Glasgow 2019 Onwards

[Byker Biker]

10 minutes ago, cinderfella said:

If that is the case then questions must surely be asked of the BSPA/SCB of themselves as to why a lucrative contract with Sky was not renegotiated. I'm sure Sky would have handed out warning stating things such as lack of teams in the so called top league and lack of big GP names wasn't helping any. Broadcaster know what they want and it has to be said they know more about a lot of sports and attracting new customers than many sporting ruling bodies.
I know when i worked at Sky they requested the green helmet colours because the Sky remote has 4 buttons and the plan was to actually have each rider wear a camera and the viewer could then pick which riders view he could watch from during a race.  Sadly the support for the idea never came to fruition from within the sport and I'm sure that didn't endear the bosses at Sky.
Sadly these days domestic speedway on television is limited to PL meeting and both the broadcaster and speedway authorities both failed to realise that the majority of both teams and fans are in the CL and I'm sure if they had shown some CL matches (which let's face it feature about 95% of the same riders as PL matches anyway) they would have had a bigger following.

and I'm sure you're not sure which is why you aren't certain. The Speedway contract was paid up because Sky had committed themselves to significant expense with Football, by paying the contract up they saved the production costs for the outstanding term

[MD]

6 minutes ago, cinderfella said:

If that is the case then questions must surely be asked of the BSPA/SCB of themselves as to why a lucrative contract with Sky was not renegotiated. I'm sure Sky would have handed out warning stating things such as lack of teams in the so called top league and lack of big GP names wasn't helping any. Broadcaster know what they want and it has to be said they know more about a lot of sports and attracting new customers than many sporting ruling bodies.
I know when i worked at Sky they requested the green helmet colours because the Sky remote has 4 buttons and the plan was to actually have each rider wear a camera and the viewer could then pick which riders view he could watch from during a race.  Sadly the support for the idea never came to fruition from within the sport and I'm sure that didn't endear the bosses at Sky.
Sadly these days domestic speedway on television is limited to PL meeting and both the broadcaster and speedway authorities both failed to realise that the majority of both teams and fans are in the CL and I'm sure if they had shown some CL matches (which let's face it feature about 95% of the same riders as PL matches anyway) they would have had a bigger following.

Sky ditched speedway along with a few other minority sports when they chucked mega money at a new EPL football rights deal a few years ago and had to save money elsewhere. Other broadcasters werent exactly lining up to take it on, far less pay for the rights. Other than Poole or Belle Vue I wouldnt go out of my way to watch it. You can also watch Polish speedway highlights or occasionally live on FreeSports and its much more exciting. Swedish speedway on the other hand is an utter borefest, even makes Leicester look interesting.

[Hodgy]

21 minutes ago, mikebv said:

I don't know how many attended the last few meetings but if say Worky had picked up to two trophies by the end of August I am sure the attendances would have been very good from then to the end of the season as they could have marketed a potential 'treble' each week to the local population..

By the play offs time I am sure the whole town would have been acutely aware of the importance and size of the achievement that potentially lay ahead...

They would have had weeks of hype and advertising rather than just a few days in which to generate interest which I am sure would have delivered several hundred more fans over the period that they actually got cramming in meetings at the end of the year...

Speedway really hasn't a clue about marketing itself has it? 

 

Agree, Worky were left with no time to promote / market major meetings they have craved for years. As you say, semi finals and finals crammed into the last two weeks, incorporating double headers and consecutive nightly meetings, must have had a serious impact on much needed potential attendees and revenue. Such a sad, lost opportunity. 

[Tsunami]

32 minutes ago, cinderfella said:

If that is the case then questions must surely be asked of the BSPA/SCB of themselves as to why a lucrative contract with Sky was not renegotiated. I'm sure Sky would have handed out warning stating things such as lack of teams in the so called top league and lack of big GP names wasn't helping any. Broadcaster know what they want and it has to be said they know more about a lot of sports and attracting new customers than many sporting ruling bodies.
I know when i worked at Sky they requested the green helmet colours because the Sky remote has 4 buttons and the plan was to actually have each rider wear a camera and the viewer could then pick which riders view he could watch from during a race.  Sadly the support for the idea never came to fruition from within the sport and I'm sure that didn't endear the bosses at Sky.
Sadly these days domestic speedway on television is limited to PL meeting and both the broadcaster and speedway authorities both failed to realise that the majority of both teams and fans are in the CL and I'm sure if they had shown some CL matches (which let's face it feature about 95% of the same riders as PL matches anyway) they would have had a bigger following.

The green button was to facilitate betting in the Far East, along with transponders on the bikes, which showed a virtual race in the betting shops. I was at the presentations in London in the early 00's,  but the idea didn't go forward. We were not working it through SKY, but a separate specialist company.

[stevehone]

32 minutes ago, Byker Biker said:

Think you'll find you're mate Robin has his eyes on some of that

????

[ragdoll64]

The ridiculously REDUCED and STOP/START fixture list this year put paid to the excellent work Glasgow Speedway did to promote the sport over last year and during the winter. This, along with the inability to adhere to a regular race night destroyed any possibility of hanging on to any new or returning fans who were enticed through all the good work. 

[Gazc]

9 minutes ago, ragdoll64 said:

The ridiculously REDUCED and STOP/START fixture list this year put paid to the excellent work Glasgow Speedway did to promote the sport over last year and during the winter. This, along with the inability to adhere to a regular race night destroyed any possibility of hanging on to any new or returning fans who were enticed through all the good work. 

Spot on going weeks without any speedway decimated any momentum we had created enticing newer and used to attend fan's , you could visibly see the enthusiasm draining away from most as the stop/start season progressed.

 I posted on here In May on a thread I was bored with it already and the lack of fixtures was a big part of it.

 

[toontrader]

Struggling to understand this one.

Glasgow own the stadium and have no rent to pay.

Their main outlay is riders wages.

Their two top riders Craig Cook and Chris Harris both say they don't earn enough to pay the bills.

Glasgow lost over £100,000

[Fromafar]

17 hours ago, SteelShoe said:

I've also heard this figure its eye watering, whatever happened to realistic budgets based on previous season average attendance. It could be argued riders are pricing themselves out of a job and promotions out of business.

Said it for the last few years riders are pricing themselves out of work,they will be looking for 9-5 jobs that some maintain because they can't make it pay.The chickens are coming home IMO .

[Gazc]

This story was on the local Glasgow radio this morning basically reiterating the statement and saying the losses must be reduced drastically in order to continue.

Nothing like a negative soundbite for the press to pick up on it is the Glasgow way. Now a positive story that is another thing you don't hear. 

[geoff100]

1 hour ago, toontrader said:

Struggling to understand this one.

Glasgow own the stadium and have no rent to pay.

Their main outlay is riders wages.

Their two top riders Craig Cook and Chris Harris both say they don't earn enough to pay the bills.

Glasgow lost over £100,000

Simple dont get expensive engine tuners!

[cinderfella]

33 minutes ago, geoff100 said:

Simple dont get expensive engine tuners!

Which brings us back to the age old idea of using stock engines made my well known manufacturers and/or cutting the engine capacity. We all see from other form of motorcyle sport that small engines can be just as fast.
It would be interesting to know how many British riders took up the Gerhard-GTR engine offer. I can't say I noticed many.

[jenga]

2 hours ago, geoff100 said:

Simple dont get expensive engine tuners!

i cant see the local garden centre charging harris that much to tune his Brigg and Stratton engine .

Edited November 14, 2018 by jenga
mister T off

[balderdash&piffle]

Championship level should be amateur status, riders should have a full time job and speedway is their hobby.  Retain the upper level at professional status to give the lower  levels to aim

for.  Get rid of doubling up and paid guests, if riders like Cook and Harris want to ride in the lower leagues then they should receive the same point money as the other riders, point money should be the same for all riders irrespective of their average, running costs are the same for all riders no matter what level.

[tyretrax]

2 hours ago, toontrader said:

Struggling to understand this one.

Glasgow own the stadium and have no rent to pay.

Their main outlay is riders wages.

Their two top riders Craig Cook and Chris Harris both say they don't earn enough to pay the bills.

Glasgow lost over £100,000

Allied Ashfield own the stadium, how do you know there isn't a rent?

[jenga]

1 hour ago, tyretrax said:

Allied Ashfield own the stadium, how do you know there isn't a rent?

how do you know there is ? 

if there is a rent to pay , it will be a peppercorn rent .

if they are paying rent, then now is the time to get together and squash it so the speedway can survive . 

its not  rocket science .

Edited November 14, 2018 by jenga

[greyhoundp]

Well if Cook & Harris dont earn enough to pay bills, either live within there means, or get another job, try living on £7.83 per hour, then they might have something to moan about.. 

[tyretrax]

To Jenga, I never said that they did pay rent. Not rocket science, it's business.

 

Edited November 14, 2018 by tyretrax

[jenga]

7 minutes ago, tyretrax said:

To Jenga, I never said that they did pay rent. Not rocket science, it's business.

 

and i never said they did . !

i think i answered your question with a question . (rhetorical)

[AJK86]

2 hours ago, greyhoundp said:

Well if Cook & Harris dont earn enough to pay bills, either live within there means, or get another job, try living on £7.83 per hour, then they might have something to moan about.. 

Amazing how riders coped before doubling up started haha

Riders need to realise the sport here is not able to pay wages to make them fully professional so they will need to either improve to ask for better money and to get other clubs abroad or accept you will more than likely have to work at same time like many do.

The promoters also need to run the sport better in order to bring in more fans which then may lead to more riders being able to be professional and not have to work, but there will always be riders who like Tai are world class then there are others who are very good but will still maybe have to work as well.