Officially, it’s perfectly clear: it’s the FIM Superbike World Championship. The problem is, no-one really calls it that. World Superbikes is probably the most common way of referring to the series, which is then abbreviated to WSB. But SBK is the chosen abbreviation of series promoters Infront Sports & Media.

Good news, then, that the series is being rebranded. But they’re sticking with SBK, which seems like a missed opportunity.

It’s a mess out there. You have MCN, Visordown, Suzuki and Yamaha all using WSB. Honda and Ducati go with SBK. Kawasaki and Eurosport seem to like WSBK.

It’s a tiny issue, obviously, but branding-wise it’s huge. People searching for any one of the terms – World Superbikes, WSB, Superbike World Championship, SBK, WSBK – are only going to get some of the results.

With the series going by so many names, the promoter, teams and media all have to work extra hard just to be found. It’s totally avoidable if everyone could agreement on what to use.

But the promoters aren’t going to budge, presumably because SBK looks better than WSB. Which is true especially since, according to Infront’s Paolo Flammini:

“We have chosen to further develop the chevron, a familiar icon from the roads worldwide, as a key visual element for the new SBK brand family and bring it to life wherever we can.”

Which is another slightly curious choice: chevrons are associated with ‘keep your distance’, which is I’m sure is not the message the promoters are trying to get across.