The "lagging" area MotoGP will target under Liberty Media’s ownership

Dorna’s chief commercial officer Dan Rossomondo has admitted MotoGP is “lagging” when it comes to exploiting the business side of the championship.

Despite being the world’s second-most popular racing series, MotoGP has relatively few sponsors directly tied to the championship. Long-time partners such as BMW, Tissot, DHL and Michelin remain, but in recent years the series has only added Qatar Airways and Estrella Galicia to its roster.

Formula 1, on the other hand, now enjoys a strong pull with both consumer and business-facing brands, with Liberty Media’s 2017 acquisition helping propel the championship to greater heights.

F1’s latest brand activation deal with Lego Group, which saw drivers take to the track in life-sized Lego cars on the parade lap in Miami, generated global headlines, underlining the championship’s mainstream reach.

MotoGP tried to take a leaf out of F1’s book and launched its own Drive to Survive-style series on Amazon Prime, but ‘Ultimate’ was scrapped after just a single season.

With Liberty now acquiring an 84% stake in Dorna in a deal valued at €4.2 billion, expectations are high for MotoGP to mirror F1’s commercial growth.

Rossomondo says the series must broaden its appeal to brands beyond the automotive and motorsport sectors.

“We really have to focus on the non-endemic side of the partnership business,” Rossomondo told Blackbook Motorsport. “We do really well in the industry [but] I have to do a better job of getting brands to say: ‘I want to use MotoGP to market my product’.

“[Liberty] can help us open doors and they can help us get really good case studies from what they’ve done with other properties, but we need to put our head down and do the work.”

F1’s surge in popularity has also boosted the balance sheets of racing teams, who now enjoy not only increased prize money but also higher sponsorship revenue.

Nine of the 10 teams in F1 have title sponsors, while McLaren has opted for a diverse sponsor portfolio instead of relying on a single naming partner.

“Teams have got to do a better job too, I’ve got to help them do a better job,” said Rossomondo.

“How many sponsors does Zak [Brown] have at McLaren [in Formula One]? Sixty something? It’s not just at the championship level, we have to lift the entire enterprise.”