mikebv

Great occasions... 30+ teams meant a big catchment of fans who could attend... With the vast majority of teams, if not all, getting four figure attendances... Some of which were 5,000 plus... Now we have 15 teams, with a large percentage of them getting three figure attendances, and even the top attended clubs being much less than 2,000 regularly... Maybe moving it around the country would "freshen up" the event?... The main protagonists are Championship riders so taking it to a Championship track with a few top tier only riders providing some novelty value, may improve attendances?... Last night at the NSS, four of the finalists that rode, scored (excluding Ht2 when they all rode against each other), six points from a collective 13 rides... And another more experienced finalist got three points from four rides.. Sadly. Long gone are the days when this title had a good number of some of the best riders in the world in attendance, with 2nd tier No1's and decent top tier SS's making up the numbers hoping to do well against them... £27 to stand and watch too...

And all was being sorted early during this season too... Man Citeh's verdict will be announced sooner...

Take your bike... You might be riding looking at who is missing...

Just watched the Wroclaw v Lublin match... What an atmosphere in the stadium.... Great racing too with Kowalski beating Zmarzlik bringing the house down!! Incredible how exactly the same sport in two countries can be so different...

Spot on.... Strange the GP's in Manchester ran on Friday and Saturday... Monday and Tuesday surely would have been better?..

The big money comes in through the sponsorship and TV coverage.with "the prize" being huge contracts... Huge budgets means riders earning circa €800k for riding for your local speedway team will inevitably bring local, and national, interest, and a decent following... The whole thing then looks "big time", which can only be a good thing when being viewed by the general public... The GP's still pay out decent money with anyone regularly in and around the top six earning £80k to £100k over a season of 10 GP's.. And winning the World Final was never a massive cash prize but the World Champion made big money over the coming 12 months.. I seem to remember it was said in the late 70's it was worth up to £250k in sponsorship, points money, and lucrative appearance fees.. Zmarzlik currently nationally advertisers Aztorin Watches which will be a very nice earner for him I would suggest, especially given the price point they sell at.. Again, bringing "eyeballs" to the sport through his appearance in the adverts.. UK Speedway desperately needs to look "big time" and quickly, and, somehow, bringing big money into it will deliver those optics.. Hopefully someone can make it happen...

Contrived teams being just put together, with minimal affinity being felt by many who closely follow the sport.. It doesn't engender that emotional loyalty that a team sport needs to be successful.... Crowds are better at the weekends than when they have played during the week though.. And heading to the knockout stage the interest and crowds are expected to grow... Sounds strangely familiar....

A Polish top tier team gets, according to AI, a minimum, $8M dollars a year... If they followed the UK model, then they would be lucky to earn 5% of that, given TV, Sponsors, and Fans wouldn't be engaged.. As for the GP's? The riders earn plenty from sponsors, and can use their GP position to negotiate better terms in Poland's top tier..

The bottom line is this... If there were several million pounds in prize money available then the sport would be seen as relevant, and would have consequence and jeopardy in every meeting, and would be followed by far, far many more people.. Even if NDL was the standard.... (Athough if there was big money in the UK sport then, naturally, that wouldn't be the case).... Darts is a perfect example of a sport which was followed by an older demographic and took place in big pubs, nightclubs, leisure centres and hotels around the country... With minimal prize money on offer, it took place in front of a few hundred, who sat often in silence during the throws, "best of order please", and then politely applauded when a game or set was won.. Then Sky, and more importantly, Barry Hearn came on board.. Big prize money brought big crowds, full of a much younger age demographic, in city centre venues, and also brought noise, atmosphere, and relevance, with olayers having to fight each season to keep their place in the top 16/32... Consequence and Jeopardy completely changed Darts, with even qualification tournaments being incredibly important to get through... Major sponsors and TV networks then organically came on board as the sport grew.... And more and more people have taken up the sport as they see the riches on offer,which then raises the standards... It will matter hardly one iota what UK Speedway does to race nigbts, league numbers, averages, admission prices etc etc etc.. Without that question of, (pardon the pun),... "What's actually riding on this meeting?"... Being answered with... "A hell of a lot!"... Without any prize to make the sport look relevant, and of a reasonable size, it will just keep ambling along, and just keep going through the motions of putting Speedway meetings on, regardless of being whether it is a credible offering or not.. And the fans wlll continue to vote with their feet..

The very fact we often mention changing race nights on here to "attract a crowd" speaks volumes doesn't it?.. And, as Plymouth has shown, it can work when moving to a weekend... The major issue of what they are actually racing for won't be resolved though... At the moment the only prize worth winning in UK Speedway the "Decent Crowd In The Play Offs"... However, how many of those attending the PO's have given "dead rubbers" a miss during the season is a valid point to raise, so the extra punters on the night isn't a total gain... Without something "really worth winning" UK Speedway simply won't get enough cut through in a world of huge prizes for a large number of sports... Given how the sport is set up, you can't help thinking that UK Speedway is just there to enable riders to earn by doing the sport, and to give Speedway loving people a chance to run a Speedway team as an expensive hobby.. With finishing positions in any of the leagues irrelevant due to no major prizes, no relegation, and, you can even swap your leagues if you so wish... Changing nights to weekend racing should give a short term boost, but changing much more will also be needed if long term improvement is the vision...

Wasnt there someone who was going to get involved, but wanted to see the viability first?.. If so, maybe they will come on board given the venture seems to be a success crowd level wise.....?

Brady lost in with that last place from Gate 3.. Dreadful GP overall.... Do the organisers not have a clue about race track prep?... Regardless of the meeting on Friday, this track is always crap.. There must be at least one better circuit somewhere? If there isn't then time to give up...

This track is a disgrace for such a high level of racing... And it has been "improved"...!!!

Huckenbeck... Everyone rides the inside and he went wide for a whole lap... Then rode the inside... What an idiot...

Enjoyed that four rider final.. Seeing the times adds to the event... Kurtz and Zmarzlik a blink of an eye between them..

Charlie Monk...

Zmarzlik currently 7/5 to become World Champion on B365.. Not often odds against at this stage...

This is sport where clubs will sack riders, with immediate effect, for doing better than they were expected to do, when needing to make two replacements, with zero "offence" being taken by their fanbase.... And also, should riders refuse to ride due to not getting paid, they then get a 28 ban for "withholding their services" hanging over them.. Not sure anyone should expect major commitment from riders....

I think a League with UK Sweden and Denmark just could be an answer for the sport over here .. The "professional teams", could join and let the "hobby teams" ride in their own Championship... If only 3 teams currently want to ride in a top tier then they can join up with the 16 Scandinavian teams, giving 18 home matches, plus any play offs... And that would leave a 12 team Championship with non Poland contracted riders.. Using Denmark's system would mean just 15 riders needed over here.. It would create strong interest from the many who no longer attend regularly I would think, and also likely get TV coverage, and some decent sponsorship... Pay rates are not too different in either of the three leagues below Poland, so rider costs wouldn't be much different, with travel and accommodation being the only add on, however, many riders fly in and out now from country to country so even that wouldn't be too much of a big difference.. You would also get to see every top rider in the world over here, once, or twice if reaching the play offs.. A bona fide sporting league that has kudos, with different teams of only riders contracted to them, some you only get to see once, with regular meetings, ticks a lot of boxes that UK Speedway currently doesn't..

He should have called, latest by 2:55pm...😗 😁

I see Rune Holta is Norwegian again..

That'll teach Poole a thing or two, I'm sure....

And someone else will snap him up.... Self policing works really well doesnt it??

The current way of running the sport has ended up with more ex fans showing zero interest in the sport than still attend... In short. This unfit for purpose operating model and business plan doesn't work.. What amazes me is that almost every season the conference is said to be, by at least one promoter, "the most important ever", and "we all need to work together to improve things"... Which, suggests, just by using those phrases, the promoters know that what they currently do isn't working... Yet, by the end of each conference hardly anything fundamentally gets changed!!! With the changes that are made being things like "riding across the centre green now gets you excluded"!. And obviously we have "the best conference ever", "we are all on the same page" etc etc etc, upon conference close.. Baffling that we end up with pretty much the same operating model and business plan each year, which naturally, and obviously, will deliver pretty much the same results each year, and, at the end of the season the promoters recognise the issues, then do nothing to sort them.. Using the same plan will only keep the sport going the same way it has so far...

So much actually goes back to that lack of independent strong leadership for the sport... Riders can get bans but still have every possibility that even before they ride for either of their teams again, some promoter will call and ask them to guest... Riders, of a certain level, know they are far too much in demand to have any real sanction against them... And, in a sport with so little to "play for" I am not sure why bans are in place, given it is the rider who hasn't earned money, so he is the main loser due to the situation.. And some bans can mean the rider misses no meetings...