mikebv

A "perfect storm" this season... The Aces kept two out of the world's top three, and the loyalty shown to Blodorn, Cook and Zischke is paying its dividends, and having one of the best RS's is an obvious plus... Sheffield lost Holder and didnt replace him, Leicester chose not to go with Fricke and didnt replace him like for like, and Ipswich lost Sayfutidinov and Doyle, and also couldn't replace them LFL... Northampton cobbled together a team due to the short notice and, of a level that the obvious understandable uncertainty around crowd numbers reflected,, and KL didn't maximise having Fricke... Signing Kurtz and Bewley also meant the opportunity to bring in very good riders to replace them when missing... Keeping that team together next season sadly won't happen, but, like any and every year, it really should, as dumbing down each season doesn't push the standard forwards..

Food and Drink purchases will be considered important... Even if only renting as it will keep the landlord happier... A nice hot evening could mean a few visits for some cold drinks...

Was it last nights guest appearance in the Championship?..

I think the Aces will get the bonus point ..

100%... The rehab would have cost them a fair few quid!! You can also understand why they want to restrict the amount of racing "their riders" do, given the contracts and support that they give them... An incident in Denmark directly, negatively, impacts their own business... A business with big money at stake...

A good decision by Dan... And a fair one given Poland has sorted his rehab.... A good job though that it wasnt Brady who had gone through the same and made that decision... Some on here would have gone into meltdown...

Spot on... Strong viewing figures bring sponsorship to the sport... And adverts to the TV company... If the sport is ever to turn around the tanker then it has to start somewhere... Saturday being that first opportunity...

Wow....

15 clubs sharing what after VAT? £30k - 40k?... Hardly worth it is it?.. Not up against the longer term opportunity to make the sport look far more popular than many watching would even consider.. Including the key target market, ie the ones who used to attend regularly... £2k per club is worth circa 100 fans entrance... If the sport can sell itself well on Saturday, and, reading between the lines, at the the other meetings planned (the play offs maybe?)... Then far more than £2k can be gained over a season...

As Meat Loaf may have said... "Now, don't be sad, coz four out of seven ain't bad"...

I actually think "less is more"... The NSS holds the PCMT at the start of the season, featuring top level GP riders. This attracts a 2000+ crowd... They also then host two GP's with more than 3,000 Aces fans attending both nights.. The BF, no disrespect to it, is the equivalent of the "Football League Cup" when compared to the "Champions League" of the GP's... And, the League Cup is always a tough seller for the Premiership clubs compared to their Premiership matches.. Moving it around could give it a new lease of life...?

There are seven teams, BV, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berwick, Workington, Redcar, and Sheffield, that are "Northern" however there never appears to be too many from any of them at the BF, even Sheffield.. To be fair, not too many turn up from Sheffield for play offs.. Maybe moving it to somewhere like Glasgow one year, and Ipswich or Kings Lynn the next would get more interest? Given they have current tracks around them, and/or reasonably recently closed tracks around them... Poole would deliver a decent crowd too I would think, as the likes of Lambert and Bewley will be, like if any Championship team had it, a novelty so would generate interest... Whatever happens they need to do some marketing and, like with all the UK Speedway titles, make the competition actually worth winning, as currently, riders can just pull out such is their lack of desire to win it.... And that cannot be good optics for a National Championship if they want to engage a decent following... As for being Central? Manchester is probably the most Central point from the Scottish teams to the South Coast ones... It's more the lack of prestige in the BF title, and the level of riders on view nowadays, that keep people away for me, more than the venue location...

Or the size of the crowd...

It is a National Championship... Fans should be there, in numbers, from any track that has a competitor, and even if they haven't... Like used to happen.... The reality of course is that the BF is no longer what it was once, and the Aces fans will make up the majority of a small crowd.. If Dan Bewley gets confirmed it will attract more Aces fans to the event, (plus others), however, possibly, the Aces only have a RS rider in the meeting.... This is the third meeting in less than three weeks at the NSS, which I would say is a gamble in today's economic climate... To be honest, I do feel that the BF should move given the NSS holds two GP's which, whilst being great, and much more expensive, do deliver VFM and massively take the shine of the BF, especially when so many RS's and Championship riders are included... There is minimal advertising for the event, if any, locally, but that aligns with the usual Aces lack of marketing.. I am baffled why every track doesn't try and flog, at least 100 tickets each (since April), with these tickets being discounted heavily to offset the high travel costs... Maybe clubs should even organise coaches to get their fans there?.. The BF should be a "Festival of Speedway" pushing the sport forward, instead it becomes just another Speedway meeting...

If they have advertised it locally, I haven't noticed... The opportunity exists for every team to have fans there in reasonable numbers which just may get some recognition from anyone watching in their locality... A British Championship in any sport should have followers from all those competing, and the more teams' fans there the more UK Speedway looks like a "National sport", which, for many non followers it currently won't register as such..