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Polish Speedway - How Popular?


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Interesting post from Roman Chyla on the yahoodiscussiongroup:

The latest research of ARC Rynek i Opinia ( Market and Opinion Company) on sponsorship in sport and culture in Poland and published by wirtualnemedia. pl, have found that speedway in Poland - contrary to the wide spread opinions - does not belong to one of most popular sports there.

In fact it is placed on the lowly 21 st position in the ranking. Speedway however holds high 5th place (after football, volleyball, handball, and basketball) in the ranking of the most watched live sporting events .

The report says that:-speedway draws interested mostly in men (they account for 80% of the supporters of the discipline), in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas, people mostly with primary, vocational and secondary education.

The highest interest declared people of Lubuskie County (Gorzow,Zielona Gora), Kujawsko-Pomorskie (Bydgoszcz, Torun, Grudziadz) and Podkarpackie (Rzeszow, Tarnow, Krosno). The best known Polish speedway rider is Tomasz Gollob, who holds 16th place among the most famous Polish athletes. The study shows that the widest recognised team comes from Tarnów.

I'd guess that last Saturday's events aren't going to help speedway's standings in the eyes of the average Pole on the street - if they even noticed them.
From my limited experience of live Polish speedway the one thing they do have going for them is a much younger age profile than the UK. I would be particularly interested to hear the views of our Polish contributors - where is speedway going in Poland post Gollob?

 

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Interesting post from Roman Chyla on the yahoodiscussiongroup:

 

 

The latest research of ARC Rynek i Opinia ( Market and Opinion Company) on sponsorship in sport and culture in Poland and published by wirtualnemedia. pl, have found that speedway in Poland - contrary to the wide spread opinions - does not belong to one of most popular sports there.

In fact it is placed on the lowly 21 st position in the ranking. Speedway however holds high 5th place (after football, volleyball, handball, and basketball) in the ranking of the most watched live sporting events .

The report says that:-speedway draws interested mostly in men (they account for 80% of the supporters of the discipline), in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas, people mostly with primary, vocational and secondary education.

The highest interest declared people of Lubuskie County (Gorzow,Zielona Gora), Kujawsko-Pomorskie (Bydgoszcz, Torun, Grudziadz) and Podkarpackie (Rzeszow, Tarnow, Krosno). The best known Polish speedway rider is Tomasz Gollob, who holds 16th place among the most famous Polish athletes. The study shows that the widest recognised team comes from Tarnów.

 

Which is exactly what I've been saying for years. I've met precisely one Pole in my life outside of speedway that actually followed the sport.

 

When I looked at this 3 or 4 years ago, speedway did have the highest average attendances of any sport in Poland, but football had a higher aggregate attendance. However, it's always been apparent that football and basketball had higher popular interest, yet speedway commentators inanely parroted their rubbish.

 

Regardless of how popular speedway is though, Warsaw will have been far more of a disaster than previous ineptitudes. This happened in the capital city in front of a huge audience, and it was reported in the Spar that the national president and Lech Walesa were in attendance.

Edited by Humphrey Appleby
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You are basically correct its popular in speedway cities when i grew up there in 80 its was almost never shown on TV(good luck finding even one polish league match from 80 or earlier filmed by professional TV station) unless it was World Championship the first polish speedway magazine dedicated to speedway to be published on regular basis started after the fall of communism(Tygodnik Zuzlowy and Na Wirazu) some parts of Poland mainly north east never had a speedway team or track there so the sport is unknown there. It is usually the most popular sport in those speedway cities fortunate enough to have a speedway track.Popularity of the sport even in speedway cities declined somehow in recent years.All of this is based on my experience growing in Rzeszow(I immigrated to Canada in 1992)

Edited by pawel115
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TBF, havent we known this for a long time that it's very regional and popular in the towns/cities with tracks but go elsewhere and it's a bit, "what?!" - certainly the few speedway promoters who tried promoting to Poles in this country found that to be the case!

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In contrast, Polish speedway does seem to be getting increasingly popular amongst the British audience. Whether that's because it's now available to watch online, because they attract the riders who have left our leagues, or because the tracks seem to produce better racing, I'm not sure. Personally I've never bought into all the hype about Poland and prefer the Swedish and Danish leagues. :)

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In contrast, Polish speedway does seem to be getting increasingly popular amongst the British audience. Whether that's because it's now available to watch online, because they attract the riders who have left our leagues, or because the tracks seem to produce better racing, I'm not sure. Personally I've never bought into all the hype about Poland and prefer the Swedish and Danish leagues. :)

Do you mean amongst the British speedway audience or something like amongst the British audience in general, as in the whole lot of you. There's a huge difference, and the firstly mentinoed really dont mean a thing.

Edited by f-s-p
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Do you mean amongst the British speedway audience or something like amongst the British audience in general, as in the whole lot of you. There's a huge difference, and the firstly mentinoed really dont mean a thing.

Speedway audience, and of course it doesn't mean a thing, hence the tone of the rest of my post. It was an observation that a lot of British speedway viewers seem to think The Polish set-up is the one to emulate for some reason, but I, personally, think there are better league systems. :)

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... a lot of British speedway viewers seem to think The Polish set-up is the one to emulate for some reason, but I, personally, think there are better league systems. :)

 

Can you, please elaborate a bit more on what you mean by "the Polish set-up", and which league systems are better ( in which country)

Thank you.

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Can you, please elaborate a bit more on what you mean by "the Polish set-up", and which league systems are better ( in which country)

Thank you.

Well, after Torun walked out of the play-off final a couple of years ago I think the British NL is better. You could probably better. I struggle to take the league seriously after that.

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Well, after Torun walked out of the play-off final a couple of years ago I think the British NL is better. You could probably better. I struggle to take the league seriously after that.

 

How can you justify your opinion that the British NL is better, because Torun walked out of the play-off final.

What this incident got to do with one league being better than the other?

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How can you justify your opinion that the British NL is better, because Torun walked out of the play-off final.

What this incident got to do with one league being better than the other?

Well the British NL title has always been decided on track. Not because one team decided to sulk.

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