mikebv

Hi Bartek .... Do you know the GP's will probably be cancelled next year? You don't? Are you not on the BSF? No? Get yourself on there mate, the breaking news starts there... So... This means you have plenty of meetings less next season so how do you fancy riding in the UK? You do? That's brilliant! The fans will love you... The Zmarzlik name alone will pack the stands. How much do you want to ride? (Bartek answers. Long Pause)... You haven't got a brother that rides Bartek have you? Bartek? Hello? Bartek? You still there?

Those teams with Danes have had riders missing.... However. . For Poole, Wednesday is clearly their best night to run, and their crowds would suggest the odd missing Dane makes zero difference to the amount of people turning up... From "the outside" the optics of employing riders you 100% know will be missing some of your meetings, so you will use a guest/possible ringer, looks somewhat ridiculous for a professional team sport... Not many from "the outside" take any interest though, so it largely doesn't make any difference...

When Plymouth changed nights from a Tuesday to a Saturday, their crowds increased by several double digit percentages .. Mainly families... Which suggested these people knew about Speedway but were not prepared to have their kids (and maybe even themselves), out late on a Tuesday... There is a reason Poland use Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the vast majority of their meetings, and it isn't to allow all the GP riders there, as, if they ran on Monday and Thursdays only each week, the GP riders would still be there due to the money... However... The fans wouldn't be there in the same numbers, especially the kids who make a up a decent portion of each crowd in Poland.. UK Speedway simply cannot be ran like a "proper team sport" so why keep trying? (The evidence even suggests they don't)... The 2nd tier ran a semi final in their flagship competition, with one team having three guests, yet I suggest the crowd wouldn't have been that different if Glasgow turned up with seven of their own riders, therefore just try and run as many meetings on whatever your "best" night is... The Aces for example would 100% get more fans on a Friday or Saturday night than they do on a Monday, given more families would go... Long gone are the days when you could take what you are watching "too seriously" in the context of a bona fide team sport, yet the raw material of the racing is as good as ever for me, (from Div One to NDL), so just run on nights you find most of your customers want to attend... The Entertainment Industry lives or dies by what it takes at weekend, not what it takes on Monday and Thursday... Plymouth changed nights, not riders, and their crowds have been quoted as doubled, with not one GP rider in sight, and often not even all their own riders there!!

But we have "RR and guests all over the place" now... So, no real difference other than running on nights that could attract a better crowd level...

Wasn't the Thursday changed so Sheffield came up, and Swindon were also pretty much Thursday only? And Poole dropped out as Wednesdays were no longer part of the UK's 2 priority days? Given Denmark had that day... (Even though the UK initially went with 3 days, not 2 ).. One thing is for sure... Those nights perfectly fitted around the 2nd tier who ran Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat and Sunday.. (And did one (not Sheffield), race on a Thursday and have to change their night? However it certainly perfectly fitted many of the riders need for two incomes... With each league helping to subsidise the other as these riders had two salaries, and, as they couldn't be in two places at once, it was a perfect scenario to allow clubs to share them... Everyone was happy....

Because most of their sponsors are not Speedway fans who fancy giving their favourite rider/club a few grand a season.... Instead, they are major companies who only want to associate with ventures that have similar values and professionalism to themselves... With, in Poland, it being very much a commercial decision to have their name shown rather than a "oh look my company name is on the telly!"..

Rents won't come down though, neither will the riders costs of those who do get a team place, (of all levels)... And if no TV deal, it will remove a huge amount from the budget..... Even "staying the same" might just be a pipe dream.. Which isn't going to help move the sport forward in anyway, shape or form, is it? The hole they have dug for themselves over the last two decades is certainly a very deep one to climb out of... Unfortunately those who sleep walked themselves into it, are also, in the main, the same ones trying to get themselves out of it...

It's because there is no coordinated follow up plan... It is just "Build it and they will come".... The reality is you need to get people attending at least three times to get engaged and (hopefully), see at least one decent meeting... To make a fundamental change to your life you need to do something consistently for 28 days... Speedway need to get people attending regularly and it starts with those vital 28 days... Email and Mobile details, free family tickets, constant communication, feedback from their first visit requested, etc etc etc... Expecting them to return after one visit, even if free/discounted, and pay full price next time, is asking a lot... But, that often appears to be "the plan" at many tracks... Glasgow, and Plymouth, showing what can be done...

The current streamers could do this really well... Instead we seem to have "the best race" from a meeting on YT... Any non Speedway fan who the algorithm suggests this to them, will have zero idea about context. eg what does this race mean? what is Speedway? Etc... They would be far better putting together 15-20 mins of "before and after" background and action and get it sent out to those who follow bike and other motorsports through the algorithm... They could even earn money off the viewers and subscribers...

Many amateur and semi pro sports teams on YouTube do it themselves... A 4k Go pro camera being the usual camera of choice... Some have over 250,000 followers and subscribers... 20 mins the maximum needed to maintain the interest of the "younger generation".. Making the riders the stars being just as important, (maybe even more so), than even the action on show... Pre meeting arrival of the riders, track walk snippets, a bit of action interspersed with pits conversations, post match celebrations and sound bites from the managers and riders.. Speedway clubs should have done this, at least, five years ago... However, middle aged (and older), white males generally wouldn't see the huge opportunities that such "programmes" can open up given the algorithm used will take you from one to another... Another opportunity missed by only using those within the "speedway bubble echo chamber"....

And, I must admit.... I was completely unaware of pretty much all of them... The half hour on satellite TV was, I think, on M and Motors which was a US cable type local station, which I saw once... I do live in Stockport though, not Manchester, but do drive through the city often and haven't been aware of any billboards other than SON and GP ones which appeared when their events were held in Manchester... Good to see such initiatives are alive though, but there looks like there still isn't the output for the input... And, once again, it is done at local and not national level, which is where the sport needs to be marketing itself using a professional marketing company...

The thing is... If someone is "OK" at spending a quarter of a million to keep a Speedway team going... They would do the sport far more good by just putting that amount up as prize money... Many come on here saying "sponsors pay for the No1's" when someone mentions the cost of them and that the gate revenue wouldn't support their inclusion... Again, these "wealthy sponsors", putting in high five figure numbers, at individual tracks, would raise the sports profile NATIONALLY far more by using this money to make a "huge" prize pot, than any individual rider would raise it by riding for any team... Literally MILLIONS has been pumped into the sport by TV, Sponsors, admission money and the deep pockets of the owners.... And the return on such a huge investment is what we have today... A strange "insular" use of an enormous resource pool that could have got some traction if used more broadly for increasing the sports awareness amongst the wider UK public...

Agreed.... Those "magical nights" I grew up with at Hyde Rd, with thousands in attendance, (often including 100's of away fans), simply wouldn't have happened the same if they had ran on Mondays or Thursdays... The honourable exception being the KO Cup Final v Reading on a Wednesday night where over 20000 were in attendsnce... Amazing to think that UK competitions could actually get those types of crowds in those days..

Financial suicide... And the track itself looks "very oval" which doesn't make for great racing in today's modern era of machinery...

Just another track that got bigger crowds at weekend when the majority of the country has its leisure time... Regardless of who turned up to race....

Do you mean.... The most obvious, credible thing to do? Never catch on that.

Credibility of the Leagues? Outcome Jeopardy for the majority of meetings? Meetings not being arranged already knowing riders will be missing, (usually the biggest riders who attract the most fans)..? A joined up, well funded, collective, national marketing strategy? Clubs doing their own YouTube "magazine" channels? An admission fee in keeping with what is actually on offer? A huge national well planned and executed promotion of the sport targeting schools and local kids groups and kids sports teams? All kids in for free to hopefully grow the sports future? Kids clubs set up at each track to maintain communication with them and thier families? Running on nights when you can bring those kids without them having school the next day? Or? A new helmet colour, but not a Green one this time?

Extenuating circumstances that night though Iain... So let's be fair... That FIFTH Leicester guest in the 2nd meeting was unavoidable.... Sadly, it was time to stop taking UK Speedway seriously as a "proper" team sport, about two decades ago.... The GP's and other FIM competitions started to grow, and maintaining your place in a Polish team started to take up many rider's focus and priority... This resulted in guestfest after guestfest, particularly at weekends, as riders pursued their own individual ambitions... With these riders usually being the "big names" and the largest beneficiaries of "the Sky money"... UK promoters, knowing these riders would be missing, still insisted on putting out League racing though... I remember one night at Lakeside, the Aces went there with four guests (Arena track ringers) and RR due to a national championship, and GP qualifiers, taking place around Europe... I was staying in Canary Wharf that weekend and would have gone until I saw the line up... You simply couldn't then, nor (particularly in the internet age), even more so now, take team speedway seriously in the UK... Which is a shame as the raw product is still very sellable.... But, only if the infrastructure underpinning it made more sense, and had more credibility and jeopardy... They desperately need a "Big Sponsor" to ensure a "Big Prize Fund" as that naturally will get interest from the wider UK public and media.. However. You have to doubt that ever happening unfortunately given its operating model is so open to ridicule.... What we have, and have had for probably the best part of two decades now, is probably pretty much "all there is", as surely those running the sport must have seen the decline in crowds as easily as the fans who still attend have... But, given not much seems to have changed when radical change was clearly needed, nor even researched as to why so many who still follow the sport, no longer attend, you can only presume all is thought "OK" at the high table and "same old/same old" remains the order of the day... Roll on next March eh?

You can also have the "best rider in the race" who will start odds on, deliberately coming in behind his own team mate to keep his average down, but pick up the same points money... Ahem! Of course, I meant "shepherding" a less experienced colleague around for the good of the team.....

Gerhard did well....

So where are the bikes? Must be useful for something... And Jon Cook did a pretty good job in targeting MX... I remember a Speedway Star interview with him where he basically was targeting MX riders with his selling point being that a "decent" Speedway rider could (at that time), ride three or four times a week and earn over four grand..

It was (and still is), a tiny sport, so why there was this obsession to ensure "the stars" stayed riding over here was beyond me... I can only presume it was more "promoter ego" that wanted the best in the world working for them.. There is no "pot of gold" in winning any UK competition, and hardly anyone out of 80 million people will even know who won what, so I can only think rubbing shoulders with the worlds best must be what many Div 1 promoters were in it for.. Many, many, millions given to them, and all to regress... Absolutely barmy...

It was discussed a few years ago... The plan, if I remember correctly, was for any rider in two or three teams to ride for the team in his own nation. Eg if he was Danish he rode for his Danish team, with the other teams he rode for bringing in a guest... Riders such as Aussies would ride for the team in the country they first appeared in... It never got past the discussion stage it appears....

An Acca.....

You could bet on how many guests turn up in a play off semi final.,. My money is on three.... Japan's version of the sport is set up just for betting.... #justsaying.....