BurntFaceMan

I think it's only Rye House fans who've been slating the Rye House team Look's like a pretty damn good side to me.

Sara Lee is definitely better. Get your taste buds looked at.

He's a competitor in a sport.

No KK please!

Really hope it isn't KK.

Nope, absolutely not. I'm working with new business with good products, absolutely nothing to do with motorsport. So from that front, I certainly can't claim to be experienced, but I do know the sport very well and I do feel I have a very good knack for marketing. The product isn't right, but the quality of the product and the quality of the marketing will grow hand in hand.

"As I said before, if you had a speedway club, what would you do different that has been done to try to promote." This isn't something that can be sorted at club level, it would need to be a sport wide change. I will tell you what I'd do if I were in charge of the BSPA. If a team wants to compete in the league they will need to agree to new press and marketing rules. I'd make it so that each team contributed financially to a Speedway marketing fund. I'd hire a small team of marketing and social media professionals to manage the social media, website and digital marketing campaigns of each and every club. I'd overhaul the entire image of speedway and make it coherent throughout the league. New logo, new motto, new catchphrase. I'd require Sky to allow us to use video clips for promotional purposes on social media (YouTube clips, compilations, snapchats). I'd require every team promoter, manager and rider to participate in press conferences, interviews and fan interactions. I'd use these new publicity opportunities (press conferences, interviews, social media followers) to attract new sponsors to the sport. The social media reach alone on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube would be incredibly attractive to all sorts of sponsors. I'd make every club offer free admission to the under 18's. And that's just the first year. Every year that the marketing team increase attendances, we'll increase the financial commitment that each club must make to this fund. I come from a marketing background and I've worked with businesses that have gone from zero to hero in a matter of months. You may think that promoters are doing all they can, but I can assure you that they've not even scratched the surface. If the powers that be are out there somewhere, reach out to me and I'll come and meet you for a chat. Oh, and I thought this all up in 5 minutes. I could elaborate on these ideas for hours and hours. There will be problems, but nothing that can't be overcome. Imagine what a couple of us sat around the table with the promoters could do in 8 hours? I'm not saying Speedway is going to be up there with football, it's not going to get anywhere near. But doubling attendances across the UK over the next 3 years? Absolutely.

I like this top 5 and a bit jealous as I hoped we'd get hold of Eddie at Poole Not sure how the lower end of the team will form though!

I don't think that makes a lot of sense! You say the promoters have been working their backsides off with every scheme under the sun for the past 30-40 years, but you think half the country doesn't even know what speedway is? That can't be very good promoting then can it?! I'd put it to you that far more than half of the country don't know what speedway is, I'd go as far as to say that figure is probably closer to 80 or 90%! It doesn't need some of the promoters making some form of effort at some point throughout the season. It needs all the promoters making an effort, together, throughout the season. It requires a solid and consistent social media campaign. It requires more fan interaction, more transparency, more press releases, and more effort put into the product. It is absolutely not a lost sport. It's only a minority sport because nothing is done to promote it.

I don't get all the negativity here, looks like a pretty damn good team in my opinion.

It would take about 20 minutes if you took away the migrating content and reworking that low resolution logo! It's just shoddy web design, I wouldn't look too far into it.

I appreciate that some people feel this way, but you're completely wrong. (That wasn't meant to sound nasty) By your logic that suggests that if we went and spoke to 100 random strangers on a high street and asked them "What do you think of Speedway?", then the majority would reply with "I don't like it". However, I think what the majority of them will actually reply with is "What is Speedway?"! And there lies your problem. It's a promotion and marketing issue, not the fact that people simply don't like Speedway. You can't dislike something you've never heard of. If every single person in the country was forced to watch a few speedway races, the grandstands would be packed out at every club every single week. They can't turn up if they haven't a clue it even exists.

Think ourselves lucky that we have a website and a forum? That's like a shopkeeper saying "Think yourself lucky we have a shop window". The local florist has a better website than we do. A website isn't a luxury, it's a necessity in modern day business. I could knock up a better site for Poole Speedway in 24 hours. Guaranteed.

What happens to riders that only ride in Premiership this year? Are they subject to 1.4x again next year?

How boring. That's not what the fans want! The fans want rumours, stories, interviews, potential signings etc. And the website is rubbish. 1 update a week (during the season!) and its usually just the results. Boring as it gets.

1 Hans Andersen 10.01 2 Jack Holder 7.16 3 Edward Kennett 9.27 4 Kyle Newman 6.31 5 Brady Kurtz 6.44 6 Paul Starke 6.62 7 Richard Hall 3.53

It does happen though. Just look at the play-offs this year. Our reserves took us from being decimated to actually having a fighting chance. When the time comes that a reserve is needed (and those times do come or we wouldn't have "reserves" at all) then you need people there you can rely on. Just my opinion if I were building a team.

Every club should pay a small fee to a marketing budget. How much each club should pay could be worked out based on some sort of performance indicator (for example, attendances). That budget should then be used to pay for a very small team who will become the British Speedway Marketing Team. Their job would be to create one big social media campaign for the entire league. They would manage each clubs website, social media presence and they could organise online content. A little support from Go Speed and Sky in securing the rights to promo clips, some effort from the promoters and riders to get behind interviews and all of a sudden you're looking at an exciting sport (and let's be honest, speedway is exciting!) that actually has reach. I know these things cost money, but they needn't cost a lot. My entire career is based in web development, marketing and social media. I'm sure there are more fans like me who would offer their services entirely free of charge if we knew we had the support of the promoters behind us. It certainly would not take long with a team of the right people pushing in the same direction to build a nice solid base for the future.

Of course they can compete. We've just got to stop serving the customers saw dust instead of flour and actually make an effort to sell the bloody things. I don't know where on earth the word "promoter" came from because these guys don't do a bloody thing! Any boxing fans in? Every single day the boxing promoters and the fighters themselves are being interviewed on a YouTube video somewhere, giving their opinion on current affairs and slinging mud at other fighters! They have press conferences for big matches, they talk the talk, they drum up some excitement. It gives fans something to watch and follow and get behind. Speedway promoters seem to disappear off the bloody planet in between races and seasons! The fans wait for some dribble of news to come out (usually from the rider himself) about who has signed and that's it. The product itself can easily attract thousands of new fans, but the quality needs to be improved the promoters need to get off their lazy backsides and make a concerted effort to promote it.

Surely with 14 rides potentially available you'd want to have strength at reserve?

I don't believe that at all

This is pretty much how every single Poole thread goes so think yourself lucky.

You'd fit right in at the AGM with that kind of response I can just picture the other promoters nodding and mumbling positively amongst themselves as if they'd finally hit the nail on the head. Everyone has an "entertainment budget", whether it's for McDonalds, Sky TV, drinking, smoking or samba classes. It's about making the product worthy of a slice of that budget. I can afford to go to speedway, but the percentage of my disposable income it will take vs the experience I will receive does not represent good value to me. I fear that this will be the case for a lot of people, especially those in the 16 - 25 bracket. That's simply not the right formula for pulling fresh blood through the turnstiles.

I've offered Poole free web design and social media assistance (as a sponsor) in the past but it fell on deaf ears. Cecil is a decent enough promoter but a very arrogant man.

Gavan surely holds that title? The difference is Steve is actually likeable.