Grand Prix Calendar and Venues 2019

[DutchGrasstrack]

Togliatti

Easy to get there. Fly to Moscow, then Samara, 1 hour taxi and you're there. Done it multiple times.

[Mark]

58 minutes ago, DutchGrasstrack said:

Togliatti

Easy to get there. Fly to Moscow, then Samara, 1 hour taxi and you're there. Done it multiple times.

Two flights followed by an hour taxi ride with a Russian driver.   Perfect for all European fans. 

[sethglover9]

I would really like Terenzano to make a return

[Ghostwalker]

On 7/27/2018 at 6:28 PM, djr said:

should that be 500k and 750k as income ? 

agree with you about ticket prices , went to Cardiff with a £19 ticket and enjoyed it enough to go back next year,

but if the same seat was £50 would not have gone, or maybe would go one time only

Yeah sorry , missed a 0 at the end.

I Went to Stockholm twice and it was decent but Friends arena was way too big. I think they might have done better
at Tele 2 arena which is slightly large then half of Friends arena. Also the infrastructure at Friends wasn't that good when the arena was new.
20000 at Tele2 would have made it look fuller and gotten a better atmosphere then at Friends.

[f-s-p]

On 7/28/2018 at 8:57 AM, sethglover9 said:

I would really like Terenzano to make a return

Nothing wrong with Udine, but the track shape is crap, so why?

[f-s-p]

On 7/27/2018 at 10:38 PM, Mark said:

Two flights followed by an hour taxi ride with a Russian driver.   Perfect for all European fans. 

Dont sound impossible to do in any European speedway country...

[iris123]

18 minutes ago, f-s-p said:

Dont sound impossible to do in any European speedway country...

Yes,I am sure you can have a one hour taxi ride with a Russian driver in Germany.No problem.A Turkish driver may or may not do the ride quicker

[james1234]

I would love to see a GP in Wroclaw

[James Carter]

 

13 hours ago, james1234 said:

I would love to see a GP in Wroclaw

I wouldn't have a GP anywhere near Wroclaw. Its one of the worst racing tracks in the Ekstraliga (along with Tarnow) and after the poor attendance at the SON I dont' think they can make a case. Czestowchow on the other hand would be awesome. 

What annoys me is that every time a Speedway GP is run at places such as Prague, Terrazano, Krsko, Teterow etc you get the first 8 or so heats of rubbish racing. In that time part time viewers have turned off and the speedway myth of whoever get to the first end first wins in perpetuated and any chance of Speedway increasing sits fan base has been lost

Putt the series on the best racing tracks available. NSS would be awesome as would Pardubice. 

[jeffster]

6 hours ago, James Carter said:

 

I wouldn't have a GP anywhere near Wroclaw. Its one of the worst racing tracks in the Ekstraliga (along with Tarnow) and after the poor attendance at the SON I dont' think they can make a case. Czestowchow on the other hand would be awesome. 

What annoys me is that every time a Speedway GP is run at places such as Prague, Terrazano, Krsko, Teterow etc you get the first 8 or so heats of rubbish racing. In that time part time viewers have turned off and the speedway myth of whoever get to the first end first wins in perpetuated and any chance of Speedway increasing sits fan base has been lost

Putt the series on the best racing tracks available. NSS would be awesome as would Pardubice. 

I have spoken to Petr Moravec a few times over the years about this, and the answer is the same every time -

Pardubice dont want to host a GP, the club doesnt think it would make money, when you take into consideration the staging fee that has to be paid to BSI, etc.

I happen to think that they are wrong, but we wont know until they try, and, as it stands currently, they dont want to try...

 

[JTE]

I know a lot of people struggle with Cardiff because it is so difficult to get to from the North and East of England and Scotland as well as accommodation being ridiculous. Would love to see racing at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, London, or Emirates, Manchester. QE has the benefit of being able to provide a oval track as that is how the stadium was designed.

[Ghostwalker]

1 hour ago, JTE said:

I know a lot of people struggle with Cardiff because it is so difficult to get to from the North and East of England and Scotland as well as
accommodation being ridiculous. Would love to see racing at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, London, or Emirates, Manchester. QE has the
benefit of being able to provide a oval track as that is how the stadium was designed.

Te London Olympic stadium is a super fancy stadium and sold out gp would probably be very nice but the cost to rent the place
for the needed time would be astronomical. If you want to have a GP in Manchester then you put it in the National Speedway stadium.
However, a GP at the NSS would have to be in the summer.

I also would like cease the opportunity to say welcome to the BSF.

Edited July 30, 2018 by Ghostwalker

[RPNY]

On 7/26/2018 at 11:22 PM, New Science said:

A bit like Gothenburg, Stockholm times 2, Copenhagen, Berlin, Gelsenkirchen, Tampere. All stadium GP's which failed to run the course. Only Poland an GB can sustain a stadium GP. Costs will determine that it will probably be tracks in a field in the back of beyond that will be the future., 

Yes but my point is we need to look forward. I love the GPs & I’m a big fan for the most part of BSI however it infuriates me the way in which the running of GPs are put into the hands of the local promoter & therefore meaning we loose, or even worse, don’t get the big stadiums and nice cities.

yes Finald, Berlin, Gothenburg were not great tracks and therefore not sustainable.

however having heard first hand about Friends arena & Riga, they coulda been kept on the calendar and made profitable if the BSI (especially now they are part of IMG) resources were used properly regarding pricing, advertising etc.

I was also told how close they came to having a GP at the Stub Hub center in LA & again it was left to others to pick up all the costs. Shocking when you think it’s the biggest global market and there’s been an American world champion 3 times in last 7 years. 

I went to Melbourne in 2016, there was zero advertising. We lost NZ, a GP every rider loved because the Promoter was fed up with the costs.

surely a company that’s part of IMG with all their resources knows to make money you gotta spend money. The series can’t move forward with some of the venues we have now. It’ll simply get stale 

 

[Humphrey Appleby]

9 hours ago, jeffster said:

I have spoken to Petr Moravec a few times over the years about this, and the answer is the same every time -

Pardubice dont want to host a GP, the club doesnt think it would make money, when you take into consideration the staging fee that has to be paid to BSI, etc.

I happen to think that they are wrong, but we wont know until they try, and, as it stands currently, they dont want to try...

 

Difference is they're the club, presumably know what it would cost to host a GP, and don't think it's worthwhile to risk the future of the club for. Maybe the local municipality is also not interested in supporting for the same reasons. 

[Humphrey Appleby]

5 hours ago, RPNY said:

I was also told how close they came to having a GP at the Stub Hub center in LA & again it was left to others to pick up all the costs. Shocking when you think it’s the biggest global market and there’s been an American world champion 3 times in last 7 years. 

I went to Melbourne in 2016, there was zero advertising. We lost NZ, a GP every rider loved because the Promoter was fed up with the costs.

surely a company that’s part of IMG with all their resources knows to make money you gotta spend money. The series can’t move forward with some of the venues we have now. It’ll simply get stale 

The US is not the biggest global market for speedway though, and in fact, the sport is probably hardly known to the wider public there. BSI are not going to risk the substantial costs that a US-based GP would entail off their own bat, and certainly not a few years ago when they had other serious issues with other GPs.

The Melbourne GP seems to have been a mates rates sort of arrangement, and the AFL didn't keep it around after they took ownership of the venue. 

IMG largely, although not exclusively, seems to build its business model around minor sports which don't have high overheads, where the commercial rights can be acquired cheaply, and which can be easily sold to television as filler content. Speedway is a bit of an oddity in that it has quite high overheads for a minor sport, but maybe the existing business arrangements whereby local promoters took much of the risk, and the FIM covered the prize money, were attractive. 

However, IMG is not much interested in improving the lot of the spectator, because their revenue primarily comes from television and sponsorship. They need one or two prestige events to impress sponsors, but why would they want to improve the wider portfolio of venues when it offers little benefit to them? That's undoubtedly one of the reasons why they're disinterested in how individual GPs are promoted. 

Edited July 31, 2018 by Humphrey Appleby

[f-s-p]

2 hours ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

Difference is they're the club, presumably know what it would cost to host a GP, and don't think it's worthwhile to risk the future of the club for. Maybe the local municipality is also not interested in supporting for the same reasons. 

And they have the Zlata Prilba, have had it for  69 years now. It’s their big meeting and they have that to organize.

[iris123]

The US market is hard to crack.I posted an article here after Greg won one of his latest titles from a US website saying how he was an unknown world champ in his own country.

You could say the US is one of the major markets for football and with all the power the sport has globally it has taken a number of efforts and lots more money than speedway has to get this far.It looks fairly stabile,but then I think it did back in the 70s when Pelé and Beckenbauer were playing and then it fell off the radar

[PHILIPRISING]

1 hour ago, iris123 said:

The US market is hard to crack.I posted an article here after Greg won one of his latest titles from a US website saying how he was an unknown world champ in his own country.

You could say the US is one of the major markets for football and with all the power the sport has globally it has taken a number of efforts and lots more money than speedway has to get this far.It looks fairly stabile,but then I think it did back in the 70s when Pelé and Beckenbauer were playing and then it fell off the radar

THERE is more Premier League soccer on mainstream US television (NBC) than in England. On a Saturday, for example, they will often show the 1pm kick-off game, another from the 3pm starts and also a 5.30 game if there is one. 

[iris123]

As I am saying Phil there is major money behind the effort to crack the market.This time it looks like it has gained a stabile base.Speedway doesn't have the money or the power.Even the Polish attempt some years ago(Chicago area I think) with the local polish immigrant population failed,so it seems.And as I said there was an article on a US motorbike/sport website about the world champion who was unknown in his own country.That was Greg Hancock 

Edited July 31, 2018 by iris123

[Humphrey Appleby]

1 hour ago, PHILIPRISING said:

THERE is more Premier League soccer on mainstream US television (NBC) than in England. On a Saturday, for example, they will often show the 1pm kick-off game, another from the 3pm starts and also a 5.30 game if there is one. 

Yes, because mainstream soccer in the UK is largely the preserve of Sky and BT who collectively pay GBP 1.15 billion per year for the privilege. The terrestrial channels can't justify the cost. 

NBC pays about GBP 125 million per year because 'soccer' is nothing like the attraction in the US, and the Premier League knows it can't get away with charging what it charges UK broadcasters. Different market, different valuation, despite there probably being more soccer fans in the US than UK.