truthsayer

You really think £26,000 income a meeting is viable?

I don't really get your point. Are you saying that the demise of speedway is inevitable or are you saying speedway has to diversify and move with the times? Speedway's biggest problem is that it has failed to move with the times. It got a TV deal and thought it was enough to just televise the product it had, when other sports modernised and adapted for the new, television based, audience. Every TV deal becomes worse and worse. It'll be on SportyStuff TV next! People don't want to stand on a dilapidated terrace, shouting 2,4,6,8 every 10 minutes, anymore. We've become more sophisticated as consumers and speedway's just an outdated spectator sport. GPs have tried to push the needle by promoting it as a Monster Energy extreme sport, but the reality between that and the average British spectator is a mile away. British speedway failed to adapt and it is coming home to roost now. Not enough spectators, not enough competitors and not enough venues. The business model that worked in the 1960s doesn't work now and never will again. The only chance to survive is to build from the ground up as a participant sport, with a vision to become a TV-friendly spectacle, but reheating the old team speedway format as the only show in town is a one way path to oblivion. If that means losing the octogenarian audience, so be it. There won't be speedway in five years anyway.

Here's part of the problem, all speedway riders are 'professional' - no one wants to be amateur. If you are starting out then you are an amateur. What's your point caller? Speedway needs new riders, whatever they are riding, wherever they are riding, they need to develop a pool of new riders. The cream will rise, but frankly the pool is so small they just need riders. Quite a few road racers start out on classic bikes. If the next top British star starts out riding his granda's old Jawa in an amateur upright meeting I would say that's certainly developing the next generation of rider. The obsession with the current team structure is offputting for newcomers - spectators and competitors.

At some stage there needs to be a transition, where speedway promotors don't just rely on team racing and where there is a mix of professional team racing, pay to play amateur racing and individual meetings. Promotors need to be able to have more freedom in what they run, and when they run. Looking at darts, for example, pro tours and legends tours could fill a gap in the inevitable calendar caused by the lack of team events. A meaningful multi-round British championship for individual riders is another potential series, but ultimately it needs to be part of a transition and a long term plan to get more local competitors, more venues, more practice facilities and sustainable business models.

To be fair, I wrote that 30 seconds before that 'speedway out of the top drawer' Proper speedway. Very entertaining. Indeed.

It's been so boring not a single rider has been coming on strong.

It's not though, is it? It's a clusterf--k and clearly not working. Not enough venues, not enough riders, not enough fans, not a sustainable business model. The only glue is the stuff being sniffed by anyone who thinks professional speedway will still exist in the UK in five years time.

There is nothing stopping women racing against men here in the UK either, it's happened a few times with little success. There will always be a debate about 'women's only' motorcycle racing. I am not a woman, and to be honest different women will have different opinions to each other, but one could see a demand for a female category. Why, because any woman coming into the sport today will be handicapped not by their physicality but by the fact they have less experience than competitors and by prejudice. There are women who want to race motorcycles, but they so often quit because they've not felt welcome in a man's world. This has happened often in superbike racing. Speedway has a chance to make a 'safe space' for female competitors by making a 'women only' competition. It takes time, but it can evolve into a serious championship which would help attract a different audience too. Speedway's formula of relying on spectators paying to watch team racing is unsustainable. If speedway is to survive in the UK, it needs to find ways to create a product where competitors pay to play - as is the case in almost every other sport in the world. That probably means categorisation: youth racing, classic racing, Over 50s, uprights, sidecars, flattrackers, women... making the sport more inclusive. Women would seem to be an obvious place to start and would be symbolic, if nothing else, of throwing off the chains of speedway's stubborn reluctance to change.

You do know that these are not NHS ambulances working at these events. They're private ambulance companies and private staff. The event organisers need to pay for them, which is why they are often one of the first things to go when you save money - and why they are not sitting on standby to 'help the general public'

You wanted Lebedev's what?

I agree with you, but not in the way you probably think. Modern society makes things easy and accessible for us. To order a takeaway, watch live sport, to have a debate like we are here... are so easy because of technology. The things that were special to us 20 years ago are not so special now, because everything is so easy to access. But people still want to do stuff, especially over 40s and 50s, where we have money, memories and a bit of health! Seriously, those running speedway need to understand times have changed and that tastes and standards are higher than they once were. They need to develop their product for those who 'want it handed on a plate'. Driving for hours to get two or three races after the main meeting is not good value for 'junior' riders. Making a product where I pay to play and know I am getting good value is the modern way of doing things. Getting back on topic, women's speedway can be a way to regenerate the sport. There's an opportunity to make the sport accessible by females who have felt excluded from other forms of motorcycle racing, a good PR opportunity and a chance to build a business model away from the currently unsustainable spectator sport/team racing format. It's a formula which could equally be extended to youth racing, and to those who want to race classic bikes or uprights. As an aside, I could see a 'Masters Tour' being good business for the current speedway audience.

They are not there just now, for sure, but they could be. I don't think it's a difficult target to try and meet. Speedway needs to build a grassroots. I genuinely don't think this is asking too much. Even if that wasn't achievable, 30 riders paying £100 for a good day of racing and practice should be possible if you target the right people, and hopefully viable for some venues.

So how appealing would it be for a speedway club to have a meeting consisting of 16 female riders, 16 classic riders and 16 youth riders? 48 competitors and three meetings on a day. Each pays £150 to enter and they don’t have to worry about attracting a crowd or paying anyone at the end. That’s sport at a grassroots level. Speedway doesn’t have this but there’s no reason why it couldn’t. I’m not saying it would be easy, but as a business model I’d bet it’s a heck of a lot easier than paying out money to international riders, in the hope that they can create a product which brings in enough at the gate to make it financially viable. This is why it is important to attract competitors into the sport.

No, not at all. If you play Sunday league football you are doing it because you want to play, not because you think you'll win the FA Cup. I can ride motocross for fun, but I can't really ride speedway for fun - it's all about getting people into teams. I'm in my 40s. Been around bikes all my life and tried speedway a bit in the past. I'd happily have a speedway bike in the garage and use it to practice and do some amateur meetings maybe 10 times a year. I'd probably put £3000-4000 in the speedway economy every year, but there's no place for me to race. It is not, to use a modern term, inclusive. Seniors racing, womens' racing, electric racing, youth racing, classic racing.... all potential audiences for speedway to build its participant base. But no, it's a closed shop and would rather focus on team racing and bringing in ready made imports. There, straight away, is an income stream for speedway and a way to build the sport. It's economics as much as anything.

In a sport that needs as many new competitors as it can get, it is encouraging to see this forum encouraging 50% of the population to take up speedway. Again, speedway's obsession with 'team' racing sees it miss an opportunity. Women's speedway could easily be a thing and bring welcome numbers into the industry and publicity to the sport. Not every competitor needs to challenge to be a world champion, sometimes being a participant is all that matters. Speedway's lack of inclusion is just one of things that will lead to its demise.

No one involved in speedway at present has the funds to make it happen, even if they did have the vision. It needs a proven sports promoter with deep pockets and a thick contacts book. It needs someone who can transfer what's working in boxing/darts/snooker and use it to reinvent speedway. It's not about finding a random CEO, it's finding an entrepreneur who can bring in the right people and create a new sport. Not a group, not a broadcaster, but a real sports promotor who gets modern sports. It won't happen, because the numbers can never stack up, but that's what would need to happen for the sport to have a fighting chance.

It needs someone not currently involved in the sport. It needs a complete breakaway from the existing bodies (like the darts split) and it needs to think outside the speedway-as-a-team- sport concept. It's not going to happen. British speedway is on life support and has a few more years left. Like so many things in this country, it's a victim of short term thinking and a failure to invest. It's failed to invest in developing its own talent, importing ready made riders. With costs rising the already not very sustainable business is now dead.

20 heats in two hours is still only one race every six minutes. It needs to be better than that to capture the imagination of a trackside audience.

It's a conundrum for speedway. In theory the bigger audience will always be the TV audience, which attracts sponsors and advertisers - making the trackside audience less relevant - and in some cases subscribers pay to watch. It also (again theoretically) promotes the sport, which should mean more people will go along to watch live anyway. But there are no guarantees. It works for a lot of sport, at the elite level. Darts would probably be the most obvious example of this which, like snooker and pool, is easier to present than speedway. It's chicken and egg. It will be tough for speedway, because it's hard to imagine the streaming audience will be anything like enough to attract sponsors, while it would likely have a negative effect on the paying spectators. Many sports promoters actually produce their own broadcast package, which they sell to broadcasters around the world. Eurosport (now WBD) actually promote some of the sports they broadcast, including speedway world championships. What makes them attractive promoters is the very fact they are TV production companies, with distribution platforms in place. Being honest, I am not sure how the business model transfers to British speedway - but then again the current one isn't working.

I think you're kind of right on this, in as much as the diehard support wants team racing and turning that off would be the final nail in the coffin right now. But the challenge, as much as getting new supporters, is getting new riders. And there's little opportunity for riders to enjoy speedway as a sport. If you're not in a team, there's nothing and that remains a major barrier to getting riders into the sport. If you don't want to race team speedway, there's no place in the sport for you. And that's wrong for a motorsport. I believe team speedway still has a significant part to play in a future of speedway, but only a part, and only alongside a solid foundation of a motorsport with high participation. Right now the business model is ALL about getting spectators along to watch team speedway at legacy venues, in a legacy format. So the survival of speedway depends on league speedway and that's wrong, and dangerous. If professional cycling/football/rugby collapsed, the sport would still exist and a rebuild could take place. When professional speedway dies (and it will, soon) there will be nothing left upon which to rebuild the sport.

Stadium motocross (Supercross) and arena motocross (Arenacross) audiences are not much to shout about in the UK. I'd doubt they make money. The benefit motocross has is a fairly solid participation base, and products made by mainstream motorcycle brands. I am a lifelong speedway fan and I find the team sport thing tenuous. I can’t believe today’s more sophisticated consumer will buy into it. The interaction between team mates in speedway is negligible. They are just a bunch of individuals who wear the same colour and the team that wins is the one whose individuals score the most points collectively. Compare this to real team sports, where the individuals work closely together. They pass a ball between each other, with players having a specialist role to play. I just don’t get it. I get how it could have been in the past. People were less discerning. Teams were more stable and often more local, so there was a connection with the individuals that made up the team. Even in some of the sports which have huge emphasis on the team (think Formula One and cycling, a la Tour de France) the focus is on the individuals. Real teams, like national teams as seen at the recent World Cup, interests me a bit, but personally I just want to see riders racing for themselves and would see that as a future to introduce new spectators, and riders, to the sport. Speedway needs to start at the ground up, as an individual amateur sport. League speedway can still have a place, but it has to be commercially viable and a separate entity to the individual sport.

I think you are right but you are also wrong. Yes, hype works as does prize money. That's true. Speedway, as a team sport, is such a hard sell. I just can't see people buying into the concept. Maybe I am wrong, but (football and national sports excepted) people are mesmerised by individuals and not teams. In speedway, for every top name, there's another middling rider in the team to balance it out. Big show needs big venues - top stadia or better still indoor arenas to create a consistent product. Motorsport is also expensive to put on and to access, although speedway is an inexpensive motorsport - which convinces me that there's maybe a proposition to build it as a participation sport. Indoor racing and electric are both PR opportunities to 'relaunch' the sport and to shoot it into the minds of those who have long forgotten about it, or who may find more appeal in a more comfortable environment. Darts is an arena sport. I could see speedway as an arena sport. Pissed up fans, right on top of the riders and a gladiatorial environment with music and lights. The whole 'filling the programme in and tac sub nonsense is just way too anorak for a modern sport)... Supercross is probably the closest example to what speedway could be. Personally, I'm not a massive fan of the racing but the show is spectacular and the personalities big. Logistically, I just don't see how it could be possible though. But the thing with supercross is that it is the hero product. Below that there are national and regional motocross championships, riders riding as a hobby and a whole industry going on below it. A hero speedway product still allows the boring league product to exist if there's a demand for it, but a grassroots product is probably even more essential - because your idea falls apart immediately due to the lack of riders and venues currently economically available.

Women's football has the massive might of the FA and Premier League clubs behind it. And it's the only chance England have of winning anything. But, in all seriousness, I agree it's not as popular as may be perceived, but still way more popular than speedway (or indeed any motorsport outside of F1). Speedway's lack of a 'dictator' is definitely to its disadvantage, even though the current cartel is a dictatorship of sorts. I mean, if I want to run 'speedway' on asphalt, or run a 'speedway' tournament outside of the league structure, would they support me in my aims to build the sport - or do all they can to shut me down?

Ultimately it doesn't matter what you (or I) think. It's about looking at how we expand the audience beyond us here. Anyway, I agree that indoors is always limited by the size of the venue, which leads to really small tracks. Hire costs would also make it difficult. But outdoor speedway on asphalt could be freaking fast, like longtrack at some venues, and certainly it would be possible to enter some other stockcar tracks where there is a hard surface. Thinking outside the box is where it is at. I think there is something in 'carny' type meetings, aimed at tourists and casual fans rather than hardcore supporters.

'Speedway' away from dirt has many advantages. In theory, you could make more tracks, more cheaply. They would be less susceptible to weather and they would not require curation between races. Tyres would obviously have to be different, but that's likely the main difference (and a different riding style). It's like tennis (or rallying) where surfaces are different but the sport fundamentally the same. Passing would likely be more difficult on asphalt, however you should be able to pack much more racing into an event, giving better value to riders and spectators.