How Do We Attract A New Young Audience?

[Paulco]

I can understand the cost aspect of putting young people off , but it doesn't seem to be as big an issue in other sports . When I go to watch ice hockey at Braehead it costs me £18 , if I take a child it costs £14 for the child . So not really much of a diffence in price .

The Braehead Clan matches are regularly sold out , with as many kids there as adults . So get the product right ,as they do in ice hockey, and the people will go .

If we had tracks prepared fairly and properly , then speedway could still be the most enthralling sporting spectacle out there .

Edited January 1, 2016 by Paulco

[speedibee]

Some great suggestions here. Some very vague ones. I wince when I hear the words 'American razzmatazz' - anyone remember the Sky Sports cheerleaders on a cold Monday at Boundary Park?

 

What British Speedway needs is a short-term plan and a long-term plan. In the short-term we need to address the match day experience and long-term we need the facilities to be brought up to modern standards and be economically viable.

 

My league speedway experiences last year were at Plymouth and Poole. The racing at both wasn't too bad, but the time in between racing was dull. The only amusement was to have a pint or look at the trackshop. Neither particularly great.

 

I live in Devon and the best match day experience is going to Exeter Chiefs rugby. Quite simply, stuff is happening all the time, right from noon through to midnight.

 

There are bands on before the game, big screen interviews and previews, bouncy castles, face painting, throw the ball through the hole games, half-time competitions, good food, the players stay around after the game for pics and autographs and then visit the bar afterwards for a Q&A with a host.

 

None of this has to cost too much. Indeed if the BSPA clubbed together, they might find that shared ownership of big screens and bouncy castles might be quite a decent investment.

 

Speedway can replicate a lot of these ideas. How about on track bike races for kids? A Top Gear-style leaderboard on the terraces for fans to do a virtual lap on a SGP Xbox game - even taking on some of the riders at that night's meeting? Pits tours? Trophy tours? (When do we ever get to see the EL, British GP, SGP, etc trophies?). Every match day has to feel like an occasion. Instead, too many just feel like another meeting ticked off.

 

Beyond that I am a big believer in ditching GP riders, bringing the leagues together and regionalising them in order to cut costs, make the product more competitive and actually make teams feel like real teams again.

 

Long-term the big threat to speedway is facilities. Frankly, our current crop is the UK is absolutely awful and not up to modern day expectations. But with limited ownership, there's not a great deal to do about it.

 

The Belle Vue project could be a watershed moment for the sport. If it succeeds, it will provide the financial blueprint for British clubs, if it fails, well it's hard to see a long-term future for the sport. There are certainly no new greyhound stadiums being built and the appetite for rugby or football clubs to share with speedway is ever dwindling.

 

Land is increasingly hard to come by, so when there is land available is has to be utilised to the full and be sustainable. The days of a stand alone speedway track only being used once a week 6 months a year are long gone.

 

Clubs have to find partners in their community that can share quality sports facilities with and find a mixed economy that works for all. What a lot of other sports - particularly Olympic sports - have going for them is the backing of public funds in the form of the National Lottery. What a lot of them don't have is regular paying customers beyond the actual participants and their family. Something speedway can bring to the table.

 

The recent Government announcement that more funds will be put into grass roots sport is actually a real opportunity for speedway - though I doubt many promoters would have even batted an eyelid.

 

Now is the time to buddy up with NGBs, sports charities, community groups, local councils and sports events and find a way of creating vibrant community facilities for year round use. Without a long-term plan for facilities that makes a real difference to the locality, the sport will forever be on a slippy slope.

your'e right about public funding , Derby opened a £63.000,000 publicly funded cycling velodrome that is currently running at a loss of £500,000 a year and is set to continue doing so for the forseeable future , this however is viewed as acceptable by the sports council and the local council since its a valued asset to the community !! , speedway being a motorsport and worse than that a motorcycle sport always misses out on such grants sadly , and on the few occasions that public funding has come the way of speedway they have largely wound up in fraudulent hands and not been used for their intended purpose , I dont see any time in the future when speedway will be anything other than self financed so someone had better sort out the product pretty quick before Publicly assisted sports swallow it up completely

[FAST GATER]

IMO beauty is in the eye of the beholder with regards to s/way my 21 yr old son has never really taken to it just can't get the sport even though is agri fitter by trade and even the tech side is lost on him .My daughter 25yrs on the other hand loves the sport with a passion and attends the British GP with me every year and has been to other tracks when work allows .Except for commenting on some stadiums toilet facilities she loves the sport and at every opportunity promotes the sport within her profession.While at Manchester Uni she organised two evenings at B/Vue and two of the students that went are now s/way fans and their only criticism was that they did not about the sport beforehand .

 

As always the product needs promoting and putting in the market place I really believe it is like marmite you love or hate s/way because I accept tractor grading as part and parcel of the sport I love .

Edited January 1, 2016 by FAST GATER

[Gemini]

 

 

.....mikebv.......Until they are 18, let 'ver kidz' in for nothing. They are not there now so no loss of revenue, but the burger and coke sales will go up..!

 

Of course that won't help some promotions, like Coventry for example, where the revenue for food/drinks goes to the owner of the stadium. They have, however, introduced changes to admission prices for this year so under 16's are free with students paying just £5.

[fatface]

your'e right about public funding , Derby opened a £63.000,000 publicly funded cycling velodrome that is currently running at a loss of £500,000 a year and is set to continue doing so for the forseeable future , this however is viewed as acceptable by the sports council and the local council since its a valued asset to the community !! , speedway being a motorsport and worse than that a motorcycle sport always misses out on such grants sadly , and on the few occasions that public funding has come the way of speedway they have largely wound up in fraudulent hands and not been used for their intended purpose , I dont see any time in the future when speedway will be anything other than self financed so someone had better sort out the product pretty quick before Publicly assisted sports swallow it up completely

Velodromes are IMO a poor use of public funds. I agree entirely with the national cycle network and outdoor BMX tracks for kids. But beyond elite competitors, there is very little demand for velodromes. Because of the construct, there is also very little versatility or adaptability beyond track cycling too. I can see the Olympic velodrome being something of a white elephant in a few short years once the memories of 2012 fade. The aquatics centre however, will have a long-term future.

 

The sport will never get its hands on public funds for speedway only projects. TBH, I do understand that. Priority will always got to the most athletic sports where role models and facilities exist that can actually inspire people to get off their asses and help the country tackle obesity.

 

But, what speedway does have is the ability to attract hundreds - sometimes thousands - of people to a weekly fix of spectator sport at a facility. Hockey, table tennis, judo, badminton, lacrosse, BMX and other such sports cannot do that. But if they bring the public funds, speedway can bring the commercial element. Together they can build a decent shared facility on the same footprint of land that can work for all parties.

 

This has to be the future. Speedway has to be the master of its own destiny, otherwise it is doomed long-term in the UK. If iconic venues like Hyde Road, Plough Lane, Brandon and even Blunsdon can go - so will they all eventually. The only way to stop that is to have a real say by having ownership.

Edited January 2, 2016 by falcace

[iris123]

I have mentioned it before,but just round the corner from me is a dual velodrome/ice hockey-ice skating rink,all under one roof(well tent)

 

http://www.radsport-hh.de/cms/index.php?radrennbahn

 

https://www.eisbahn-stellingen.de/

 

The place gets used most days of the week winter + summer,although the times for the public to use it for ice skating are I find a bit restricted.Then again we do have a relatively new indoor arena that is also open and just a mile or two away.....

[topaz325]

I can understand the cost aspect of putting young people off , but it doesn't seem to be as big an issue in other sports . When I go to watch ice hockey at Braehead it costs me £18 , if I take a child it costs £14 for the child . So not really much of a diffence in price .

The Braehead Clan matches are regularly sold out , with as many kids there as adults . So get the product right ,as they do in ice hockey, and the people will go .

If we had tracks prepared fairly and properly , then speedway could still be the most enthralling sporting spectacle out there .

I recently went to a Ice Hockey match in Dumfries and enjoyed it but i thought it dragged on a bit too long (over 2 hours)...mainly because there was a bit of a punch up (blood had to be cleaned from the ice!) which would have put the Nicki/Masters tiff in the school boy bracket!!

 

Oh the crowd at the Ice Hockey was very small .

 

If any new ideas are brought in in the future all clubs must buy in to them and that might prove to be a sticking point.

 

So the BSPA must insisit that clubs do activley promote, improve or change the way the club is run which may prove to be the un doing of some tracks

Edited January 1, 2016 by topaz325

[Trees]

you would wind up with an Australian type meeting , where the solo's as they call them are only an interval attraction between cars sidecars etc . I would not want to pay to see , short track or drifting either

I love league racing but I wonder if these sort of meetings would make money for promoters by attracting good crowds, depends what sort of monies the competitors would want ....... I'd love to see some sidecar racing, just the noise of the bikes makes me smile. I've never bothered with the other two but would part with money to see them .....

[remembertheracers]

 

Because otherwise when we die out, speedway dies out.

 

Very interesting to read the thoughts of Grachan's 12-year-old. I think the fascination of working how to fill the programme was something that really helped drag me in around the age of 7 or 8. In football, unless the player is a striker, it's quite hard to monitor how an individual player compares to the rest of his team. In speedway, every rider gets a result in every race. More should be done to appeal to the inner nerd that lies inside most young lads.

 

All the best

Rob

 

Yes, trying to second guess the team managers.

 

And sometimes you were convinced actually, e.g. John Tremblin, got that wrong - I could have done the tacticals better than that!!

 

All the best

Rob

 

Alan Ham was the same with Bradford, always Gary Havelock, yellow and black Heat 8. Trembles was a handicap and I think Bernie Crapper generally kept an eye on him!

[Garry1603]

There's different aspects to this. There's the 'getting young people to attend' issue and the 'getting them interested in the first place' issue.

 

If the second is done properly, the first is easier to achieve (although it's not a given).

 

To get young people interested in speedway there needs to be a lot more interaction between the top riders and the public. Most of the GP riders have Twitter and Facebook accounts, but this is not enough if the general public don't know who they are in the first place! Maybe they need to employ publicists to get their names / faces better known to the general public. As they say there's no such thing as bad publicity and I'm certanly not encouraging riders to be controversial, but let's face it, the Pedersens, Wards, and in the past Penhall, Carters, Maugers etc kept the sport in the spotlight and got the fans talking. A good publicist could make riders better known to the general public and therefore it will inevitably atract sponsors and fans (especially if the rider happened to be English and good looking!)

 

The sport itself doesn't do itself any favours and seems to almost avoid publicity sometimes. This is a multimedia world now and people are not content to turn up at their loal track each week and not know the lineup of the team they are supporting or any information about the opposition. When I first started going in the early 70s I would read in the Speedway Star all about the oppostions riders so that I was well prepared for the forthcoming Saturday night, surely in this multimedia world, there could be better written, more informative press releases both in the printed form and online? Pressuring local radio/tv would eventually bring dividends surely?

 

The task of attracting young people back to the stadiums is much more difficult as the majority of speedway stadia are in a sad state of disrepair with no investment for many years. The new Belle Vue project is a major step forward for the sport, but sadly it's unlikely to be repeated around the country. There needs to be a more interactive experience for fans (especially young ones who get bored more easily) - riders being 'encouraged' to meet the fans after the meeting if time allows, interviews in the pits / centre green. Even some kind of loyalty scheme with Amazon / iTunes vouchers for regular attenders would be a start.

 

Sadly the people who run the sport do so for their own ends and there is no cohesive plan for the sport in this country. It has been mentioned before but maybe someone independent from the day to day running of a club could be the answer. A 'Bernie Eccleston' type character (for all his faults) has grown F1 massively from a self centered sport with everyone fighting for their own interests into a global phenomenon. There's no way that speedway could even be in that league but there are lessons to be learned from someone who's job description is the growth of the sport. I would suggest getting the youth of the world interested would be a great start.

[Humphrey Appleby]

Sadly the people who run the sport do so for their own ends and there is no cohesive plan for the sport in this country. It has been mentioned before but maybe someone independent from the day to day running of a club could be the answer. A 'Bernie Eccleston' type character (for all his faults) has grown F1 massively from a self centered sport with everyone fighting for their own interests into a global phenomenon. There's no way that speedway could even be in that league but there are lessons to be learned from someone who's job description is the growth of the sport. I would suggest getting the youth of the world interested would be a great start.

F1 was always associated with the rich and famous and glamour, and Bernie Ecclestone merely leveraged that. Barry Hearn took popular indoor pastimes with low setup costs whose participants were paid a pittance, and marketed them to television as cheap ways of filling airtime.

 

Speedway has none of those advantages - expensive to run, easily affected by the weather, and not a sport followed by monied classes.

 

So yes it needs an independent entrepreneur, but no independent entrepreneur would touch the sport with a bargepole because it represent a risky and most likely poor investment. John Postlethwaite was probably the closest the sport came in recent times, but even with F1 marketing experience and backing from a self-declared blue chip company, was not able to take speedway to anything approaching a major league sport.

[speedibee]

F1 was always associated with the rich and famous and glamour, and Bernie Ecclestone merely leveraged that. Barry Hearn took popular indoor pastimes with low setup costs whose participants were paid a pittance, and marketed them to television as cheap ways of filling airtime.

 

Speedway has none of those advantages - expensive to run, easily affected by the weather, and not a sport followed by monied classes.

 

So yes it needs an independent entrepreneur, but no independent entrepreneur would touch the sport with a bargepole because it represent a risky and most likely poor investment. John Postlethwaite was probably the closest the sport came in recent times, but even with F1 marketing experience and backing from a self-declared blue chip company, was not able to take speedway to anything approaching a major league sport.

Wasn't postlethwaite only involved in the GP .

[pugwash]

Wasn't postlethwaite only involved in the GP .

Reading in the EL

[speedibee]

Reading in the EL

oh yea I remember , Jumped ship when he found out he had to Actually pay riders/transfer fees , instead of cherry picking other peoples assets for free

[PHILIPRISING]

POSTLERWAITE was commercial director at Benetton when Michael Schumacher was their lead driver and also had an executive position at Pepsi-Cola before setting up BSI under the umbrella of Benfield Greig, the blue chip company that Humphrey alludes to.

 

The reasons why JP became disillusioned with British speedway and sold Reading were not exactly as speedibee appears to suggest.

Edited January 3, 2016 by PHILIPRISING

[Humphrey Appleby]

The reasons why JP became disillusioned with British speedway and sold Reading were not exactly as speedibee appears to suggest.

Yes, because he was losing money at Reading and on other enterprises.

[Long Eye]

Turn speedway into a betting sport so there is less reliance on dribbling idiots coming throuhg the turnstiles.

[Garry1603]

Turn speedway into a betting sport so there is less reliance on dribbling idiots coming throuhg the turnstiles.

Unfortunately speedway is too easy to 'fix' and I think it would lead to corruption and further bad publicity.

[PHILIPRISING]

Yes, because he was losing money at Reading and on other enterprises.

THE prime reason why he bought into Reading was on the premise that they would have a new stadium and one that would be available throughout the week and offer modern corporate facilities. Didn't always agree with John and had plenty of disagreements with him but was very surprised that he went in without being 100 per cent sure that the new Smallmead would rise from the ashes of the old.

 

He was also bitterly upset at losing the championship play-off to Peterborough the previous season. JP is passionate about everything he gets involved with and always wants to be a winner.

[speedibee]

THE prime reason why he bought into Reading was on the premise that they would have a new stadium and one that would be available throughout the week and offer modern corporate facilities. Didn't always agree with John and had plenty of disagreements with him but was very surprised that he went in without being 100 per cent sure that the new Smallmead would rise from the ashes of the old.

 

He was also bitterly upset at losing the championship play-off to Peterborough the previous season. JP is passionate about everything he gets involved with and always wants to be a winner.

he was certainly on a Winner with BSI , sadly Britsh speedway was the loser ,

THE prime reason why he bought into Reading was on the premise that they would have a new stadium and one that would be available throughout the week and offer modern corporate facilities. Didn't always agree with John and had plenty of disagreements with him but was very surprised that he went in without being 100 per cent sure that the new Smallmead would rise from the ashes of the old.

 

He was also bitterly upset at losing the championship play-off to Peterborough the previous season. JP is passionate about everything he gets involved with and always wants to be a winner.

I assume he was bitterly dissapointed because someone else didn't build a new state fo the art stadium ,then let him have it for nothing and build their own business around his schedule . the land was available and still is as far as I know to build the stadium .so he should have spent his own Blue chip money instead of expecting someone else to spend theirs