How NASCAR’s Trackhouse is helping MotoGP crack the U.S.
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Austin Lindberg, Senior Editor
Daniel Suárez winning the third-closest NASCAR race in history. Shane van Gisbergen becoming the first driver to win on their Cup Series debut in 60 years. Ross Chastain stealing a place in the Championship 4 with his rulebook-bending wall ride at Martinsville.
Three of the most viral, genre-defying moments in recent NASCAR history, all tied together by one common thread: all were accomplished by drivers for Trackhouse Racing.
The team founded by Justin Marks and co-owned by Pitbull has a knack for making headlines, either by winning races (only NASCAR behemoths Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have more victories in the past three-plus seasons than Trackhouse’s seven), by employing drivers who make any given event must-see TV (see: van Gisbergen’s win on the streets of Chicago last summer or 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Räikkönen contesting rounds at Watkins Glen and Circuit of the Americas), or by having its Grammy-winning co-owner headline concerts corresponding with major dates on the NASCAR calendar.
Trackhouse is a marketer’s dream, boasting a unique combination of on-track success with off-track intrigue. The team’s headquarters in Concord, North Carolina is filled to the brim with knowledge of the American racing landscape.
“[Marks] is an exceptionally open-minded person. He’s always looking for opportunities, but not opportunities to do things like other people do them, for opportunities for him to do things the way he wants to do them,” former NASCAR Cup Series race winner and Marks’ CARS Tour co-owner Jeff Burton said to ESPN. “He’s very innovative, creative. Over there in the Cup team, they talk about being disruptive and trying to do things differently, and that’s the experience that I’ve had.”
You can understand, then, why Trackhouse would be attractive to MotoGP, whose teams are all owned by outfits based in Western Europe and Japan. While F1 continues to enjoy its boom in popularity in the U.S. and NASCAR continues to deliver dependable ratings (even if they aren’t what they were during stock car racing’s height of popularity 25 years ago), the two-wheeled equivalent of Formula One is still waiting for its “Drive to Survive” moment, the pop-culture crossover from niche audience to water-cooler conversation.
When the sport announced in November that it was not selecting CryptoData RNF Aprilia to participate in the 2024 championship, it didn’t take long for confirmation to arrive that Trackhouse would take its places on the grid.
“There is probably some pressure on us to deliver some value for MotoGP in the North American market, but I think it’s something that we’re uniquely positioned to be able to do just because of the voice that we already have in motorsports in North America,” Marks told ESPN. “There’s a lot of people that are already paying attention to us because of Project 91 (the operation that brought Räikkönen and Van Gisbergen to the Cup Series), because of the moments that we’ve had in NASCAR, because of Pitbull and all the things that we do. So we’ve already got a voice, and being able to introduce MotoGP into that conversation, I think we’ve got endemic followers and fans that are going to automatically maybe tune into MotoGP because Trackhouse is there.”
Converting even a fraction of those Trackhouse fans would be a boon for motorcycle grand prix racing. While the series enjoyed record in-person attendance in 2023, up 17% from the previous year, that hasn’t necessarily translated to success in the United States. Live broadcasts for the Saturday Sprint and Sunday grand prix from the second round in Portugal last month were seen by 182,000 American viewers, while the NASCAR Cup Series circulated Circuit of the Americas that same weekend in front of a television audience of 3.31 million.
MotoGP’s new broadcast rights deal in the U.S. with Warner Brothers Discovery will undoubtedly help, with 30 GPs and Sprints airing live in 2024 compared with zero last season, but Trackhouse’s ability to tap into an existing audience of American race fans holds enormous potential for the sport.
How will Marks’ team do that? For starters, cross-promotion.
Trackhouse brought one of its Aprilia RS-GP show bikes to Daytona International Speedway in February, on display for everyone wandering through the hospitality area of the Daytona 500. Marks helped organize a NASCAR demonstration lap when MotoGP visits Circuit of the Americas in Austin this weekend. Ahead of Trackhouse Aprilia’s arrival in the Texas capital, it stopped in North Carolina to visit the NASCAR shop, where riders Miguel Oliveira and Raúl Fernández got behind the wheel of a stock car.
All of it captured on camera, curated for social media. This is the second, and arguably biggest, tenet of Trackhouse’s ability to attract new fans.
The 2024 MotoGP season is just two races (and two preseason tests) old, but already the content that the Trackhouse Aprilia team has produced has stood out from its rivals. There is a polish to its video edits that is unrivaled in the paddock, fans are being introduced to the personalities behind Oliveira and Fernández, there is an attention to detail that comes from an organization dedicated to the craft.
“We’ve really leaned into that on the NASCAR side and built a very strong content team. It’s one of the strongest divisions in the company on the NASCAR side, and that’s something that we want to grow on the MotoGP side,” Marks said. “We want to be able to tell the stories of our riders and the stories of our executives and our mechanics going down the road and flying all over the world. Right now we basically have one content guy that goes around the world with the MotoGP team but has the support of our content team here in North America, but I think that we will grow that over time.
“The broadcast of the races, that’s really telling the story of what happens on the race track, but social media is where you tell all the ancillary stories around what happens on the race track. So that’s where we’ve made big investments and continue to make big investments, and I think we have a massive opportunity on the MotoGP side to really establish our voice and our personality and work to bring content and behind-the-scenes stories to the MotoGP fans that they haven’t seen yet.”
There’s much more to winning over the American audience and new fans of MotoGP, though. The production quality of the team’s content can be worthy of an Academy Award, but if Trackhouse Aprilia doesn’t deliver on track, it will count for little.
Talk to anyone who knows Marks, though, and, yes, they will rave about his creativity and his innovation and his vision, but they will also bring up how competitive he is.
“I don’t think [Marks is] in this to just show up,” Dan Rossomondo, chief commercial officer of Dorna Sports, the commercial rights holder of MotoGP, said to ESPN. “I think he’s in this to compete.
“I think that if you give them time, they’re going to invest in the right — when I say ‘invest,’ I just don’t mean money. I think they’re going to spend the right amount of time and the right amount of resources and the right amount of ideation on getting to the top of the grid.”
Trackhouse Racing was winless with Suárez in its first season in the NASCAR Cup Series. When it expanded to become a two-car operation in 2022, the team claimed three victories. Marks thinks it will take a year for his MotoGP operation, which largely absorbed the now-defunct CryptoData RNF team, to fully embrace the Trackhouse way of doing business. When it does, though, he has a clear vision for his outfit.
“What we really want, and this is where [former Yamaha, Suzuki and Alpine F1 boss and newly appointed Trackhouse Aprilia team principal Davide Brivio] is going to be very instrumental for us, is we want to be the strongest independent team in the sport,” Marks said.
In 2023, Pramac Ducati became the first independent team in the history of MotoGP to win the teams’ championship. If Trackhouse can replicate that feat in the years to come, you can bet that Marks’ team will have won over a few fans — in the U.S. and beyond — along the way.
The first day of the 2025 MLB draft is complete! The Washington Nationals selected Eli Willits with the No. 1 pick, opting for the prep shortstop — who might be more likely to sign below slot — in a draft with no clear-cut top prospect. And there were plenty of other intriguing selections as the first three rounds unfolded Sunday night.
The Seattle Mariners had to have been thrilled to have Kiley McDaniel’s No. 1-ranked prospect, Kade Anderson, fall to them at No. 3, and Ethan Holliday was selected at No. 4 by his famous father’s former squad the Colorado Rockies.
We asked ESPN baseball insiders Alden Gonzalez, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield to break down their favorite and most head-scratching moves of the draft’s first night, as well as to predict which players will bring the most to their new teams in the long term.
A lot of us were thrown for a loop by the first two selections. What do you make of the Nationals taking Ethan Willits at No. 1 and the Angels picking Tyler Bremner at No. 2?
Gonzalez: I was stunned on both accounts. Though there was definitely some uncertainty around the Nationals’ approach, especially since the firing of GM Mike Rizzo, I didn’t see anybody, anywhere, projecting Willits to be their choice at No. 1 overall. But the Angels drafting Bremner was an even bigger risk. Kiley had him 18th in his latest ranking. Six pitchers were ranked ahead of him. But Bremner might be someone who can rise and impact their major league roster quickly, and the Angels are always looking for that.
Rogers: The first two picks really summed up the uncertainty of the entire draft. The Nationals’ faith in a 17-year-old will be tested over the coming years, but the pick will likely save them some money for later in this draft and give Willits time to grow. The same can be said of many of the top picks: They’re going to need time. There are far fewer sure things this year — though Bremner could be the exception. The Angles love to graduate their players quickly, and as a college arm, he could see the majors sooner rather than later. Like Willits, this could also be a cost-saving move for later spending.
Schoenfield: In a draft that not only lacked a sure-thing No. 1 overall pick but was viewed as weaker at the top than those of recent years, it’s perhaps not a huge surprise that the Nationals and Angels used their picks to strike likely underslot deals with Willits and Bremner, giving them money to spend later in the draft — which they can use on high school prospects who might have slipped, trying to buy them out from going to college. It’s a strategy teams have used with success over the years, so the drafts for the Nationals and Angels will have to be viewed in their totality and not just focused on these two players.
What was your favorite pick of the night — and which one had you scratching your head?
Gonzalez: The Rockies have done a lot of things wrong over these last few … uh, decades. But it was really cool to see them take Ethan Holliday at No. 4 after his father, Matt, starred in Colorado for so long. Outside of the top two picks, Ethan Conrad going 17th to the Cubs was my biggest surprise of the night. Kiley had him ranked 30th; others had him falling out of the first round entirely. There’s uncertainty coming off shoulder surgery. But Conrad, 21, put up a 1.238 OPS in 97 plate appearances before his season ended prematurely in March. And the dearth of college bats probably influenced a slight reach here.
Rogers: I’m loving Billy Carlson to the White Sox at No. 10. Though they lost 121 games last season, Chicago couldn’t pick higher than this spot per CBA rules — but the Sox might have gotten a top-five player. Carlson’s defense will play extremely well behind a sneaky good and young pitching staff that should keep the ball on the ground in the long term. Meanwhile, with the pick of the litter when it came to hitters — college outfielders and high school kids as well — the Pirates took a high school pitcher at No. 6. Seth Hernandez could be great, but they need hitting. A lot of it.
Schoenfield: The Mariners reportedly wanted LSU left-hander Kade Anderson all along, but they certainly couldn’t have been expecting to get him with the third pick. (Keep in mind that the Mariners were lucky in the first place to land the third pick in the lottery, so they added some good fortune on top of good luck.) They get the most polished college pitcher in the draft, one who should move quickly — and perhaps make it a little easier for Jerry Dipoto to dip into his farm system and upgrade the big league roster at the trade deadline. Even though I understand why the Angels did it, Bremner still seems a little questionable. With the second pick, you want to go for a home run, and the consensus is that Holliday or even Anderson is more likely to be a more impactful major leaguer. Bremner’s lack of a third plus pitch is an issue, and you have to wonder if the Angels are relying too much on his control — which, yes, should allow him to get to the majors — and ignoring the possible lack of upside.
Who is the one player you’d like to plant your flag on as the biggest steal of this draft?
Gonzalez: Seth Hernandez, who went sixth to the Pirates and should someday share a rotation with Paul Skenes and Jared Jones. High school pitchers are incredibly risky, especially when taken so early in the draft. But Hernandez is a great athlete who already throws hard, boasts a plus changeup and showed improvement with his breaking ball this spring. He’ll go the Hunter Greene route, from standout high school pitcher to major league ace.
Rogers: Jamie Arnold will look like a steal at No. 11, especially when he debuts in the majors well before many of the players taken around him. I’m not worried about the innings drop in 2025 — not when he was striking out 119 hitters and walking just 27. The A’s need to polish him up but will be pleased by how consistent he’ll be. You can’t go wrong with a college lefty from an ACC school — at least, the A’s didn’t.
Schoenfield: I’m going with Billy Carlson with the 10th pick — with the admitted caveat that the White Sox haven’t exactly been stellar at developing hitters. But Carlson looks like an elite defensive shortstop with plus power, and that alone can make him a valuable major leaguer. If the hit tool comes along, we’re looking at a potential star. OK, he’s Bobby Witt Jr. lite? That’s still an All-Star player.
What’s your biggest takeaway from Day 1 of this draft?
Gonzalez: The Nationals throwing a wrench into the proceedings by selecting Willits. It was a surprising choice, but in their minds an easy one. Interim general manager Mike DeBartolo called Willits the best hitter and best fielder available. And in a draft devoid of can’t-miss, high-impact talent, Willits is no doubt a solid pick — a polished hitter who should stick at shortstop and might consistently hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases at a premium position. He also might come under slot, allowing flexibility later in the draft. But his selection is what allowed Anderson to reach the Mariners at No. 3 and prompted the Rockies to draft Holliday at No. 4, among other dominoes. It set a really interesting tone.
Rogers: Things change quickly in baseball. Whereas college hitters are usually the safest bets early in the draft, this year high school position players dominated. (And they all play shortstop, at least for now.) Athleticism has returned to baseball, and draft rooms are acting accordingly.
Schoenfield: I’m agreeing with Jesse. The selection of that many prep shortstops stood out — and they all seem to hit left-handed and run well, and some of them have big power potential and a cannon for an arm. Look, the hit tool is the most important and the hardest to scout and project, so not all these kids are going to make it, but their potential is exciting and, to Jesse’s point, their wide range of tools is showing that baseball is still drawing top athletes to the sport.
The 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby is fast approaching — and the field is set.
Braves hometown hero Ronald Acuna Jr. became the first player to commit to the event, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 14 (8 p.m. ET on ESPN). He was followed by MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, James Wood of the Washington Nationals, Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins, Oneil Cruz of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays, Brent Rooker of the Athletics and Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees.
On Friday, however, Acuna was replaced by teammate Matt Olson.
With all the entrants announced, let’s break down their chances at taking home this year’s Derby prize.
Full All-Star Game coverage: How to watch, schedule, rosters, more
2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 434 feet
Why he could win: Olson is a late replacement for Acuna as the home team’s representative at this year’s Derby. Apart from being the Braves’ first baseman, however, Olson also was born in Atlanta and grew up a Braves fan, giving him some extra motivation. The left-handed slugger led the majors in home runs in 2023 — his 54 round-trippers that season also set a franchise record — and he remains among the best in the game when it comes to exit velo and hard-hit rate.
Why he might not: The home-field advantage can also be a detriment if a player gets too hyped up in the first round. See Julio Rodriguez in Seattle in 2023, when he had a monster first round, with 41 home runs, but then tired out in the second round.
2025 home runs: 36 | Longest: 440 feet
Why he could win: It’s the season of Cal! The Mariners’ catcher is having one of the greatest slugging first halves in MLB history, as he’s been crushing mistakes all season . His easy raw power might be tailor-made for the Derby — he ranks in the 87th percentile in average exit velocity and delivers the ball, on average, at the optimal home run launch angle of 23 degrees. His calm demeanor might also be perfect for the contest as he won’t get too amped up.
Why he might not: He’s a catcher — and one who has carried a heavy workload, playing in all but one game this season. This contest is as much about stamina as anything, and whether Raleigh can carry his power through three rounds would be a concern. No catcher has ever won the Derby, with only Ivan Rodriguez back in 2005 even reaching the finals.
2025 home runs: 24 | Longest: 451 feet
Why he could win: He’s big, he’s strong, he’s young, he’s awesome, he might or might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This is the perfect opportunity for Wood to show his talent on the national stage, and he wouldn’t be the first young player to star in the Derby. He ranks in the 97th percentile in average exit velocity and 99th percentile in hard-hit rate, so he can still muscle the ball out in BP even if he slightly mishits it. His long arms might be viewed as a detriment, but remember the similarly tall Aaron Judge won in 2017.
Why he might not: His natural swing isn’t a pure uppercut — he has a pretty low average launch angle of just 6.2 degrees — so we’ll see how that plays in a rapid-fire session. In real games, his power is primarily to the opposite field, but in a Home Run Derby you can get more cheapies pulling the ball down the line.
2025 home runs: 20 | Longest: 479 feet
Why he could win: Buxton’s raw power remains as impressive as nearly any hitter in the game. He crushed a 479-foot home run earlier this season and has four others of at least 425 feet. Indeed, his “no doubter” percentage — home runs that would be out of all 30 parks based on distance — is 75%, the highest in the majors among players with more than a dozen home runs. His bat speed ranks in the 89th percentile. In other words, two tools that could translate to a BP lightning show.
Why he might not: Buxton is 31 and the Home Run Derby feels a little more like a younger man’s competition. Teoscar Hernandez did win last year at age 31, but before that, the last winner older than 29 was David Ortiz in 2010, and that was under much different rules than are used now.
2025 home runs: 16 | Longest: 463 feet
Why he could win: If you drew up a short list of players everyone wants to see in the Home Run Derby, Cruz would be near the top. He has the hardest-hit ball of the 2025 season, and the hardest ever tracked by Statcast, a 432-foot missile of a home run with an exit velocity of 122.9 mph. He also crushed a 463-foot home run in Anaheim that soared way beyond the trees in center field. With his elite bat speed — 100th percentile — Cruz has the ability to awe the crowd with a potentially all-time performance.
Why he might not: Like all first-time contestants, can he stay within himself and not get too caught up in the moment? He has a long swing, which will result in some huge blasts, but might not be the most efficient for a contest like this one, where the more swings a hitter can get in before the clock expires, the better.
2025 home runs: 23 | Longest: 425 feet
Why he could win: Although Caminero was one of the most hyped prospects entering 2024, everyone kind of forgot about him heading into this season since he didn’t immediately rip apart the majors as a rookie. In his first full season, however, he has showed off his big-time raw power — giving him a chance to become just the third player to reach 40 home runs in his age-21 season. He has perhaps the quickest bat in the majors, ranking in the 100th percentile in bat speed, and his top exit velocity ranks in the top 15. That could translate to a barrage of home runs.
Why he might not: In game action, Caminero does hit the ball on the ground quite often — in fact, he’s on pace to break Jim Rice’s record for double plays grounded into in a season. If he gets out of rhythm, that could lead to a lot of low line drives during the Derby instead of fly balls that clear the fences.
2025 home runs: 19 | Longest: 440 feet
Why he could win: The Athletics slugger has been one of the top power hitters in the majors for three seasons now and is on his way to a third straight 30-homer season. Rooker has plus bat speed and raw power, but his biggest strength is an optimal average launch angle (19 degrees in 2024, 15 degrees this season) that translates to home runs in game action. That natural swing could be picture perfect for the Home Run Derby. He also wasn’t shy about saying he wanted to participate — and maybe that bodes well for his chances.
Why he might not: Rooker might not have quite the same raw power as some of the other competitors, as he has just one home run longer than 425 feet in 2025. But that’s a little nitpicky, as 11 of his home runs have still gone 400-plus feet. He competed in the college home run derby in Omaha while at Mississippi State in 2016 and finished fourth.
2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 442 feet
Why he could win: Chisholm might not be the most obvious name to participate, given his career high of 24 home runs, but he has belted 17 already in 2025 in his first 61 games after missing some time with an injury. He ranks among the MLB leaders in a couple of home run-related categories, ranking in the 96th percentile in expected slugging percentage and 98th percentile in barrel rate. His raw power might not match that of the other participants, but he’s a dead-pull hitter who has increased his launch angle this season, which might translate well to the Derby, even if he won’t be the guy hitting the longest home runs.
Why he might not: Most of the guys who have won this have been big, powerful sluggers. Chisholm is listed at 5-foot-11, 184 pounds, and you have to go back to Miguel Tejada in 2004 to find the last player under 6 foot to win.
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