If you participate in motorsports, you likely have passed through the MotorsportReg web portal. It has simply become the go-to site for motorsports event registration: autocross, road racing, events even hosted by Grassroots Motorsports.
Earlier this year, Hagerty sold MotorsportReg to Parella Motorsports Holdings, already owner of several motorsports properties including the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association and the Trans Am …
Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
It's especially annoying when you are signing up for a charity dinner (TT Nats) and they add $2 to a $15 donation. And that event was designated as a charity within their system.
Greed is not good.
A life of observation and direct experience has taught me to be skeptical of corporatespeak statements like this:
"First and foremost, I want to reassure you that MotorsportReg’s core principles will remain unchanged...."
I'll hope for the best, but ....
Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tacking on unadvertised $2 fees at the end smacks too much of TicketMaster's behaviour.
If they want/need more revenue, the right way to do it is to raise the rates charged to the track day providers so that they can build it into the overall event cost in a consistent fashion.
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
As someone who deals with this professionally it also gives me pause.
Time will tell.
I feel like Hagerty just bought MSReg like 10 minutes ago...
" I am also proud to share that the entire MotorsportReg team that you’ve come to know and trust over the years has been retained as part of the acquisition." If that's true, that's exceedingly rare and a very good sign.
In a former life I dealt a lot with mid-size tech CEOs and watched them buy and sell their companies. I like that Tony has a track record in the technology space and seems very focused on company culture and leadership. I'm not delighted to see that he has venture capital backing, but we'll see what he does with it.
The team staying is always a good sign, but we'll see how long it lasts.
The man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Parella
A book he published previously: https://www.amazon.com/Fractured-Fortune-Tony-Parella/dp/0615222102
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
I wholeheartedly agree. Tacking on unadvertised $2 fees at the end smacks too much of TicketMaster's behaviour.
If they want/need more revenue, the right way to do it is to raise the rates charged to the track day providers so that they can build it into the overall event cost in a consistent fashion.
I mostly agree, I want to see it in the top line price, but I also want it broken out. That way if they decide to tack on $40 you don't go blame your organizer. You can see where the culprit is.
In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :
Except that Brian Ghidinelli retired.
As someone who has had to admin MSR for almost seven years, I just hope they invest in backend development and ux.
Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
Greed is not good.
Why is it automatically greed?
In the face of rising costs, MSR had basically two options:
With Option 1, it is clear to the customer where it is coming from and why.
With Option 2, as an organizer, eating it really isn't viable. I already need at least 75% participation in my events just to break even. So now I have to decide whether to raise my rates by the same amount, or round up to the nearest $5 to simplify accounting and on-site payment. Plus, if they adjust their service fee in the future, do I have to adjust my rate to match every time they do?
It's just better and cleaner from an organizer's perspective to make MSR's service fee completely independent of my transaction.
[edit] When the fees hit the streets (last year?) I had one or two customers complain and try to get us to switch services because of it. But 99% of the people didn't care, and the fact remains that we as a club wouldn't get anywhere near the exposure we do if we went somewhere else, and it would be much harder for new folks to find us.
JVB said:As someone who has had to admin MSR for almost seven years, I just hope they invest in backend development and ux.
This I can agree with.
CrashDummy said:I feel like Hagerty just bought MSReg like 10 minutes ago...
Yeah - agreed. I'm also surprised to see Hagerty sell something. They've been hoovering up car-related entities left and right.
Duke said:Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
Greed is not good.
Why is it automatically greed?
You snipped out the part about the charity dinner, which is the part that moved it into the greed territory for me.
The organizer had no idea that fee was being charged since he set it up as a charity event on MSReg. Charging people to donate to a good cause (100% of the donation went to the charity) is just plain wrong, IMO.
If this is an opportunity to suggest changes, I would like to see the event price on the first page, instead of having to go all the way to the registration page. This applies to several of the track day events.
Duke said:Add it to the service fees paid by the organizer, who then has to account for that extra cost, and either mark up their entry fees accordingly or just eat it
Every other track day organizer I've talked to has said they'd much rather have this option, but msreg refused to make it available to them. It's much better for messaging to your customer -- hidden fees tacked on at the last minute really piss people off and they usually blame the organizer not msreg because that's who's visible to them.
This is what TicketMaster does, and it's why everyone hates TicketMaster. Rule #1 of business should be Don't Be Like TicketMaster.
What a stupid, pointless letter. Did he actually say anything in there? I couldn't tell.
Msreg needs competition. I'd happily use literally anything else including strapping dollar bills to carrier pigeons, etc.
In reply to dr_strangeland :
There is another company. I've used it to register for events by Porsche Club and Corvette club chapters and Martin Sports Car Club, our independent club.
I just used Motorsportreg this week to register for a track day. I have some insurance through Hagerty and they were still willing to waive the $2 by entering my Drivers Club number. Is that going away? Either way, I'm just not that wound up over $2. It's a pretty far cry from Ticketmaster that can sometimes add 30-40%.
dr_strangeland said:What a stupid, pointless letter. Did he actually say anything in there? I couldn't tell.
Msreg needs competition. I'd happily use literally anything else including strapping dollar bills to carrier pigeons, etc.
A couple of the clubs around me use trackrabbit. I think its a better UI, but not nearly as many events.
SCCA has developed it's own solution in house. Its currently used for time trials and TNiA. I don't love the SCCA solution mostly because the amount of post registration add on sale options you have to click through. Its also impossible to do walk up registration with the current SCCA solution, for TNiA they have solved that by providing a staffed hotline that folks can dial in and register with.
Andy Hollis said:Duke said:Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
Greed is not good.
Why is it automatically greed?
You snipped out the part about the charity dinner, which is the part that moved it into the greed territory for me.
The organizer had no idea that fee was being charged since he set it up as a charity event on MSReg. Charging people to donate to a good cause (100% of the donation went to the charity) is just plain wrong, IMO.
That still sounds like an organizer problem. If they didn't know that the (for-profit) business they used was charging for their services, that's a lack of due diligence on the part of the organizer. If they didn't know there was a fee, I'm guessing that also means they didn't ask for the business to donate the service ahead of time.
Just because it's a charity doesn't mean they're entitled to every business they choose to use being obligated to donate their services (plus the effort cost of vetting the legitimacy of every charity request) free of charge. So I still don't see how a business is inherently greedy if they don't donate their service to every charity that chooses to use them, entirely regardless of if they even knew it was for charity at the time the fee was charged or not.
Driven5 said:Andy Hollis said:Duke said:Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
Greed is not good.
Why is it automatically greed?
You snipped out the part about the charity dinner, which is the part that moved it into the greed territory for me.
The organizer had no idea that fee was being charged since he set it up as a charity event on MSReg. Charging people to donate to a good cause (100% of the donation went to the charity) is just plain wrong, IMO.
That still sounds like an organizer problem. If they didn't know that the (for-profit) business they used was charging for their services, that's a lack of due diligence on the part of the organizer. If they didn't know there was a fee, I'm guessing that also means they didn't ask for the donated service ahead of time.
Just because it's a charity doesn't mean they're entitled to every business they choose to use being obligated to donate their services (after vetting the chairty legitimacy) free of charge. So I don't see how a business inherently greedy if they don't do so, entirely regardless of if they even knew it was for charity at the time the fee was charged or not.
It's a good idea to research how much your favorite charity spends on overhead, advertising and admin. The results will probably surprise you.
ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:Driven5 said:Andy Hollis said:Duke said:Andy Hollis said:Want my support? Get rid of the $2 fee.
Greed is not good.
Why is it automatically greed?
You snipped out the part about the charity dinner, which is the part that moved it into the greed territory for me.
The organizer had no idea that fee was being charged since he set it up as a charity event on MSReg. Charging people to donate to a good cause (100% of the donation went to the charity) is just plain wrong, IMO.
That still sounds like an organizer problem. If they didn't know that the (for-profit) business they used was charging for their services, that's a lack of due diligence on the part of the organizer. If they didn't know there was a fee, I'm guessing that also means they didn't ask for the donated service ahead of time.
Just because it's a charity doesn't mean they're entitled to every business they choose to use being obligated to donate their services (after vetting the chairty legitimacy) free of charge. So I don't see how a business inherently greedy if they don't do so, entirely regardless of if they even knew it was for charity at the time the fee was charged or not.
It's a good idea to research how much your favorite charity spends on overhead, advertising and admin. The results will probably surprise you.
I'll speak to this particular charity and I actually did look this up on charity navigator and $0. Their program to expense ratio is 100%.
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