They do need someone to save them from themselves at times I feel..
I look at them sometimes like I would an "addict" as they often show some similar traits of the addicts I have had contact with..
ie A great desire for their fix (in this case Speedway and owning a team)..
A belief that what they do and how they run the sport is "acceptable" although deep down many will know it isn't...
A belief that they can make slight changes to improve their situation, but actually avoid ever solving any of the fundamental root causes that brings them so many issues..
A failure to seek, and then take, advice as to what is going wrong as the truth may be too hard to handle..
Keeping everything about them almost a secret and never letting anyone "from outside" in close..
And a justifying of their adhoc decision making to try and correct their latest self inflicted setbacks, rather than not inflict the setback on themselves in the first place..
With "Just making it through" seeming to be a clear sum of their ambition..
And just like addicts everywhere they will spend fortunes, yet have very little to show for it....
And by that in UK Speedway terms it means hardly anything in the way of national (and even local) cut through and recognition, and no major sponsor to lessen the money they put in as individuals.. .
Therefore you would think that they would at least seek some feedback and maybe do some information gathering as to why so few now attend compared to even ten or twenty years ago wouldnt you..?
The key for me as to who can help them are the many tens of thousands who sit at home each week and no longer pay their money into the sport in the UK...
Even more people than the ones who actually attend I would suggest..
Yet these people will still follow the results closely, and attend SON's, GP's, FIM meetings etc in the UK, and have a huge love of the sport. (And even travel abroad to watch league speedway)...
They just cant justify paying the kind of sums now expected to be paid to attend UK Speedway for the contrived output that is on offer..
Which is a shame, as the raw material of the product itself is fantastic...
It's just how it is packaged in the UK that lets it down, and dissuades so many from purchasing...
With huge irony the Promoters are both the saviour and the destroyer of the sport in the UK, so maybe opening up to their fanbase (both those who still do and those who no longer attend) and accepting at face value what they are being told could be just what they need to help them move forward...
A great many love the sport and would be delighted to see UK Speedway flourish because, ultimately, everyone is on the same side....
As, if the sport disappears in the UK, (as it's current annual run rate of tracks closing suggests it eventually will), then we all lose..