All That Is Wrong With Speedway....

[Leicester Hunter]

At least most of the guests were British.

Only because all the others were Rory Schlein!

[daveallan81]

EL guest and rider replacement stats for 2014 taken from 144 matches:

 

Total guests for 1-5 riders: 173 (split 68 home & 105 away)

Total guests for FTR: 103 (38 & 65)

Total uses of r/r: 35 (13 & 22)

 

By team, G - FTG - RR:

Belle Vue Home: 3 - 7 - 1 Away: 7 - 5 - 4 Total: 10 - 12 - 5

Coventry Home: 13 - 5 - 3 Away: 13 - 4 - 3 Total: 26 - 9 - 6

Eastbourne Home: 5 - 7 - 2 Away: 11 - 15 - 2 Total: 16 - 22 - 4

King's Lynn Home: 5 - 5 - 1 Away: 11 - 10 - 2 Total: 16 - 15 - 3

Lakeside Home: 7 - 1 - 1 Away: 14 - 8 - 3 Total: 21 - 9 - 4

Leicester Home: 17 - 4 - 3 Away: 15 - 7 - 1 Total: 32 - 11 - 4

Poole Home: 8 - 4 - 0 Away: 14 - 7 - 1 Total: 22 - 11 - 1

Swindon Home: 3 - 3 - 0 Away: 4 - 4 - 2 Total: 7 - 7 - 2

Wolverhampton Home: 7 - 2 - 2 Away: 16 - 5 - 4 Total: 23 - 7 - 6

 

26 matches ran with no guest programmed.

Total number of guests per match/number of matches:

1: 41

2: 31

3: 21

4: 17

5: 7

6: Nil

7: 1

 

Number of guests + rider replacement per track:

Belle Vue 35 + 13

Coventry 43 + 12

Eastbourne 31 + 9

King's Lynn 24 + 6

Lakeside 26 + 10

Leicester 43 + 11

Poole 24 + 6

Swindon 31 + 13

Wolverhampton 19 + 7

 

By day of week:

Monday: 62 guests from 39 matches (average per meeting: 1.59)

Tuesday: 4 from 2 (2.00)

Wednesday: 42 from 27 (1.56)

Thursday: 41 from 19 (2.16)

Friday: 58 from 28 (2.07)

Saturday 60 from 27 (2.22)

Sunday: 9 from 2 (4.50)

 

Food for thought:

13.9% of all riders were guests.

Nearly one quarter of all riders that should have been at Coventry (55 out of 224) and Leicester (54/224) did not ride.

Over one third (22 out of 64) of Eastbourne's FTR were guests.

Bringing r/r into the equation, only 23 matches started with both sides tracking their declared 1-7.

276 replacements equates to 39.4 teams or 19.7 matches composed entirely of guests.

[Grand Central]

A lot of fascinating detail there.

 

For me, the most telling stat is the simple one.

Over the entire season just 23 matches out of 144 had both teams riding with their full team.

 

That is just pitiful.

[frigbo]

Great stats but a saddening indictment of the mess that British speedway has become.

[salty]

DaveAllen81. Thank you for putting statistical analysis on top of the bones of what we all knew. Just shows what a shocking state the sport is in.

[Bellers101]

Daveallan81 please, please, please email your post to the BSPA.

 

Would be interesting comparing these stats to those in Sweden where attendances are much higher.

[SCB]

Daveallan81 please, please, please email your post to the BSPA.

 

Would be interesting comparing these stats to those in Sweden where attendances are much higher.

Sweden also only has 8 meeting at each track every season. Eat steak for every meal and it becomes plain and boring. Eat it for a treat once a month and it something to look forward too. We actually have too much speedway to some extent.

[Grand Central]

Sweden also only has 8 meeting at each track every season. Eat steak for every meal and it becomes plain and boring. Eat it for a treat once a month and it something to look forward too. We actually have too much speedway to some extent.

 

I understand your point but the metaphor is a little lacking.

 

Steak every day may be repetitive but nobody is ever offering that.

But restrict me to steak once a month and I would be forced to strangle you.

 

A really good Steak once a week, that's about right.

 

The trouble is ... eating out more often (and better) is one of the very things that many of us choose to spend our money on INSTEAD of going to Speedway.

[Trees]

I'd rather have egg and chips at home and be able to afford to go to speedway :-D

[iris123]

Sweden also only has 8 meeting at each track every season. Eat steak for every meal and it becomes plain and boring. Eat it for a treat once a month and it something to look forward too. We actually have too much speedway to some extent.

I have been saying for years that there is too much speedway and it isn't viable.But that trouble to an extent is caused by promoters not owning their stadiums.They have to make deals with the stadium owners which mean they have to run so many meetings and trying to do a deal for fewer meetings would probably mean the rent goes up accordingly.

 

The gap between the top two leagues(Sweden/Poland) and the GPs and the British leagues gets bigger every year.People feel they are getting better value for money by travelling abroad to watch some league meetings and a GP or two.Now that isn't extra money they are finding,but money they would have probably have spent on British speedway.It is the same as i read recently on the Beeb that around 1,000 english football fans travel over to watch Borussia Dortmund home game every other week as they think it is more value for money than watching Premier League football.

 

In another report i watched last night it stated how big football clubs are sucking the life out of other sports in the area.Again Dortmund was named.Back in the 70s there were a few other sports in Dortmund that had teams in various Bundesligas.They have generally gone by the way-side as football has attracted most of the main sponsors and season tickets use up much of the money that fans have available,so nothing much left over for other sports.In the main it is only viable for other sports to run in areas that don't have big football clubs.Speedway is much the same around Europe in this sense and it will only get harder.The finances don't really add up to run so many meetings in what is essentially an expensive sport with few spectators.The clubs on the continent are better set up to run with fewer meetings.I can't see the British model working as it does for much longer

[stratton]

I have been saying for years that there is too much speedway and it isn't viable.But that trouble to an extent is caused by promoters not owning their stadiums.They have to make deals with the stadium owners which mean they have to run so many meetings and trying to do a deal for fewer meetings would probably mean the rent goes up accordingly.

 

The gap between the top two leagues(Sweden/Poland) and the GPs and the British leagues gets bigger every year.People feel they are getting better value for money by travelling abroad to watch some league meetings and a GP or two.Now that isn't extra money they are finding,but money they would have probably have spent on British speedway.It is the same as i read recently on the Beeb that around 1,000 english football fans travel over to watch Borussia Dortmund home game every other week as they think it is more value for money than watching Premier League football.

 

In another report i watched last night it stated how big football clubs are sucking the life out of other sports in the area.Again Dortmund was named.Back in the 70s there were a few other sports in Dortmund that had teams in various Bundesligas.They have generally gone by the way-side as football has attracted most of the main sponsors and season tickets use up much of the money that fans have available,so nothing much left over for other sports.In the main it is only viable for other sports to run in areas that don't have big football clubs.Speedway is much the same around Europe in this sense and it will only get harder.The finances don't really add up to run so many meetings in what is essentially an expensive sport with few spectators.The clubs on the continent are better set up to run with fewer meetings.I can't see the British model working as it does for much longer

To many meeting's you are joking? for me the GP series has decimated it and lets not forget the BL was streaks ahead of any other league thirty years ago If the product(ie) racing is good maybe say for 15 pound? it will survive.The downside on what you are saying is,if someone gets in the habit of not going most weeks they could be lost for ever a delicate topic really.

[iris123]

Doesn't matter what was what 30 years ago.We are talking now and the future.And it doesn't matter if the GPs or something else is the cause.The GPs are here to stay,just as all the other alternatives to going to speedway are

[Trees]

Promoters need to strive to build a good whole club atmosphere for riders, sponsors, media and fans.

If you have a promoter who is good at this then no worries.

Every promoter should try harder in this department IMO!!

 

As a fan if your club is still in existence they will surely always be number one. I bet some of the folk bemoaning our league do not have teams to support?

[stratton]

Doesn't matter what was what 30 years ago.We are talking now and the future.And it doesn't matter if the GPs or something else is the cause.The GPs are here to stay,just as all the other alternatives to going to speedway are

Is that right though a big NO? a backward step most of the few who stuck up for the one off championship have a decent point.Why are certain individuals creaming it in, we all know the gp series is a decent series but the league racing world wide has suffered i hope you think it was worth it LONGTERM. Edited October 21, 2014 by sidney

[PHILIPRISING]

To many meeting's you are joking? for me the GP series has decimated it and lets not forget the BL was streaks ahead of any other league thirty years ago If the product(ie) racing is good maybe say for 15 pound? it will survive.The downside on what you are saying is,if someone gets in the habit of not going most weeks they could be lost for ever a delicate topic really.

THIRTY years ago riders earned their bread and butter in the UK and for the top tier some cream on the grass and long track scene in Germany over the weekend.

 

It's not the GP series that has changed all that. The fall of communism in Poland was the catalyst for what we are seeing now. I can recall Jimmy Nilsen riding for Zielona Gora and needing a van to bring all the US dollars home!

 

Sweden was always attractive because of their single race night but has grown considerably over the past 30 years as well.

 

So I am not sure Sidney that you can claim league racing world wide as suffered. We had an almost monopoly for many years but times have changed.

[Humphrey Appleby]

It's not the GP series that has changed all that. The fall of communism in Poland was the catalyst for what we are seeing now.

The Polish leagues primarily run on Sundays, and even then not every Sunday, so they really only supplanted the German longtrack scene. Similarly, the liberalisation of the Swedish league came with running on a Tuesday when virtually no top-flight BL tracks ran, so they did not really take days away from the British leagues and certainly not the more lucrative dates.

 

It may be the case that with the Polish and Swedish leagues starting to pay more, riders focused more on their attentions on those leagues, but nearly all the top riders were still riding in the British leagues until 10 years or so ago. Undoubtedly they still would if the pay was comparative with elsewhere, and amazing all the complaints about having to ride too many fixtures would suddenly disappear, along with all the ridiculous sick notes.

 

No-one would disagree that British speedway was already in decline long before the SGP came along, but the SGP was certainly the nail in the coffin. To take-out 12+ (if you include the SWC) prime weekends during the season forced a number of the relatively more successful tracks (e.g. Coventry) to run midweek, which accelerated the decline to terminal proportions.

 

There is some argument that the SGP has raised the profile of the sport higher than it would otherwise might be, and that in turn has leveraged some television and sponsorship money that has keep the sport going. However, most of this has gone directly to IMG, GoSport, the FIM (where it disappears) and the riders, and British speedway has really gained very little in reality. What's been gained probably didn't even cover the decreased crowds from running on midweek days, and that has also contributed towards a general drift away from the sport that has not been recovered. I don't think hit can in any way be claimed that the SGP has encouraged people to the circuits.

 

A counter argument is that league racing could have been just as attractive as the SGP had it been pitched right. I reject the argument about the sport 'never being on television until BSI came along' and certainly with the growth of satellite and cable, I think even a half-competent administration could have built up some sort of relationship. Even my local kart club gets on 'Men & Motors' (even if they probably don't get paid), so I see no reason why league racing couldn't have been pitched as the premier form of the sport.

[Crump99]

 

What they can do, though, is make every effort to ensure that the presentation is good and that there are as few delays as possible.

 

 

 

True

[The White Knight]

 

 

In other words a pool(e) of riders

Edited for accuracy.

 

THIRTY years ago riders earned their bread and butter in the UK and for the top tier some cream on the grass and long track scene in Germany over the weekend.

 

It's not the GP series that has changed all that. The fall of communism in Poland was the catalyst for what we are seeing now. I can recall Jimmy Nilsen riding for Zielona Gora and needing a van to bring all the US dollars home!

 

Sweden was always attractive because of their single race night but has grown considerably over the past 30 years as well.

 

So I am not sure Sidney that you can claim league racing world wide as suffered. We had an almost monopoly for many years but times have changed.

No - but it IS the GPs that have robbed British Speedway of most of it's top Riders. British Speedway was/is in a mess undoubtedly - but the GP Series certainly has NOT helped that situation.

 

To argue that the GP Series has not had a detrimental effect on British Speedway is just plain wrong.

[waiheke1]

But it isnt the gp series that that has robbed britain of the top riders - it is the swedish and polish leagues, where the riders earn their "bread snd butter" income. It isn't that the best riders are nor riding indomestic speedway, its that they are opting out of britain, primarily because of lower earnings and crowded fixture list.

Go to 8 teams home and away plus playoffs with a set race night/s and I imagine a number of top riders could be tempted back. If some el clubs dont think that is enough fixtures, why not also run a pl team replacing the star riders with young juniors/nl riders.

[Humphrey Appleby]

But it isnt the gp series that that has robbed britain of the top riders - it is the swedish and polish leagues, where the riders earn their "bread snd butter" income.

The SGP has robbed Britain of the top riders more than the other leagues. Yes, riders have obviously increasingly given Britain a miss because it's no longer worth their while, but it's no longer worth their while because crowds have fallen because tracks have been forced to race on non-optimal race nights, or not at all in the middle of summer, thanks to the SGP.

 

It has little to do with the number of fixtures. There are not many more Polish and Swedish fixtures than there were in early-90s when those leagues opened up, and similarly there were even more British leagues fixtures at the time. Yet amazingly, top riders not only managed to do all three leagues without complaining, but managed to squeeze in some Danish and Bundesliga matches as well.

 

If the British league was able to pay comparable money to the other leagues again, then you'd be surprised at how much energy the top riders would suddenly find.

 

Go to 8 teams home and away plus playoffs with a set race night/s and I imagine a number of top riders could be tempted back. If some el clubs dont think that is enough fixtures, why not also run a pl team replacing the star riders with young juniors/nl riders.

And that model won't work in Britain. It's maybe possible to rationalise the race nights down to couple of days a week, but 7 home fixtures is not a sustainable for British stadia, and offering inferior products on alternate weeks just means the casual fan will pick-and-choose their fixtures.