Rapidly Shrinking Membership
You know what’s great about AMA members? You can’t fool them for long and it appears that the membership is leaving in droves under the current leadership.
I wrote a piece last week that said AMA membership had remained stagnant for the last decade. Well, turns out that’s not exactly correct. If you look at the numbers published by the AMA, under the leadership of former AMA Membership VP Greg Harrison the AMA was actually adding members at a record rate.
In May of 2000 the AMA announced that it had reached a milestone of 250,000 members. By 2008 the AMA was boasting of membership of nearly 300,000. That is significant growth, perhaps the largest growth the association has ever witnessed in an eight-year span.
Fast forward to today and in October’s issue of the American Motorcyclist Rob Dingman is quoted as saying “We have about a quarter-million members.” I think this “about” a quarter million is interesting in itself. What is the real number? Pick a date annually or every six months and publish the real membership number. How hard is that? This points out another problem with the current leadership – lack of transparency.
But I digress. What this all means is that sometime between early 2008 (Dingman took over as CEO in early 2007) and today the association has lost nearly 50,000 by their own admission. They point to a program they did with Nationwide Insurance as artificially inflating the numbers. But if you stop and think about that claim for a moment it does not hold water.
First you would have to believe that if the Nationwide program inflated the numbers by 50,000, than every one of those would have not stayed members beyond the one-year introductory membership. Even though the numbers were never announced if you take at face value the reason that the AMA lost 50,000 mainly because of the drop off of the three-year Nationwide program that means they added nearly 17,000 per year. If the Nationwide AMA members dropped off after the introductory membership the numbers would look something like this:
First year – 270,000 members (claimed membership when the program started)
Second year – 287,000 (after 17,000 new Nationwide members come on board)
Third year – 287,000 (The AMA claims these new Nationwide members aren’t renewing so the new 17,000 in the second year replace the 17,000 that dropped off after the first year.)
Fourth year – 287,000 (Last year of the program and the final batch of 17,000 new members come on board replace the 17,000 that dropped off from the second year)
Today – 270,000 (The final batch of Nationwide customers drop off and you’re back to the original number.)
Yet now the AMA is claiming only “about 250,000” members, so by their own admission they’ve lost nearly 20,000 in the span of just a couple of years, not counting the Nationwide program, and that’s if they didn’t retain any of the new Nationwide members. I contend that of the 50,000 or so new members they got from Nationwide that they did retain a certain percentage of them so the actual real decrease in membership is greater than 20,000, perhaps much greater.
The problem again is lack of transparency. If you look at the AMA website as of today (Oct. 7, 2009) they are still claiming nearly 300,000. I believe only after pressure from journalists did the leadership relent and finally admit in their magazine they are only actually at 250,000.
The bottom line is that since Dingman has come on board the AMA had lost a lot of members, an unprecedented numbers of members in fact. As I said, you can never underestimate the ability of members to cut through the clutter and understand what’s really going on. That’s why I believe they are leaving the AMA in droves.
The AMA will claim the economy as a factor and I’m sure that’s valid to a certain extent, but the AMA has endured recessions and dues increases before and not lost these kinds of numbers. Dingman claims the goal is to “get back to 300,000 by 2010”. Other than this road side assistance program (which I believe will primarily be used by current members), there isn’t another marquee program in place to attract new members. Plus the AMA membership is aging fast and without the excitement that Pro Racing created to attract young members I don’t see how the AMA is going to improve the numbers. We’ll see how it works out.
Increasingly Restrictive Board of Directors Eligibility
“I am against the corrupt, pork-barrel, good-old-boys appointment-by-one-man system that is responsible for the non-representative Road Racing Advisory Board.”
Guess who made that quote? None other than current AMA Board Member John Ulrich back when he had his “Take Back the AMA” campaign in 2001. Ulrich won election to the AMA Board of Directors in a landslide, yet with him now on the Board it’s doubtful that another campaign like his could be waged today.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming Ulrich, who I consider a great man if for no other reason than his relentless safety campaign that led to the AMA Superbike Championship being infinitely safer today for competitors. Yet he sits on a board that has re-written the rules to the point that no one with a dissenting view of the current AMA leadership could hope to ever possibly be elected.
Want to see how AMA Board of Directors elections are handled today?
Essentially it boils down to a member who wanted to run for the AMA Board and had met the required number of signatures was called personally by Rob Dingman and told that his reasons for seeking the position were invalid? In the immortal words of John McEnroe – YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!
Please, tell me again how Dingman still has his position with the AMA? This is unbelievable to me and I wonder how Board member Ulrich feels about it? Or anyone else on the Board for that matter?
This is a nightmare. Is it any wonder why Dingman is booed when he tries to speak to the membership as he was at the Indy Mile?
Another restriction is that someone who worked for the AMA knows the association intimately and was qualified to work for the AMA, somehow is now ineligible to be on the Board for 10 years after they worked at the AMA? I would love hear the reasoning for this.
And here’s a good one. The board recently implemented term limits for Board members, but they excluded themselves from those limits.
And the most egregious restriction in my view? If a member wants to run and can get the required nomination, the Board can arbitrarily decide not to approve that nominee. In other words you can’t run for the Board unless the Board wants you to!
If members actually took the time to read these regulations I believe the current leadership would be run out of Pickerington faster then Usain Bolt.
Read the regulations here and then let your voice be heard at oneama@ama-cycle.org.
In the final installment I will propose a few ideas that I think would give the membership a more responsive and representative governance. I’ll also have some Rob Dingman quotes that you might enjoy.
Why the AMA Needs New Leadership