[kropotkin thinks...] - Rossi To Take Hopper's Monster Sponsorship?

[Ninjette Newsbot]

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Amidst the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the cost of MotoGP, there is still the odd bright light shining the way forward. Last week, we reported on two sponsorship deals for Ducati, boosting the income for the Italian factory, and now, another substantial MotoGP sponsorship deal has been done.

For the Italian sports paper Tuttosport is reporting that Monster Energy will be paying Valentino Rossi 2.5 million euros for the next two years to wear the green claw M on his helmet and on the caps he wears, with another half a million available as a performance bonus for winning another championship.

That was the good news. The bad news is that this is probably not new money. Instead, it looks like this could be the result of Monster dropping the currently unemployed John Hopkins (who was on a multi-million dollar deal with Monster), and switching to a man with a proven record of winning. And of course, sponsoring Valentino Rossi is a no-brainer. Thanks to his sponsorship by Italian beer maker Nastro Azzurro, millions of Northern Europeans are now aware of the brand and buying the beer.

The switch by Monster may also point to further bad news for Kawasaki. MotoGP is now the second sport where Monster has backed Yamaha, with the Rinaldi World MX1 team featuring David Philippaerts and Joshua Coppins also racing Yamahas in Monster colors. The original Monster deal with Kawasaki had a clause allowing Monster to move up to being title sponsor of the MotoGP team in 2009, and that deal will obviously have fallen through.

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