbers out there for them to see.. And then ask them to figure out where I can get the extra money from..

So the event has to pay riders? Maybe the riders should start their own event series, get sponsors, handle logistics, insurance and all the fun that goes with it. Isn't it up to their sponsors to pay them? Maybe the riders need better sponsors. Oh well. It's just BMX on big frames. I'll go ride my bike and watch lame youtubers travel to cool places vs watching kids to 1080 tail whips over wood ramps at the base of a ski area in the summer. X Games died so will crankworx. 

Good on you guys. #solidarity 🤙🏻

Slope will die.. They will just Push DH to the main event.. like it should be.

$1M/yr NZD is the equivalent of £475k GBP/yr. I've got a close friend who puts on similar scale music festivals and that wouldn't even cover infrastructure, policing costs (road closure/diversion costs), staff costs etc.

I wonder if this is what has ultimately triggered all this. The riders feeling nervous about being a sideshow to the DH.

Maybe cover their fees, but demanding an 'appearance fee' is a bit arrogant tbh, especially 2 days before the event. 

I've never been a fan, so may be jaded  Cramming all the spins in isn't really stylish, give me a floaty 360 tabletop any day! (yeah yeah, ok grandad) 

Like people have said, slopestyle just isn't something that 95% of riders out there do when they mountain bike. 

With the XGames and say SuperCross/Motorcross, that's what you do. You ride a BMX to do tricks and that kind of riding. While people aren't gonna do SuperCross, at the end of the day it's still just riding a dirt bike. 

For mountain biking, most people can relate better to Enduro or DH. Slopestyle is like just some crazy circus act now that no one can relate too. It's not selling the sport of Mountain Biking the same way a racing event would. 

Fuck all these corporate apologist telling riders they should be greatful for what they get. That they arent irreplacable. That they arent worth more.

Fuck all that noise. Get paid lads. Godspeed.

You might have "corporate apologist" and those who "understand how a market works" confused. Just an observation. 

Compensation is negotiation between employers and employees.

Employees banding together to negotiate for better compensation is "how markets work", corporate bootlicker.

Assume you'll let us all know how your negotiations go on Monday Daniel, when you give your employer a 2 day ultimatum for more compensation. See if you can get your colleagues onboard.

Do they deserve more? Sure... But, that doesn't mean the money is there to pay them more.. They can always try and get a spot on the Nitro Circus or do like some guys have done and get into the stuntman business..

The point is you don't do it alone numbnuts. You negotiate as a block to reduce the asymmetry of power between employees and employers. And this action came after months of negotiation, it didn't happen overnight. 

Go look at every industry where there are unions and take note that the union members are better paid and compensated than their non union counterparts.

If you like being underpaid, cool, keep sucking up that capitalist kool-aid, but I am proud of the riders for standing up for themselves and pushing their employer for better pay and conditions.

Crankworx isn't their employer though. Their employer is their sponsors.

Crankworx is the competition they enter, and the platform granted to them to show their skills, market themselves as athletes & ambassadors, and ultimately prove their dollar value to said sponsors. 

I can feel the teenage angst bleeding through here, so I know I'm not going to change your mind. For anyone who is intellectually curious around the subject and how wrong this person is, here is an easy example to follow. The TL;DR is supply and demand underpins how "markets work". Not name calling and employees banding together (ironically what you just described has more Marxist tones, which is fine). Anyway - my example for anyone who cares... 

At the pointy end of the spear in the live performance space, its pretty widely acknowledged the best in the world right now is Taylor Swift. She can sell out literally any venue multiple times in a row. Its also based primarily around her - If she doesn't show up, nobody shows up. As a result, she has significant leverage to drive an incredibly payday. To add, if she can't agree on terms with a venue or a hypothetical "organizer", its no big deal, she can go literally anywhere in the world and her fans will follow. People simply like her product more than life itself (it would seem).

However, if she randomly stipulated "I want a billion dollars for me to show up to XYZ stadium for this one event" she obviously would not be able to receive this (barring some weird exceptional situation). The show wouldn't happen. The market loves her, but they don't love her so much that every show is going to require $100,000 tickets for all who attend. Her desire for a certain amount of money is not the same as her being able to receive that amount of money. She's paid off of her value which is a derivative of what people are will to spend to go see her in concert. 

The reality is slopestyle riders don't have much leverage with the "corporations" because they have no product people love in the way people love a top tier pop star. If I was wrong, they could literally band together and run their own competitions, monetize them on their own and make all the money they want. But they can't, because the product isn't interesting enough to those viewing. THIS is the market that underpins the value you derive. 

This isn't to disrespect the riders but rather to illustrate that you need to be hyper aware of what you are actually selling and where the value actually accrues. 
 

And so far all they’ve achieved is getting one of their main headline events cancelled… oh and a few forum posts.

Great union so far.

If they don't like their pay from Crankworx, they should get a job that pays more. This entitled mindset must be driven by a overvalued self worth to their sponsors? Crankworx needs to create some macro and micro economics classes as well as basic accounting with profit and loss education. Maybe slopestyle competitor isn't such a great career choice? 

Good God. Your TLDR fails on ever level. It isn't even succinct. Here is how you do a TLDR.

TLDR, unions raise wages in every industry and they do so by threatening to withhold labor, or withholding it and demonstrating the value of their labor in its absence. The weight of evidence in the economic field is clear on this. Unions raise wages.

https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/130/631/1898/5824627?login=false

Do tell us what union the slope riders are in?

My wife’s in a union at her work (local council in the UK). After over 6 months of negotiations her union managed to secure a pay rise that was exactly the same as the original offer. Bravo 

Maybe if you put your view across without insulting everyone we’d pay you some attention.

I would say eff off back to PB, but that would be unfair to them. Pipe down Greta

A bunch of privileged kids on bikes demanding buffet lunches and 2k travel from Red Bull to spin off ramps doesn't exactly draw massive public support of the masses. Nor does their strike impact lives like say UPS or a dockworker. Let the kids have their temper tantrum. The adults will ride bikes and make fun of them on vital. 

Your single anecdotal experience w a union does not counter the weight of evidence.

The slopestyle riders are collectively organizing to negotiate their compensation. That makes them, you guessed it, a union.

I'm not here to convince you unions are good for riders, I am here to support the riders and their collective bargaining.

It took my union close to 18 months to negotiate our latest contract for marginal increases. Most contract negotiations with unions take time you can’t just show up and demand more then walk off after a few days of talks.

I definitely think they should be paid well but like others have said how much is actually available to spend on athletes after all the event costs are considered. Most cycling disciplines do not make much from prize money and very few get appearance money.

Maybe from the Crankworx perspective the optimum resolution might be to change it from a competition to an exhibition. Invite 5 top riders - 5 male & 5 female - and pay them what amounts to a generous appearance fee that includes travel/lodging.

Hold the exhibition the last day of the Crankworx event. Charge a separate ticket price for fans to watch the event in person - maybe in the form of an add-on to any other event ticket prices. (So, slopestyle by itself $10, but slopestyle added to 3-day pass or whatever only $5... just making up numbers here, of course.) Build hype during the days leading to the finale by having the riders doing some meet-n-greets or whatever.

No idea if that would work or whether riders would go for it. I know I'd love to see it if they invited guys like Matt Jones or Sam Pilgrim to do some cool stuff along with the slopestyle "stars."

The NFL doesn't pay players. F1 doesn't pay Lewis. The NBA doesn't pay LeBron. The venues they play in don't pay them either. 

I don't think you understand who the riders "work for". 

But.... the XGames did pay Tony Hawk and others who negotiated appearance fees. Shaun White also would demand 100k or more just to show up to events like Dew Tour. In action sports, a super famous athlete who is "bigger" than the event can demand payment for use of name and likeness.

Red Bull is smart. They sponsor athletes and then have them attend events they own. It's fair to say an athlete like Jackson Goldstone has incentives to attend and win Red Bull events. 

I think, to steer the convo better, lets really really really not compare slopestyle bicycle riding to the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, F1, literally anything that absolutely dwarfs our disciplines COMBINED in terms of money power.

I don't even know why these points are being brought up. Rogatkin is doing fine. The RIDERS collectively bargained and the top earners effectively took a PAY CUT to stand up for the wild cards and riders less likely to earn any money due to final position. I'm sure they don't give a flying fuck if the eventual pay comes from the city, red bull, or Sam Pilgrim's patreon (a joke, but it has been noted wealthier riders end up pitching in for wild card type riders)... Why in god's holy name are people bringing up the NFL as an example of anything? lol

Missing the forest for the trees, I reckon... The most important aspect is that the top guys decided to sit out and 'not cross the picket line' to earn the money they typically earn, both winnings and sponsor bonus/appearance. No use in arguing over who should foot the bill, RB or otherwise. The event can fix the budget or lose the discipline/riders.

Theres so many sloperiders on Facebook whinging the opposite lol.

one of the riders who was ment to ride at Crankworx Abused the sh!t outta me, taking personal shots... I sent all the info to their sponsor and After about 6 hours theyd gone back an deleted all their comments on every post haha

So take it to the other extreme. If I work on a car, the owner doesn't pay me. They pay the shop I work for, the shop pays me. A plumber doesn't get a check from the homeowner, the plumbing company does and then pays the guys who work. 

The riders "work" for their sponsors and their team. If Redbull is one of their sponsons and extends an appearance fee at a RB (or any other) event, great. That would be in the contract they signed with Redbull for the sponsorship. Is Rebull (rider sponsorship) even the same company as Redbull (event producer)? Doubtful. 

If they're unhappy about their pay they should sort it out with the people who pay them, not the people hosting an event. Sadly, anyone who paid their hard earned money to attend the event is out, the women who's inaugural event is being overshaded by this BS are out, and they look like fools. 1% of bike riders know what slopestyle is, 0.01% of normal people have even heard the word before. They threw a fit, didn't get their way, and probably permanently affected relationships.