Bangkok banger? Under the lid of the 2025 MotoGP launch
MotoGP gets fast in Thailand this weekend. F1 in two weeks’ time in Australia… but both sports have already served up the appetisers with flashy season launches. Is this the new status quo?
By Adam Wheeler
Two championships, two concepts, but the official presentations for 2025 MotoGP and 2025 Formula One tried to serve the same purpose: to tease, to encourage, to hype and to apply extra largesse to their series at a time when sports have to elbow their way into wider consciousness and make their noise noticeable in the general ‘noise’ out there.
MotoGP embarked on an ambitious stage show in downtown Bangkok that also emphasised fan participation. F1, celebrating a 75th anniversary a year after their distant two-wheeled cousin, filled London’s 20-000-capacity O2 arena for part-homage, part-show, part-2025-reveal with each of the ten teams taking seven-minute slots to show off their fresh livery. While F1 is no stranger to slick and high-profile events (especially since Liberty Media took control almost ten years ago), MotoGP’s effort was a first for Dorna Sports and was a shiny and well produced affair that marked a significant upscale for the Spanish company, who have really started to lift their game in terms of promotion in the last year (slowly improving diversity with their social media content and a badly needed reinvention of their visual identity and brand image). Considering that Dorna had never really attempted anything on the scale of Bangkok draws merit, and their plight to elevate the importance of MotoGP (when they had previously just leant on their broadcast partners to do most of the heavy lifting and desperately needed some renewed impetus for other promotion) deserves credit.
Dorna had to coerce their fellow stakeholders - the teams - to bring staff, machinery and willingness to make the launch a possibility. Organisation was intense. It came rapidly after the company had to construct the Solidarity Grand Prix to end 2024 and after the reveal of the new brand identity the same weekend in Barcelona. The look and feel of the championship and had to be embraced by all the logistic components of MotoGP (think of how many places the new logotype alone must appear).
“From inception to event, many,” Dorna CSO Carlos Ezpeleta explained on the months required to give 2025 MotoGP a first face. “The first fleshed out ideas actually born in 2023. Planning for Bangkok in particular really became serious with a first site visit in October around the Thai GP last year. As a whole new event in concept and location, there was a lot to work on. We have a lot of people to thank for their level of commitment, especially given the extra challenges we overcame towards the end of the 2024 season.”
Watching some of the two-hour live stream it was impossible not to be impressed by the variety of the coverage: the use of drones and numerous camera positions and the way the TV direction somehow kept the procession of riders, the interviews and stage activities diverse without being boring or stale. This required a skilled hand to filter through all 21 riders. It also kept the fans in full view as Dorna wanted riders riding and bikes rolling. Compared to the paying punters in the stands of the F1 spectacle, plenty of Thai public crowded the fences around the swish hotel free of charge.
“The complexity was the biggest challenge,” Ezpeleta continues. “We didn’t want a static event because MotoGP is not a static sport, so across the day we had the TukTuk parade, photo opportunity, media hour and then the grand finale of the road show and stage show. Fitting it together was one of the key challenges but the most important thing for us at this event was to reach new fans, and for fans to really enjoy it. That’s why it was also free to enter, which was of utmost priority for us.”
“On the day, we’re proud that fans could see the bikes on the TukTuks and then they could see the riders actually riding, and doing some burnouts and wheelies,” he adds. “That was vital to communicate what MotoGP is all about. It required the route to be cordoned off and well supervised, which was its own challenge too.”
It looked busy on the ground. The stage show became more packed once the public filtered away from the corridor fences (Marc Marquez’s one-handed sliding burnout was surely the scene-stealer) and Dorna say it “reached maximum capacity for the space/venue”, which means a figure of around 10,000 people before more rigorous securing monitoring had to be applied.
A MotoGP bike roars to a 130db limit. The sound can make your internal organs vibrate if you stand next to one as it’s started by a separate motor and grumbles in pitlane. Although the din is likely to be curbed in the coming years (the FIM believe the series should be more representative and symbolic, and noise pollution is not seen as positive…which I believe is nonsense as the sport is a special, annual spectacle and a modern Grand Prix bike has so little in relation to the majority of motorcycles seen on the road) the audio is still part of MotoGP’s inimitability. Dorna pushed for the cacophony. “One other thing we felt strongly about was turning on the real MotoGP bikes,” Ezpeleta says. “The wall of noise from a MotoGP machine is something visceral and unique that connects to you in a way it’s not possible to explain. That required a lot of extra commitment from each factory to warm up their machine and enable us to run them all on the stage.”
The launch did not have the novelty factor of the liveries as most of the teams had already staged their own introductions for the year. F1 engineered their London show to cater both for potential new fans (through the venue and the event itself) and sate current ones through the prospect of seeing the 2025 cars. This surely has to be the template to follow for MotoGP.
The role of Bangkok cannot be underestimated. The location had the weather and was also wrapped in a zeal for MotoGP. The sport is immensely recognisable in Thailand and a dense motorcycle market, and the Buriram International Circuit, more than 400km north of the capital, is sold-out for the Grand Prix weekend. This profile makes the logistics easier to handle compared to, say, a European alternative.
Dorna said the launch was “a significant investment”, rumoured to be around 750,000 euros. “It was also more than just MotoGP and the teams who invested in this event: there was a huge commitment from the city of Bangkok too. It created a fan event the likes of which MotoGP has never staged before, and we’ve enjoyed significant impact in Bangkok, Thailand and more globally. That’s a return that proves its worth.”
MotoGP has history and roots in Europe but leverage and tangible widespread excitement in Asia; witness the frenzied scenes of the riders public parade at the 2024 Indonesian Grand Prix as another example. So, the launch benefitted from a hot, hotbed. A similar scenario in a European metropolis like London, Paris, Rome or Madrid (Dorna could easily bank on the Spanish market, as they do for four of the 22 Grands Prix on the calendar) would be logistically simpler for the company and the teams but this might not engage many new eyeballs. Morocco was a discussed location during initial planning in 2023. If the official presentation happens again then its curious to wonder where it might head.
“Another city, place or team we know would bring their own flair to it,” Ezpeleta reasons. “The beauty of the idea is that it can be flexible to best serve the fans in the market where we stage the launch. Given testing took place in Asia this year, and the season opener too, that was key. The weather now in Europe would create a new challenge for staging an outdoor event too.”
MotoGP vanished for around eight weeks between the test at the end of November and the first of the team launches in mid-January. 44 races in 2025 will stretch the series from the end of February to mid-November again. Keeping the bikes, the riders and the action on channels and in people’s minds for a sustained period is part of modern-day sports promotion. It seems like activities cannot afford to completely ‘disappear’. An off-season has new meaning. Engineers might be busy developing at factories, but the increasingly more prominent role and responsibilities for team and brand’s marketing staff barely ceases.
An official season launch could now be regarded as the first major act of a new year. It’s a persistent deadline for deliverables. The tight time frames for all concerned (spare a thought for Jorge Martin even; the Spaniard didn’t have long to digest his new status as champion before he was being hoisted in official Aprilia colours in Milan and being asked about a tough title defence) brings deepening pressure. But Dorna, and eventually the teams and riders, can now forecast obvious benefits. There is the media coverage, and this has its own value, but also the response from the public. Taking YouTube as a cursory token: MotoGP gained almost 600,000 views of their live stream of the show. F1 totalled nearly 3m of their F175 Live highlights video. It’s all extra bank.
Imagine if Bangkok had been the first sight of Marc Marquez in full official Ducati red? Or for 2027 the new 850cc motorcycles are blazoned in public for the first time? There is additional billing in store.
“There are many purposes of the event,” Ezpeleta summarises. “To capture new fans and have content and a presence outside the circuit, in the city, with riders being themselves away from the track. Appearing somewhere we normally wouldn’t. Then of course to create a show for the fans that is completely accessible to any and all. Connect even further with one of our biggest markets but in a new way, in the city, in a different location to where we race. Launch the season, as the name suggests, and make some noise ahead of the first round - but with enough time before it for that increased interest to have a more tangible effect on the season opener. Put MotoGP into the heart of a global city, on an urban stage. Drive interest in the season opener both domestically and on a global scale.”
Dorna admit the timing of the Bangkok date was a little off. The fading light didn’t give the same amount of glitz as in the final moments that took place in greater darkness. But, as a ‘trial’ run, the launch has set a precedent. It’s fair to say it will become an annual quantity in the company’s budget sheets and should be a significant date for MotoGP followers, hopefully more mainstream sports fans as well. MotoGP should be marketed to the extreme sports generation: it’s gnarly, visual, instantly captivating. Social media and video clips should have better, contemporary music. Pay for rights. If we ever see Take That at a MotoGP launch then call in the surgeons. There should be a streaming series. A season launch is an opportunity - or an offering - that can only drag the sport a bit closer to bigger recognition. It’s certainly better than the alternative: nothing.
“We see Bangkok as a fantastic event in itself, and also as proof of concept going forward for other cities and markets we can work with on future editions,” Carlos commented. “We want to expand this event. The feedback we have had has been overwhelmingly positive from fans, everyone who attended and the riders and teams. Now, as always in MotoGP, the challenge is to do it again but even better.”
Photos by Dorna/motogp.com