Welcome to this week's chapter in MotoGP, where Liberty Media throw things at the wall and see what sticks. Where ideas aren’t so much tested as hurled, full force, at the nearest available surface.

Today the global MotoGP media authorities are expressing rage over the news that the 2026 edition of the Australian Grand Prix will be the last one at the Philip Island racetrack. Media reports in Australia, citing sources within the Australian government, say that negotiations between Australia and Liberty Media/MotoGP have broken down and no further talks are scheduled regarding extending the contract for MotoGP at Phillip Island. Replacement venues mentioned are a street circuit or any number of different race tracks in Australia that aren't Phillip Island.

It goes without saying that Philip Island is one of the greatest race tracks in the world. It’s beautiful, yes—but it’s also merciless, a place that has sorted out the men from the boys since the late ’80s. There have been iconic races and wins at Philip Island for nearly 40 years including of course Casey Stoner's "Nexus 6" win in 2012. Phillip Island is an old-world track, a man's man track as one rider likes to call places that challenge riders at top speed; there are no "chicken-sh*t chicanes" at Phillip Island.

Additionally, certainly Liberty Media has done some simple visual due diligence and watched a race or three at Phillip Island and has noticed that the ticket-buying fans standing behind the fence are not young people; they are an older sort with white hair and weathered faces, wearing faded team caps from sponsors that don’t even exist anymore. They are loyal, knowledgeable, and deeply invested—but they are not a growth demographic. And loyalty alone does not service debt. If Liberty intends to transform MotoGP from a passionate niche into a scalable global entertainment property, it will have to rethink more than just sanctioning fees and paddock hospitality. It will have to find a way to make the series culturally relevant again—to people who weren’t alive when Mick Doohan was winning titles, who consume sport on phones instead of grandstands, and who expect access, personality, and narrative as much as lap times. Because eventually, sentiment gives way to spreadsheets, and spreadsheets don’t care how glorious a Phillip Island corner looks with an ocean as a background.

I'm lucky—I have ridden Phillip Island and have traveled to the track by riding down nearly the entire east coast of Australia. It's a glorious journey that I am very glad that I made. Once.

I'm sure the problem as seen by these new Liberty Media people is that Phillip Island, for all its greatness, is remote. It's probably a couple of hours from Melbourne and a day away from other large metropolitan cities in Australia. So, to the fellows who wrote the giant check for this championship, the easiest solution is to bring MotoGP to Melbourne or Sydney, which is currently impossible so they think why not a street MotoGP race in Melbourne or Sydney where an audience of millions is minutes away? They, clearly, don't know that a street race on MotoGP bikes is a bad idea in most cases.

One of my friends is a partner in MotoAmerica. When Dorna held the infamous "more races in America" press conference at Austin he asked me what I thought of their new Chief Commercial Officer, Dan Rossomondo, who came to Dorna from the National Basketball Association. I gave him my honest opinion: he looked like a guy who was attending his first motorcycle race in his life. He seemed to me like he was so far out of his element he needed a map. Coincidentally it was at Austin that someone in the new think brain trust, I don't know who, decided what needed to happen was for several basketball hoops to be brought into the paddock and for video footage to be be shot of Marc Marquez and other MotoGP riders shooting baskets. No, really! It was heart-breaking and telling. As far as I'm concerned that was the first crime they committed against the soul of motorcycle racing and showed how the future would play out, which we are seeing now with Phillip Island on chopping block.

What do we know for sure?

Liberty Media paid an enormous amount of money for MotoGP.

The business model that carried MotoGP to 2026 won’t sustain the price Liberty paid—unless they plan to amortize that investment over the next five centuries.

Thus far, Liberty Media's new-think ideas have been shut down as irrational no think. It only took a few days for the basketball hoops to disperse. Then after someone at Liberty leaked that they were thinking maybe Moto2 and Moto3 don't need to exist (maybe they can all work in catering?) they made Carlos Ezpeleta do a very public mea culpa on the global MotoGP broadcast and say they were never thinking of icing Moto2 or Moto3.

Thus, I assume at some point clearer heads will prevail on the subject of Phillip Island's MotoGP race as well.

But sooner or later Liberty Media's MotoGP high-dollar investment is going to have to be justified. At some point some banker is going to not care if the latest bad idea sticks to the wall or not. Basketball hoops in the paddock and street races might seem clever in a brainstorming session, might generate a few viral clips and some sponsor chatter, but eventually someone in a suit is going to ask a much colder question: does any of this justify that giant check we wrote for this championship? Then what?

A D V E R T I S M E N T