Leicester 2019

[Fromafar]

5 hours ago, Yearbyred said:

Couldn’t the Leicester promotion just bring over some supporters from their other team, Sheffield, to boost the crowds? 

Dick Barrie reckons there should be few going spare at Berwick, if he had his way

[The Third Man]

6 hours ago, Yearbyred said:

Couldn’t the Leicester promotion just bring over some supporters from their other team, Sheffield, to boost the crowds? 

Tried it on Sunday, decided two passes after the 2nd bend weren't enough to keep us going

[Teromaafan]

12 hours ago, Big Al said:

Reads pretty much like routine stuff to me. Problem for me is more the number who became turned-off during the Hemsley era and have stayed away.

Good point.

The sport gets next to no publicity outside its own bubble and so the management post whinging on the club's website about disappointing crowds will only be read by already committed die hards or Hemsley era desserters maintaining a casual and distant interest. The club (and worryingly the sport in general) need to attract new supporters but do not know how to go about it. Without a serious marketing guru for the sport (that can attract badly needed sponsorship), nothing will change. The Lions may well be in for their best season that anyone can remember, but this means nothing to potential supporters who aren't even aware of the sport! (Check out the BBC sport website, its embarrassing to see what sports are covered and speedway isn't). It's not down to admission prices either. If the Lions were to announce that prices were being reduced to £5 for the next home meeting, How many additional spectators could they realistically expect to see? More importantly, how many of those would return prepared to pay normal prices?

When you do get people through the turnstile, you have to deliver the product. As has been pointed out, the Redcar match will have put many first timers off. The spectators to target for speedway meetings will most likely attend other sporting events too. If you are looking at people who watch live football or cricket for example, speedway falls short of the match day experience by comparison in terms of facilities and professionalism. Speedway's problem, no one else's.

[bringbackHalifax]

And in the meantime Leicester build an expensive team, desperate for glory, that goes well and costs too much, and now struggling to meet the costs. Workington and Edinburgh all over again.

Edinburgh fans bailed their club again, no one bailed Worky, who is going to fund the shortfall as Leicester costs keep rising and they are running out of home meetings ( cash ).

Scary times to have a good season, hence the plea for supporters ( cash ) for this week when in all fairness Sunny won’t offer much resistance, hardly see them as entertaining away from home with the exception of Sheffield.

[1 valve]

3 hours ago, bringbackHalifax said:

And in the meantime Leicester build an expensive team, and costs too much, and now struggling to meet the costs. costs keep rising

Who says the team is expensive  with too higher cost which continue to rise? 

Crowds have been good to a point this season, however recent home meetings have been held on "none" race days and during summer holidays, these two factors are more likely the cause for lower attendences than any other.

That said It is important  the promoters look beyond the speedway bubble of current fans/followers and reach out to other groups in order to attract larger gates which although is something easier said than done is nevertheless paramount to the future health of the club/sport. One thing worth considering is working on publicising not only what is going on(fixtures) but also where the stadium is (not just the stadium name)  a case of  Promote, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE  in sufficient detail.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the current promoters/team managers for putting together two teams who continue to perform better than anything we have seen in Leicester for many a year and for being determined not to let standards drop on the track through the various challenges presented by injury and retirement etc. You are doing a great job. keep it going & the followers will come (back)

[HGould]

4 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Who says the team is expensive  with too higher cost which continue to rise? 

Crowds have been good to a point this season, however recent home meetings have been held on "none" race days and during summer holidays, these two factors are more likely the cause for lower attendences than any other.

That said It is important  the promoters look beyond the speedway bubble of current fans/followers and reach out to other groups in order to attract larger gates which although is something easier said than done is nevertheless paramount to the future health of the club/sport. One thing worth considering is working on publicising not only what is going on(fixtures) but also where the stadium is (not just the stadium name)  a case of  Promote, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE  in sufficient detail.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the current promoters/team managers for putting together two teams who continue to perform better than anything we have seen in Leicester for many a year and for being determined not to let standards drop on the track through the various challenges presented by injury and retirement etc. You are doing a great job. keep it going & the followers will come (back)

Been there 5 times this season as less than an hours drive , 4 CL Fixtures all good crowds and 1 NL Fixture with what would be double Coventry got last season.

Have read the article 3 x now and doesn't strike as desperation to me, more like asking more to come to enjoy the product.

Looking at crowds at other tracks I've been to in PL and CL and Cradley if Leicester are in trouble then lord help some of the rest!

[Liontamer]

9 hours ago, Teromaafan said:

Good point.

The sport gets next to no publicity outside its own bubble and so the management post whinging on the club's website about disappointing crowds will only be read by already committed die hards or Hemsley era desserters maintaining a casual and distant interest. The club (and worryingly the sport in general) need to attract new supporters but do not know how to go about it. Without a serious marketing guru for the sport (that can attract badly needed sponsorship), nothing will change. The Lions may well be in for their best season that anyone can remember, but this means nothing to potential supporters who aren't even aware of the sport! (Check out the BBC sport website, its embarrassing to see what sports are covered and speedway isn't). It's not down to admission prices either. If the Lions were to announce that prices were being reduced to £5 for the next home meeting, How many additional spectators could they realistically expect to see? More importantly, how many of those would return prepared to pay normal prices?

When you do get people through the turnstile, you have to deliver the product. As has been pointed out, the Redcar match will have put many first timers off. The spectators to target for speedway meetings will most likely attend other sporting events too. If you are looking at people who watch live football or cricket for example, speedway falls short of the match day experience by comparison in terms of facilities and professionalism. Speedway's problem, no one else's.

Summed up perfectly.

[Big Al]

Hope that dates for the Shield final can be sorted out soon, with enough time allowed to promote it well, but not shunting it too far to end of season. The scarcity of available Saturdays could be tricky in achieving that, but if it can be given the priority, and if the final is won with good attendance (and it's a competition Leicester has dominated, so why not) then a trophy on the shelf and in the media locally won't do much harm. 

[IainB]

Is asking people to come good enough? Where's the promotion in that? And what happens when people do come? One of the nicest evenings of the year when people may have been tempted out against Redcar, inadequate medical cover, massive delay and abandoned meeting. A lovely Sunday afternoon, a double header against 2 local teams, no working tractor, delay, second match abandoned.

If I were Leicester I'd be keeping quiet about it until these issues were addressed

[1 valve]

4 hours ago, iainb said:

Is asking people to come good enough? Where's the promotion in that? And what happens when people do come? One of the nicest evenings of the year when people may have been tempted out against Redcar, inadequate medical cover, massive delay and abandoned meeting. A lovely Sunday afternoon, a double header against 2 local teams, no working tractor, delay, second match abandoned.

If I were Leicester I'd be keeping quiet about it until these issues were addressed

You are right to question if just asking people to turn up is good enough (its not) and certainly when they do come the promoters priority is to put on a good show which makes folk want to come back time and time again. However some things are beyond reasonable control in a sport strapped for cash and subject to a high degree of unknown outside influences

Regarding the Redcar fixture, the medical cover was the same which has proven more than adequate for the vast majority of all other meetings held over many seasons. It would be accurate to say this was an exceptional set of circumstances which no doubt caused as much concern with the promoters as it did the fans. but a great shame it did indeed occur.

As for the tractor, it was a working tractor for most of the day, it had worked in the morning and it worked over lunch, it became a problem pending the third & final watering prior to the start of the meeting. Yes this did ultimately cause a delay of 30 minutes for the second fixture v Stoke which even if it had been able to start on time, due to the severe volume of rain that fell it would not  have been possible to complete  6 or 7 races at most before the meeting would have been abandoned.

In summary, If we expect the promoters to be able to predict a spate of crashes requiring exceptional demand on the medical team, tractor breakdowns (on equipment that normally works fine) and know how on how to stop heavy rain falling, then maybe they should spend their time picking winning lottery numbers and patenting anti rain dances rather than worry about promoting speedway.

[IainB]

7 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

You are right to question if just asking people to turn up is good enough (its not) and certainly when they do come the promoters priority is to put on a good show which makes folk want to come back time and time again. However some things are beyond reasonable control in a sport strapped for cash and subject to a high degree of unknown outside influences

Regarding the Redcar fixture, the medical cover was the same which has proven more than adequate for the vast majority of all other meetings held over many seasons. It would be accurate to say this was an exceptional set of circumstances which no doubt caused as much concern with the promoters as it did the fans. but a great shame it did indeed occur.

As for the tractor, it was a working tractor for most of the day, it had worked in the morning and it worked over lunch, it became a problem pending the third & final watering prior to the start of the meeting. Yes this did ultimately cause a delay of 30 minutes for the second fixture v Stoke which even if it had been able to start on time, due to the severe volume of rain that fell it would not  have been possible to complete  6 or 7 races at most before the meeting would have been abandoned.

In summary, If we expect the promoters to be able to predict a spate of crashes requiring exceptional demand on the medical team, tractor breakdowns (on equipment that normally works fine) and know how on how to stop heavy rain falling, then maybe they should spend their time picking winning lottery numbers and patenting anti rain dances rather than worry about promoting speedway.

The only thing that was out of control of the promotion in your comments above is the weather. Everything else was in control of the promotion... That tractor must be at least a thousand years old , it's going to break down, the question is what do you do when it does break down? What emergency plan do you put into operation? The answer... rely on a random person who just happened to be in the pits to fix it. In fact if the tractor hadn't done so many bloody laps during the Redcar match as "entertainment" during the delay due to inadequate medical cover it may have just seen the Sheffield match out! Unfortunately I really do think that Redcar match saw a lot of people off.

[1 valve]

1 minute ago, iainb said:

The only thing that was out of control of the promotion in your comments above is the weather. Everything else was in control of the promotion... That tractor must be at least a thousand years old , it's going to break down, the question is what do you do when it does break down? What emergency plan do you put into operation? The answer... rely on a random person who just happened to be in the pits to fix it. In fact if the tractor hadn't done so many bloody laps during the Redcar match as "entertainment" during the delay due to inadequate medical cover it may have just seen the Sheffield match out! Unfortunately I really do think that Redcar match saw a lot of people off.

What do you think they should have done re contingency for if/when the tractor breaks down? Unfortunately this comes under "sport strapped for cash" idealy a newer tractor in situ would most probably mean less risk of a breakdown but where does the money come from to cover for this (rare to date) incident?

Not sure Redcar meeting was the final straw, but cant dissagree from the fact that it was an appaling experience to go through but still nevertheless a very difficult solution to cater for given the cost of having more medical cover than normally is required for meetings would yet again put a strain on finances over the whole season.

The solution to the above is the never ending saga known to all namely, to attract larger crowds and money into the sport thus providing better equipment and in depth medical cover. One cannot happen without the other.

[stevethelion]

I think the lack of Saturday meetings  has had an affect on the crowds,  the 3 shield matches at the beginning of the season were on Saturdays & attracted pretty good crowds, if I remember correctly, but since then 3 Saturday meetings have been rained off, leaving just 3 league meetings on Saturday's so far, 2 of these were re-arranged for different days, with 1 still to be arranged. Sundays & weekdays always seem to attract smaller crowds. The signing of Scott Nicholls meant having a number of rain-offs & progressing in the cups/play-offs(hopefully) was always going to be risky, in that any GP Saturdays when Scott is doing his TV work, are ruled out for re-arranging matches. Although Scott has been great on the track, there was always a chance this could happen. The next 2 meetings are both Saturdays, let's hope the weather is good & the crowds are up. The promotion & team deserve to be rewarded after the efforts of this season compared to what we have had to suffer in season's past.

[IainB]

3 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

What do you think they should have done re contingency for if/when the tractor breaks down? Unfortunately this comes under "sport strapped for cash" idealy a newer tractor in situ would most probably mean less risk of a breakdown but where does the money come from to cover for this (rare to date) incident?

Not sure Redcar meeting was the final straw, but cant dissagree from the fact that it was an appaling experience to go through but still nevertheless a very difficult solution to cater for given the cost of having more medical cover than normally is required for meetings would yet again put a strain on finances over the whole season.

The solution to the above is the never ending saga known to all namely, to attract larger crowds and money into the sport thus providing better equipment and in depth medical cover. One cannot happen without the other.

I've not got all the answers, I don't run a club and have no experience of running a club. What I do know from working in various businesses over the years is that they have disaster recovery plans for when business critical incidents happen... I don't know, can you cover a tractor with the AA or RAC, may sound like a silly question, but can you? Or have a local mechanic on call on race nights, tracks seem to have an electrician.

The Redcar match wasn't the final straw for me... I've been going to Speedway for over 40 years now and (unfortunately) I'm well used to such fiasco's. I really want to see the club and sport succeed and I'll be there again this Saturday. But they have no hope attracting and keeping support with some of the things that happen... all too often.

[crescent girl]

The medical cover is within a promotion's remit.  Berwick are by no means the richest club in the league, yet they recognise the need for double cover by having two paramedics and ambulances on site for every meeting.  Promotions who don't run the risk of long delays, and turning people off the idea of coming to speedway. 

[Gemini]

1 hour ago, 1 valve said:

Not sure Redcar meeting was the final straw,

It was for me at the time and I'm sure it was for a lot of others as well, including some who were attending for the first time.  I haven't been since but now Bates has gone I am going to try to get my interest back again and hope to get there on Saturday, so not exactly the final straw for me.......yet. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Gemini

[IronScorpion]

But we are not good travellers even though I was surprised at how many points we got at Edinburgh. Hope we don't dampen your enthusiasm again.

[mac101]

Leicester have 3 tractors but only one that can pull the bowser because of the weigh it needs to pull ,these tractors are normally very reliable even being old as there’s not much that can go wrong with them apart from the fuel pump which happened to go on Saturday but with the help from a few mechanics managed to get it running again which took 30 minutes would people rather have been happy with the meeting called off because of it or wait 30 mins and it’s on 

[IainB]

14 hours ago, stevethelion said:

if I remember correctly, but since then 3 Saturday meetings have been rained off, leaving just 3 league meetings on Saturday's so far, 2 of these were re-arranged for different days, with 1 still to be arranged. Sundays & weekdays always seem to attract smaller crowds.

Weren't a couple of them called off based on forecasts for rain that never showed?

9 hours ago, mac101 said:

Leicester have 3 tractors but only one that can pull the bowser because of the weigh it needs to pull ,these tractors are normally very reliable even being old as there’s not much that can go wrong with them apart from the fuel pump which happened to go on Saturday but with the help from a few mechanics managed to get it running again which took 30 minutes would people rather have been happy with the meeting called off because of it or wait 30 mins and it’s on 

Er... a meeting was called of because of it

[Skodaman]

56 minutes ago, iainb said:

Weren't a couple of them called off based on forecasts for rain that never showed?

Er... a meeting was called of because of it

Which meeting? If you mean the cubs match, that would never have finished if they had managed to start it earlier.