Blimey..speedway on BBC1!

[Thischarmingman]

Just happened to be flicking between Sky news and BBC when I saw speedway and there was Tai.

He came over very well, completely relaxed.  The sports presenter (can't remember his name) clearly knew a bit about speedway but he was chatting away to all three presenters.   Nice to have the big trophy there prominently in picture.

And Monster will be happy with their exposure as well.

[Halifaxtiger]

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 9:56 PM, falcace said:

So, he hasn't been able to substantiate the outlandish claims of how significant speedway is in comparison to other sports.  So, if you are also going to hop on that bandwagon, then at least try and bring something compelling to the table of a) why speedway is so significant b) the big BBC conspiracy against speedway.  Otherwise, again, its just baseless paranoia. Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition.  Jonathan Rea, Phil Taylor, Kevin Sinfield are three that spring to mind. 

The challenge for speedway is not only is it a niche sport among the wider sporting world, it's small fry in even just in a motorsport context. Think of it this way...imagine every sport is a mountain and the base is made up of those with a casual interest, then supporters up to recreational participants, local level competitors, up to national level up to continental level up to world level and the best in the world at the top. Guys like Lewis Hamilton, Mo Farah, Andy Murray and Anthony Joshua are - or have been - up at Everest levels. Tai Woffinden is atop Snowdon. 

As for the BBC bias, well I reckon the most likely contenders this year will be Geraint Thomas, Anthony Joshua, Lewis Hamilton and Dina Asher-Smith, all apart from Asher-Smith are predominantly featured on rival broadcaster's channels. See if I am wrong in December and you can justify your paranoia.

 

Speedway, in comparison with many other sports, isn't significant.  But yet again you are missing - or, more likely, avoiding - the point. 

Given the title of this thread,  if Steve & I are suffering from paranoia so are a lot of others. Clearly, there is a belief within speedway circles that it does not get the coverage from the BBC it deserves in comparison with other minority sports (and that's the point) and I think that belief is well founded (at least, perhaps, until very recently). Only the other morning, the headline report on 5live was the number of uncapped players called up for the England women's cricket squad. 

I don't think there is a speedway fan who believes that it should attract the same attention as highly publicised sports such as boxing, motor racing or tennis. Women's cricket, on the other hand, is a very different matter. 

Womens' cricket at the top flight is semi professional and has just 6 teams. In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches. Speedway (and discounting the NL) has 18, and is largely fully professional. It would attract 20,000 fans over two weeks. 

As such this isn't a matter of speedway fans as a collective being paranoid or having chips on their shoulder. Its a matter of them asking for fairness and coverage not being determined by political correctness (as Mike bv has stated). 

As you have so rightly said : 'Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition'.

Woffinden can reasonably claim to be the greatest British speedway rider of all time - something that very few indeed (including Hamilton, Joshua, & Murray) can claim within their own sport.

Wouldn't you agree that that would mean that he would fall within the above category ?  

 

 

[IainB]

As I've hinted at elsewhere in this thread there are quite clearly agendas in today's mainstream media and unless you play to that agenda you're very unlikely to get any regular coverage unless you make a major achievement (Tai Woffinden). If you take a look at attendance figures for women's football you'll see they're remarkably similar to that of Speedway (or what I'd guess speedway's to be), yet speedway doesn't get a look in. The best thing Speedway can do to get some consistent mainstream media coverage is to get a decent pool of female riders competing throughout all 3 leagues

Edited October 12, 2018 by iainb

[fatface]

23 hours ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Speedway, in comparison with many other sports, isn't significant.  But yet again you are missing - or, more likely, avoiding - the point. 

Given the title of this thread,  if Steve & I are suffering from paranoia so are a lot of others. Clearly, there is a belief within speedway circles that it does not get the coverage from the BBC it deserves in comparison with other minority sports (and that's the point) and I think that belief is well founded (at least, perhaps, until very recently). Only the other morning, the headline report on 5live was the number of uncapped players called up for the England women's cricket squad. 

I don't think there is a speedway fan who believes that it should attract the same attention as highly publicised sports such as boxing, motor racing or tennis. Women's cricket, on the other hand, is a very different matter. 

Womens' cricket at the top flight is semi professional and has just 6 teams. In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches. Speedway (and discounting the NL) has 18, and is largely fully professional. It would attract 20,000 fans over two weeks. 

As such this isn't a matter of speedway fans as a collective being paranoid or having chips on their shoulder. Its a matter of them asking for fairness and coverage not being determined by political correctness (as Mike bv has stated). 

As you have so rightly said : 'Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition'.

Woffinden can reasonably claim to be the greatest British speedway rider of all time - something that very few indeed (including Hamilton, Joshua, & Murray) can claim within their own sport.

Wouldn't you agree that that would mean that he would fall within the above category ?  

 

 

Nope. I am not missing any points and I certainly never "avoid" any points or cherry-pick my way through a discussion. I am happy to debate on any point raised, as you will see below. I simply disagree with you. As you will see from my postings previous, I acknowledged that women's cricket is still a sport in its formative stages. Is it bigger or smaller than speedway? Well it's certainly debatable.

I am unsure where your figures on 20,000 fans attending league speedway over a two week period come from - are you able to share that source of information? Women's league cricket is definitely in formative stages and league crowds are small and I tend to agree on that front. I suspect they are lower than speedway's, which we can confirm when you produce those speedway league attendance figures.

But its World Cup Final sold out Lord's and was watched by 1.1m TV viewers on Sky Sports and 180m TV viewers worldwide. So, there's definitely a lot of wider interest in the sport. So whilst it might irk you that it gets a mention on 5 live, there is clearly an audience who are interested.

I hope the sofa appearance on BBC Breakfast of Tai Woffinden eased your rising annoyance over the BBC ignoring the sport. Again, the BBC showed their unique quality of offering fair recognition when it's due. Kind of renders the political correctness point as groundless doesn't it? But let's also not kid ourselves. There would have been other people with other sporting tastes watching that saying "Who cares? Why are they bothering with that Mickey Mouse sport?" Such is the rock and hard place that the BBC often finds itself positioned in between.

You wonder why you are not alone in disagreeing with me? Well, this is a speedway forum, used by speedway fans, who are biased towards...you guessed it...speedway. Naturally, a more neutral perspective is bound to get a kicking by some of the more blinkered among this happy band.

Finally, yes I agree Woffinden is the best British speedway rider of all time. Does that make him a greater sportsman than an Andy Murray for example? Of course not. Murray reached the top in a truly global sport in - arguably - its most competitive era.  Come SPOTY, I'm sure Tai's achievement will get a rightful nod, but even in pure motorsport terms, the significance of the achievement will likely come behind that of Lewis Hamilton (5th WC) and Jonathan Rea (4th WC) - and given the modest size of our sport, that's fair enough.

Edited October 13, 2018 by falcace

[Halifaxtiger]

8 hours ago, falcace said:

Nope. I am not missing any points and I certainly never "avoid" any points or cherry-pick my way through a discussion. I am happy to debate on any point raised, as you will see below. I simply disagree with you. As you will see from my postings previous, I acknowledged that women's cricket is still a sport in its formative stages. Is it bigger or smaller than speedway? Well it's certainly debatable.

I am unsure where your figures on 20,000 fans attending league speedway over a two week period come from - are you able to share that source of information? Women's league cricket is definitely in formative stages and league crowds are small and I tend to agree on that front. I suspect they are lower than speedway's, which we can confirm when you produce those speedway league attendance figures.

But its World Cup Final sold out Lord's and was watched by 1.1m TV viewers on Sky Sports and 180m TV viewers worldwide. So, there's definitely a lot of wider interest in the sport. So whilst it might irk you that it gets a mention on 5 live, there is clearly an audience who are interested.

I hope the sofa appearance on BBC Breakfast of Tai Woffinden eased your rising annoyance over the BBC ignoring the sport. Again, the BBC showed their unique quality of offering fair recognition when it's due. Kind of renders the political correctness point as groundless doesn't it? But let's also not kid ourselves. There would have been other people with other sporting tastes watching that saying "Who cares? Why are they bothering with that Mickey Mouse sport?" Such is the rock and hard place that the BBC often finds itself positioned in between.

You wonder why you are not alone in disagreeing with me? Well, this is a speedway forum, used by speedway fans, who are biased towards...you guessed it...speedway. Naturally, a more neutral perspective is bound to get a kicking by some of the more tunnel-visioned among this happy band.

Finally, yes I agree Woffinden is the best British speedway rider of all time. Does that make him a greater sportsman than an Andy Murray for example? Of course not. Murray reached the top in a truly global sport in - arguably - its most competitive era.  Come SPOTY, I'm sure Tai's achievement will get a rightful nod, but even in pure motorsport terms, the significance of the achievement will likely come behind that of Lewis Hamilton (5th WC) and Jonathan Rea (4th WC) - and given the modest size of our sport, that's fair enough.

Speedway's reluctance to publish attendance figures makes it difficult but....

There are 28 speedway teams in Britain. Accepting that they ride once a week over the season (which in reality they should) if each attracts an average gate of 400, then that's just over 11,000 people per week. Even if those figures are warped, if half the teams ride and the average gate is 300, that's still over 4,000 a week so speedway attracts the same number of spectators in just over a month that women's cricket attracts in a season. 

Its entirely possible that Belle Vue alone (Aces & Colts) pull in more than 20,000 in a season.  

Lords cricket ground holds 30,000. Cardiff gets about 40,000 for a meeting that isn't anywhere near as big as a world final. 

The only reason that coverage of women's cricket (and I have no issue with that sport, its viewers or players at all) annoys me is that speedway is - based upon attendance figures, the professionalism of the sport, the number of competing teams etc - easily bigger and that is nowhere near debatable. What they have on their side - as some have pointed out - is the massive advantage of political correctness and the BBC mention the male version and ignore the female one at their peril. 

I would certainly accept the bias of speedway fans and that the 'tunnel visioned' do exist, but here - and taking into account the above factors - a neutral (and possibly even someone biased towards women's cricket) would agree that speedway is most definitely the poor relation. Its little wonder, then, that speedway fans have a bit of a chip where this is concerned.

All credit to the BBC for some recognition and I thought both the interviewer and interviewed came across very well. The fact that it took them almost a week to do it is, however, relevant. My suspicion is the captain of the woman's cricket team would have been interviewed the same day had they won something as big.

I really don't understand - even allowing for the size of the sport and my undoubted bias - that someone who finishes 5th in the Formula 1 World Championship is worthy of a bigger mention and has achieved more than someone who has won his world title 3 times (also in one of the most competitive fields the sport has had) and, as we have agreed, is the greatest Britain has ever known. I doubt very much that Woffinden will win the BBC award - and its entirely possible that steps will be taken to ensure that he does not - but he most definitely deserves a nomination and I think that most speedway fans would be very happy with that. 

Edited October 13, 2018 by Halifaxtiger

[arnieg]

I think HT's estimates are reasonable ( if only clubs did run once a week!).

That comes to about 200,000 per year - add in Cardiff and round up and we have about 250k paid attendances.

For comparison:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/686971/highest-attended-types-of-sport-in-the-uk/

I am pretty sure that if you go to ice hockey/basketball etc fans forums you will find similar discussions about lack of coverage.

[Halifaxtiger]

59 minutes ago, arnieg said:

I think HT's estimates are reasonable ( if only clubs did run once a week!).

That comes to about 200,000 per year - add in Cardiff and round up and we have about 250k paid attendances.

For comparison:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/686971/highest-attended-types-of-sport-in-the-uk/

I am pretty sure that if you go to ice hockey/basketball etc fans forums you will find similar discussions about lack of coverage.

I think that's just  about right for league speedway, Arnie, even if we are guessing for weekly attendances.

28 teams, at say 14 meetings and 500 attendance is just under 200,000.  

That's 10 times bigger than women's cricket. 

[racers and royals]

1 hour ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Speedway's reluctance to publish attendance figures makes it difficult but....

There are 28 speedway teams in Britain. Accepting that they ride once a week over the season (which in reality they should) if each attracts an average gate of 400, then that's just over 11,000 people per week. Even if those figures are warped, if half the teams ride and the average gate is 300, that's still over 4,000 a week so speedway attracts the same number of spectators in just over a month that women's cricket attracts in a season. 

Its entirely possible that Belle Vue alone (Aces & Colts) pull in more than 20,000 in a season.  

Lords cricket ground holds 30,000. Cardiff gets about 40,000 for a meeting that isn't anywhere near as big as a world final. 

The only reason that coverage of women's cricket (and I have no issue with that sport, its viewers or players at all) annoys me is that speedway is - based upon attendance figures, the professionalism of the sport, the number of competing teams etc - easily bigger and that is nowhere near debatable. What they have on their side - as some have pointed out - is the massive advantage of political correctness and the BBC mention the male version and ignore the female one at their peril. 

I would certainly accept the bias of speedway fans and that the 'tunnel visioned' do exist, but here - and taking into account the above factors - a neutral (and possibly even someone biased towards women's cricket) would agree that speedway is most definitely the poor relation. Its little wonder, then, that speedway fans have a bit of a chip where this is concerned.

All credit to the BBC for some recognition and I thought both the interviewer and interviewed came across very well. The fact that it took them almost a week to do it is, however, relevant. My suspicion is the captain of the woman's cricket team would have been interviewed the same day had they won something as big.

I really don't understand - even allowing for the size of the sport and my undoubted bias - that someone who finishes 5th in the Formula 1 World Championship is worthy of a bigger mention and has achieved more than someone who has won his world title 3 times (also in one of the most competitive fields the sport has had) and, as we have agreed, is the greatest Britain has ever known. I doubt very much that Woffinden will win the BBC award - and its entirely possible that steps will be taken to ensure that he does not - but he most definitely deserves a nomination and I think that most speedway fans would be very happy with that. 

Don`t forget Tai was racing on Sunday in Poland, had the big Extraleague end of season awards night on  Monday so the earliest he would have been available was Wednesday onwards.

[adonis]

I would quite like to see a publicsed boycott of Spoty , from speedway primarily but would welcome seeing other sports such as Ice hockey  join the band wagon 

[iris123]

You must also recognize the fact that governing bodies are trying to push women’s versions of popular sports.As the male versions are popular there is the theory that the potential is also there for women’s versions.One of the disadvantages of speedway is it doesn’t have a popular version lol

[kitten2502]

Tai was on (pre-recorded) BBC radio 5live Breakfast this morning 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000ppg

scroll to 1 hr 21 in.

Edited October 13, 2018 by kitten2502
link changed

[Grachan]

On 9/30/2018 at 9:56 PM, falcace said:

 

As for the BBC bias, well I reckon the most likely contenders this year will be Geraint Thomas, Anthony Joshua, Lewis Hamilton and Dina Asher-Smith, all apart from Asher-Smith are predominantly featured on rival broadcaster's channels. See if I am wrong in December and you can justify your paranoia.

 

There are only 6 nominees this year, and you could probably add Harry Kane and Lizzy Yarnold to those 4.

[fatface]

7 hours ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Speedway's reluctance to publish attendance figures makes it difficult but....

There are 28 speedway teams in Britain. Accepting that they ride once a week over the season (which in reality they should) if each attracts an average gate of 400, then that's just over 11,000 people per week. Even if those figures are warped, if half the teams ride and the average gate is 300, that's still over 4,000 a week so speedway attracts the same number of spectators in just over a month that women's cricket attracts in a season. 

Its entirely possible that Belle Vue alone (Aces & Colts) pull in more than 20,000 in a season.  

Lords cricket ground holds 30,000. Cardiff gets about 40,000 for a meeting that isn't anywhere near as big as a world final. 

The only reason that coverage of women's cricket (and I have no issue with that sport, its viewers or players at all) annoys me is that speedway is - based upon attendance figures, the professionalism of the sport, the number of competing teams etc - easily bigger and that is nowhere near debatable. What they have on their side - as some have pointed out - is the massive advantage of political correctness and the BBC mention the male version and ignore the female one at their peril. 

I would certainly accept the bias of speedway fans and that the 'tunnel visioned' do exist, but here - and taking into account the above factors - a neutral (and possibly even someone biased towards women's cricket) would agree that speedway is most definitely the poor relation. Its little wonder, then, that speedway fans have a bit of a chip where this is concerned.

All credit to the BBC for some recognition and I thought both the interviewer and interviewed came across very well. The fact that it took them almost a week to do it is, however, relevant. My suspicion is the captain of the woman's cricket team would have been interviewed the same day had they won something as big.

I really don't understand - even allowing for the size of the sport and my undoubted bias - that someone who finishes 5th in the Formula 1 World Championship is worthy of a bigger mention and has achieved more than someone who has won his world title 3 times (also in one of the most competitive fields the sport has had) and, as we have agreed, is the greatest Britain has ever known. I doubt very much that Woffinden will win the BBC award - and its entirely possible that steps will be taken to ensure that he does not - but he most definitely deserves a nomination and I think that most speedway fans would be very happy with that. 

So, you actually haven't got the figures for speedway's attendances after all? And you have also rowed back significantly on your estimation being less than half what you originally plucked out of the air. Ok, but it doesn't really do much for the credibility of your argument does it?

You accuse me of avoiding points, yet you ignore the healthy TV figures I pulled out for women's cricket and fix your eyes purely on league attendance. Bit rich isn't it?

I must stress I am not great champion of women's cricket, and I accept that it is certainly not definitive which is the bigger sport. But let's at least try and be objective over each sport's significance. Though we are basing it on your ever-changing assumptions, let's agree that speedway does attract more regular paying fans in the UK. Let's also agree that there are more professional speedway riders than professional female cricketers in the UK. Again though, we are talking very modest numbers. 

In terms of overall participants, then my strong suspicion is that there are way more women's cricket players than speedway riders in the UK (I'll even chuck grass-trackers in the mix as grassroots amateurs). A quick search on the ECB site reveals eight women's teams just within 20 miles of my remote home in Devon.

Let's also revisit those healthy TV figures of 1.1m for the Women's World Cup in the UK and 180m worldwide. Do you have anything comparative for speedway?

Additionally, trivial it might seem, but social media does give us as good as guide as any over the interest levels in individuals or a sport. Charlotte Edwards, the former England women's cricket captain has a greater social media following than Tai Woffinden. "Easily bigger and nowhere near debatable" Hmmm...I'd rethink that one..

So, let's not kid ourselves that speedway is more significant that it actually is among a lot of other minority sports. And it seems the BBC once again gave Speedway a good airing on 5 Live today, so hopefully this eases the creeping paranoia over the sport's relationship with the BBC.

Let's also not sheepishly follow this silly narrative peddled by commercial, right wing media over the BBC and it's so-called political correctness. Yes, the BBC does appear more ethnic, more female, more multi-cultural than other parts of the media. It has a whole society to reflect and represent, not a core market of middle England to satisfy.

I'll tell you a story....

Now, I have dabbled in journalism, firstly in news and latterly in sport. Here's a couple of clippings, just so you know I am not just an internet nutjob..

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-2895606/Exeter-25-26-Gloucester-Gareth-Steenson-rare-day-boot-Chiefs-centenary-party-ends-thrilling-defeat.html

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/16/exeter-northampton-lv-cup-final-match-report

It was early 2000s and I was working for a news agency in Scotland as a junior reporter and was sent out on behalf of the Daily Mail to vox-pox and photograph the public on why they wouldn't be voting Labour in the next election. This being in Scotland, finding people to say why they they were voting Conservative would have been-  at best - a very long day and at worst, a suicide mission! So, anyway that was the angle. It's the Mail, like it or not, you know where their flag is camped. But it was the next part of the brief that I have never, ever forgotten. I was told "don't interview anyone foreign or with dark skin because our readers can't relate to them."

I quickly realised this line of work in "news" was not for me. That's the reality of what happens in some non-BBC media circles. So, the next time you accuse the BBC of "political correctness", I ask you to remember this little story.

ps. The 5th reference in relation to Lewis Hamilton was that he is set to win his 5th World Championship, not that he is placed 5th. Ditto Jonathan Rea - 4th World Championship title this year.

Edited October 13, 2018 by falcace

[Alan_Jones]

On 10/12/2018 at 7:55 AM, Halifaxtiger said:

Only the other morning, the headline report on 5live was the number of uncapped players called up for the England women's cricket squad. 

Womens' cricket at the top flight is semi professional and has just 6 teams. In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches. Speedway (and discounting the NL) has 18, and is largely fully professional. It would attract 20,000 fans over two weeks. 

Reporting on major changes to the national squad leading up to a World Cup seems pretty reasonable for a sports broadcaster.

You're not making a fair comparison. All speedway v. <10% of women's cricket. The '20,000' figure comes from the league stage of the the 2017 "Kia Super League, an end of season professional competition after a whole summer of county level competition. There were an average of 1,379 at each league match with over 3,000 at Finals day. (I may be wrong but I don't think the matches which were double headed with men's Blast matches are included in those figures.) That was ~30% up on the first season (2016) and the same sort of progress was made this year with double the matches and ~4,500 at the Final.

I think a few speedway promoters wouldn't mind figures like that.

 

10 hours ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Lords cricket ground holds 30,000. Cardiff gets about 40,000 for a meeting that isn't anywhere near as big as a world final. 

The only reason that coverage of women's cricket (and I have no issue with that sport, its viewers or players at all) annoys me is that speedway is - based upon attendance figures, the professionalism of the sport, the number of competing teams etc - easily bigger and that is nowhere near debatable. What they have on their side - as some have pointed out - is the massive advantage of political correctness and the BBC mention the male version and ignore the female one at their peril. 

I would certainly accept the bias of speedway fans and that the 'tunnel visioned' do exist, but here - and taking into account the above factors - a neutral (and possibly even someone biased towards women's cricket) would agree that speedway is most definitely the poor relation. Its little wonder, then, that speedway fans have a bit of a chip where this is concerned.

Lord's holds 27,500 and was massively over subscribed with applications for the WWC17 Final, especially when India qualified.

Regarding professionalism, the organisational side of cricket is light years ahead of speedway, as are the stadia. I've lost track of the sort of money that riders are earning these days, but in the KSL, which you chose to highlight, the 19 England squad players are on central contracts with the top tier on about £50K. The 2 Indians involved would be on slightly more and the Australians more than double that.

Oh, and 'Kia Super League'...it's a title sponsor, remember those?

Kudos to the SGB Premier League for ending up with one more team than the KSL. I know it's not debatable, but there are 36 teams in the County Championship plus the 6 KSL franchises. I wouldn't try and pretend that the Division 3 group matches have fantastic crowds, probably not even NL level, but it puts the lie to "In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches".

On the other side of the argument, the 180m worldwide TV audience for the WWC17 final is a bit of a red herring because 179m Indians tuning in to watch their team has little relevance to the English game.

Going by the comments on here in the past week, speedway is probably punching way above it's weight with regard to national coverage.

Re: attendance figures, professionalism, competing teams, and I'd add in number of participants nationally as being significant, I'd call it 3-1 to the women.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Alan_Jones
Typo correction

[Thischarmingman]

7 hours ago, Fred Flange said:

This might help? 

https://secure.manchester.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/25514/10a_national_speedway_stadium

Average Aces attendance for 2017 was 1411 and Colts 470. There were 17 Aces meetings and 14 Colts meetings so just over 30,000 over the season.

Wow, not long into the new stadium's life and crowds were down to an average of 1400 in 2017.

Judging by the noises made earlier    this season that the fixed race night has not been good for Belle Vue then that figure would likely be lower for 2018.

Desperate times.

[racers and royals]

Tai`s BBC breakfast interview 

 

[iris123]

There was even a report on the Beeb about young Sam McGurk!!! What the hell is going on? Lol

[Halifaxtiger]

16 hours ago, Alan_Jones said:

Reporting on major changes to the national squad leading up to a World Cup seems pretty reasonable for a sports broadcaster.

You're not making a fair comparison. All speedway v. <10% of women's cricket. The '20,000' figure comes from the league stage of the the 2017 "Kia Super League, an end of season professional competition after a whole summer of county level competition. There were an average of 1,379 at each league match with over 3,000 at Finals day. (I may be wrong but I don't think the matches which were double headed with men's Blast matches are included in those figures.) That was ~30% up on the first season (2016) and the same sort of progress was made this year with double the matches and ~4,500 at the Final.

I think a few speedway promoters wouldn't mind figures like that.

 

Lord's holds 27,500 and was massively over subscribed with applications for the WWC17 Final, especially when India qualified.

Regarding professionalism, the organisational side of cricket is light years ahead of speedway, as are the stadia. I've lost track of the sort of money that riders are earning these days, but in the KSL, which you chose to highlight, the 19 England squad players are on central contracts with the top tier on about £50K. The 2 Indians involved would be on slightly more and the Australians more than double that.

Oh, and 'Kia Super League'...it's a title sponsor, remember those?

Kudos to the SGB Premier League for ending up with one more team than the KSL. I know it's not debatable, but there are 36 teams in the County Championship plus the 6 KSL franchises. I wouldn't try and pretend that the Division 3 group matches have fantastic crowds, probably not even NL level, but it puts the lie to "In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches".

On the other side of the argument, the 180m worldwide TV audience for the WWC17 final is a bit of a red herring because 179m Indians tuning in to watch their team has little relevance to the English game.

Going by the comments on here in the past week, speedway is probably punching way above it's weight with regard to national coverage.

Re: attendance figures, professionalism, competing teams, and I'd add in number of participants nationally as being significant, I'd call it 3-1 to the women.

Since when did a sports broadcaster report on changes to speedway's national squad ?  

Arnie above mentioned paid attendances, and I referred to the comparison between the two. According to the Surrey CC website, entry to Surrey Women (not the Stars) who play in Division 1 of the County Championship is free. Accepting that all of the remainder are the same, my figures stand.

Taking FF's figures as accurate, Belle Vue alone drew bigger gates than the whole of the women's super league in 2017. At the play off final in 2016, Belle Vue attracted an attendance of about 3,500, and that's for one match at 5 times the cost.

Speaking of cost, the super league at Surrey is £5, half the price of the cheapest speedway. Clearly that is of the utmost importance in attracting spectators. 

Where professionalism of the sport is concerned, it would be hard to find one less professional than speedway, with its corruption, cheating, one upmanship and rule bending. In terms of the number of professional participants, however, I would guess that all riders at Championship or Premiership level are professional, at least during the season. That's 90 compared to 19.

Speedway itself has attracted no TV coverage, Tai Woffinden has. I certainly don't recall Poole's Premiership win being remarked on, nor Mildenhall's (almost) perfect season.But for Tai's third championship win, speedway would not have been mentioned at all and the fact it has is incidental to that.

So, in terms of paid attendance figures, professional competitors, entry charging teams (and I'd very much accept that speedway is, compared to almost all non motor sports, very much down on actual competitors for obvious reasons) is it still 3-1 ?

[Thischarmingman]

21 hours ago, Fred Flange said:

I think you misread the report? Crowds were UP to an average of 1411, an increase of around 30% compared to 2016. 

 

Yes, i re-read the part of the report and see what you mean that the figure quoted was an increase from 2016.

I am a bit detached from speedway these days, particularly at the top level, but I must have made the assumption that the new Belle Vue track was attracting bigger average crowds than it does.

It seems really low to me, when the new stadium was supposed to be Belle Vue's saviour and seems to produce such good racing.  Hopefully 2018 not dropped too badly despite the reports earlier in the year.

[IainB]

On 10/13/2018 at 1:19 PM, falcace said:

Let's also not sheepishly follow this silly narrative peddled by commercial, right wing media over the BBC and it's so-called political correctness. Yes, the BBC does appear more ethnic, more female, more multi-cultural than other parts of the media. It has a whole society to reflect and represent, not a core market of middle England to satisfy.

It's ok to reflect society but the BBC massively over represents minorites that suit them, one assumes because the organisation is lead by people of these minorites. It's almost impossible to turn on a BBC programme these days without having one minority or another's issue being rammed in your face. I'm not opposed at all to any minority at all having air time but it must be proportional to their population. The same goes for Speedway, just because men's football is the most popular sport in the country/world doesn't automatically mean that the women's version of the game should also be equal, the quality is no where near the same as the men's game you only have to look at the attendances and the match scores to see this