WORLD Superbikes, the staple diet of any bike racing is up for sale in an auction being conducted by Merrill Lynch, with a price tag of around £50 million.
Italian company FG Group, is preparing to sell the rights and recently MotoGP and Formula 1 have changed hands.
It's thought that World Superbikes is likely to be acquired by a private equity firm that controls other motorsport governing rights.
The most obvious potential buyer is Bridgepoint, the mid-size venture capital firm, which acquired a controlling stake in MotoGP for around €450 million in July last year.
However, the Spanish management of MotoGP has been a fierce competitor to the Italian brothers who run FG Group, Paolo and Maurizio Flammini, which may make a unification deal difficult to achieve.
FG Group created World Superbikes in 1989, but sold a controlling interest to Interpublic's sports marketing arm, Octagon, in 1998, although the Italian duo continued to run the business.
However, Interpublic later ran into financial difficulties and got out of sports marketing, selling MotoGP back to FG Group in 2003.
It is not clear why FG Group wants to sell this time, although the high valuations attached to racing rights may be key " MotoGP has been valued at nearly five times its €110 million sales.
