Dorna shuffling more deckchairs

The latest evidence of Dorna's backwards thinking was revealed today after it pulled down a video they had published themselves after only 24 hours.

After limiting it's own YouTube channel to anodyne clips and the briefest of highlights, Dorna published one full length race on YouTube, complete with the online stream commentary as provided live by Nick Harris.

Only to pull it down again 24 hours later.

Some people have commented that this must surely therefore have been a test - but I'd bet my hat that someone in the commercial department became afraid of the impact on TV broadcasters - or in fact that one complained.

What will it take for them to wake up and smell the roses??

It's not as if MotoGP is a huge commercial success on TV with networks bidding against each other for more and more money to win the rights. If this was the case, nervousness would be understandable.

No, in most countries Dorna has to practically give away the rights and plead with broadcasters to show them.

So why not use the web to tackle some of the demand side problem that are (in reality) killing progress in the sport.

Give it away online. More than that - push it online. Pay a small team of youngsters to sit online seeding the coverage on Facebook, MySpace, bebo, et al.

Then give it away again, and again. Let people edit clips. Make their own soundtracks. Mix clips into movies. Post them on blogs and social networks.

Then it might just catch on. And if it does, I'll eat my hat (and anyone else's for that matter) if people who can watch it on TV watch it online instead.

And while you're at it - give teams video clips for free to use in marketing, building their own fan base.

But of course I'm wrong. A worldwide trebling of the fan base and a sudden influx of major sponsors would do nothing to solve the current cost crisis and dwindling grids.

So says George W Ezpeleta.