truthsayer

Your comment didn't add to the debate in any way. Now if you'd qualified your statement by saying '... because' then maybe it could be taken seriously. As it was it just comes across as 'old man shouting at cloud'.

LOL. Speedway Star is to journalism what Greggs is to Michelin starred cooking!

A few years ago I thought 'how would I run a speedway track'. The model was based around regular open practice sessions, individual meetings (multiple classes, with riders paying to enter) and perhaps some amateur team meetings for variety, and if there was demand from my customers. My customers would be competitors, who would be club members (as with most sporting clubs). I might 'promote' a couple of pro meetings a year to raise the profile and give my club members something to aspire to, and to try and brings some additional revenue in. Don't think it would be allowed due to the BSPA cartel.

You speak the truth my man. In motorsport around the world, competitors pay to participate in their hobby with maybe less than 1% actually making a living. Speedway is a sport where riders are paid, with almost nothing else. Speedway needs facilities for competitors to race as a hobby. I would happily be a club racer, with a bike in the garage and doing five or six meetings a year if the facilities were there and the events offered value. The focus should have been on developing a proposition for competitors, not spectators. A strong amateur scene develops more riders at a higher level, and creates an economy around the sport. The death we are witnessing is a result of the short term view speedway has had, in failing to move with the times and its focus on being almost solely a team sport designed for spectators.

Curious to understand why you think promoters are greedy. I'd suggest most, if not all, are losing money. If I was out to make a quick buck, speedway would be the last thing I'd think about.

The biggest issue we have with that is that all promoters have different challenges and different priorities, so 'business as usual' and short term thinking will always win. Lack of tracks and a lack of riders (especially affordable ones) will kill speedway as a viable spectator sport in this country. Costs are going up and income is going down and no amount of tweaking the format will really change that. There's no real solution, I fear. Times change and tastes change and I think speedway was of its time as a spectator team sport.

Kinda. I mean just because you're a tenant doesn't mean you can't invest in your home. If speedway attracted big enough crowds, it would be in the interest of the promoter to invest in the stadium facilities as long as they had a long term lease. Reality is it doesn't and they don't so of course facilities are going to be ignored. It's a vicious cycle. A speedway team needs to lease their venue for around 25-30 nights a year. That's a pretty poor occupancy rate for any stadium owner and not in any way a viable business.

Who owns the stadium is of no relevance to the customer, who doesn't care who owns the place. I understand and agree with what you say, but it is irrelevant to the paying punter. Stadia, or at least facilities, will be the death of British speedway as we know it.

Whataboutery isn't really going to help the situation (even though the answer is 'much higher than speedway'). It's not just standing around. It's standing around in a dilapidated stadium, among an octogenarian audience, listening to bad dad music over a poor quality PA. It's hard to imagine many people coming to a speedway meeting for the first time and thinking 'hey, this is my tribe'.

Happens all the time. Did you ever get a flight, or travel by train? Go to theatre, concert...? Many pricing models are demand based, or have new customer incentives. Not saying it's fair, but it's probably more common than you think. In a way, it doesn't really matter. If your sandwich is rubbish, no-one is going to buy it regardless of the price. Discounts for new customers are great if you want to introduce or relaunch a new product. Get them hooked and they'll still pay when the price goes up. But if the product isn't good enough they won't buy it, regardless of discount. Yes, pricing probably needs tweaking, but it's the product which is the problem here.

I watch it on the TV and think the same thing. Dull, dull, dull. Every time I pass the stadium and think about going I think about what I see on the TV, but costing me £20 and standing in a dilapidated old stadium. I think when I went 25 years ago that it was a more social thing than anything else. Probably the racing was better, but it was about meeting up with mates and having a good night out. I think I've probably got more sophisticated in terms of what I want from a night out!

Costs a lot of money to invite an influencer with clout. Agree with the sentiment, however there's a big cost attached and unlikely to be recouped with increased attendances. Main problem is that the product is rotten. Ultimately no poor product survives, that's just how it is. You can promote all you like, but if people don't like what they see you won't get their repeat business.

The question of how to build attendances is not unique to speedway, it is factor for every form of entertainment. We consume things differently. Television and other streaming media brings entertainment to us. It presents it more accessibly, cheaper and usually better than going in person. It gets people used to the elite level of sport. Going out to pay to see an inferior level of sport is not what most people want to do. Me, I get my fix from watching GPs on TV. I went to my local track last about 10 years ago. The experience was not as good as watching on TV. Most sports have the same issues. Football is great live, but you see more and get more insight on TV. Even subscribing is cheaper than going. Successful sports have monitised their TV offering. Going out to a rickety old stadium was all you had in the 1990s. By the 2000s it was a transitional period but now the norm is to consume sport in a different way. Professional speedway's product is at the level of non-league football, but the overheads to run it are so much higher.

Is there actually a TV income? I would be staggered if speedway gets an income from TV rights. Most minority sports actually pay to be on TV these days.

Only really works if you have a product people would want to go back to... I live 10 minutes from a speedway track and haven't been for 10 years. If someone gave me free tickets I might go if I was bored and the weather was nice, but even for free I doubt I'd rush back. I did try going a few times when I moved to the area but honestly it was just dragging out and old hat. Don't think I would spend a fiver on it, let alone £50 for the three of us. Now I follow on TV and internet. GPs are a good product (although also slightly in decline) but league racing is just dire. Speedway's an individual sport. Its future can only be in attracting individuals to come along and participate. The money competitors put into the sport is what could keep it alive, spectator numbers are so low as to almost be irrelevant. Team speedway can survive, but not by importing expensive ingredients to perform in front of tiny spectator numbers.

Except it is. The lifeblood of any sport is its grassroots competitors. They create an industry and help feed the professional ranks. Professional speedway has a real dearth of talent, with many top names having competed for over 30 years. While this in itself is not a major problem, it's not in a healthy place. I'd argue that speedway needs to drop its professional status and focus on becoming a sport for competitors rather than one for spectators, but that's not going to happen any time soon. If speedway wants to be a team sport (again, I'd say it's an individual sport) it needs to be using local, semi-professional, riders if it is to have any chance of being economically viable.

To me, two main issues around the survival of speedway: lack of venues and lack of riders (they are linked). Venues is tough. Can't see how a venue operating in a niche one night a week for seven months a year can be viable. So venues need to be multi-use, probably collaborating with other sports (motor and other) who are in similar situations. Riders needs to be about making speedway an attractive hobby/participation sport. It should be an inexpensive form of motorsport but it is incredibly inaccessible, with riders having to drive for hours to ride for a few minutes. A grassroots programme, probably not linked to promotors is needed. Different classes of bikes (classic should be popular based on demographic) and even electric to open up more venues and practice options. There is no real club racing scene or industry to speedway in the way there is with other forms of motorsport, possibly because it is an individual sport masquerading as a team sport. Of course, it may just be that speedway was of its time and will die. That's the reality and I personally think it will be gone at any kind of professional level in the UK in three years and gone completely in 15. It won't be the only sport to die, but the lack of venues will strangle the last gasps of breath from its lungs.

It's still just shuffling the deckchairs. While I don't disagree with much of what you say, I don't see how that would attract enough fans and/or save enough costs to make running a speedway club financially viable. I don't see how it will help create more speedway riders (possibly the biggest challenge facing speedway as a spectator sport) or address the issue of venues closing and being sold for development.

The point kinda remains though. The business is 'at risk' due to external factors. Not sure I'd be pumping money into a team for a business that might still go to the wall through no fault of my own in a few months' time.

Why would anyone take over a speedway club, unless they are a fan? As a business proposition it makes no sense at all. And Peterborough is due to close at the end of the year. If it was your business, would you be investing heavily in the future or just making it by to the bitter death?

British speedway will never turn itself around by making itself a form of entertainment. Times are different, too much competition and too many different attitudes to its heyday. Success is making a sport for competitors. Create an inexpensive form of motorsport for hobby riders. This is almost completely non existent. Is there another successful sport without any grassroots? Speedway's an amateur sport pretending to be professional. It needs to be an amateur sport with semi-professional aspirations. A strong competitor base will create a product for spectators but you want to put the cart before the horse. There are not enough speedway riders to run league speedway (speedway is an individual sport, not a team one IMO, but that's another matter). There are many, many problems in speedway, but lack of riders is by far and away the biggest one I can see.

While I sort of agree with you the reality is that things are just so far gone that now it's about clinging on for as long as possible. This didn't happen overnight. Promoters are just trying to get from week to week. It reflects the country really, or rather the out-of-ideas Tory government running it.

Of all the problem's speedway's got, I think this is quite low in the list of priorities.

Eurosport's presenter is pretty good. She deserves better than this.

Oh yes, we just got a 'hard yards'!