Image: Foremost Media.

World Supercross Championship (WSX) organiser SX Global has formally announced the appointment of Tom Burwell as its new CEO, who has immediately moved to address the extended period of silence from the series rights-holder while preparing to launch its four-round 2024 season in Vancouver, Perth, and Abu Dhabi.

Burwell has an extensive background in rugby and held an associate director position at Formula 1 in recent years, before taking on the immense task of turning FIM WSX around under the ownership of Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori – the business partners that took charge late last year.

Following the exit of previous CEO Adam Bailey, which came after the previous low-key departures of fellow co-founders Ryan Sanderson and Tony Cochran, SX Global has formed a largely new leadership group that will now see Burwell at the helm from his base in London. He has quickly recognised the importance of acknowledging the lack of effective communication and appears to understand the challenge ahead in rebuilding confidence within WSX.

“There has been a period of silence from World Supercross as we have sailed an element of choppy waters over the previous few months, especially coming off the back of last season, some of the restructure and change that we went through, and I think we would be naive not to recognise that,” Burwell stated.

“We’re an organization that has gone through some restructure that has had an impact on our fans, and that has had an impact on the trust that many, many people in our ecosystem have in WSX, the sport, and ultimately in us doing what we say we’re going to do. I’ve spoken about this with our team, and I think it’s fair to speak about it to our fans.

“First of all, we have to do what we say we’re going to do and deliver a world-class, four-event series this year with some of the best riders in the world and with our teams, and we need to deliver that as a product, both globally and locally, fan first. If we do that and recognise that there is a journey to deliver those four events and the content and digital-first approach to that in the months leading up to it, and how we are in those local markets each and every single day, we’ll lay another brick of trust.

“Somebody once said to me, ‘Are you better today than you were yesterday?’ I’m going to hold myself accountable to that. If WSX is better today than we were yesterday, then we’re on that journey to building trust and responsibility and belief that we’ll do what we say we’ll do.

“And if we do that every day, and if sometimes the answer is no and we restart and we do that the following day, then come Abu Dhabi I have absolute faith that the entire ecosystem will say, ‘Wow, they’re doing some cool stuff’. If we’ve done that, then we can begin to build and grow again in 2025. Virtually every decision we will take over the coming weeks and months and probably years will put a fan at its core.”

The promising addition of Burwell will see him join longstanding, Gold Coast-based chief operating officer Stephen Rogers, as well as new senior consultant of racing development based out of California, Kurt Nicoll, in instrumental roles. Former Nitro Circus CEO Andy Edwards, who was initially named executive chairman in recent months, has been instead named in a ‘trusted advisory’ role.