Swedish Speedway Decline?

[Mjolnir]

I’ve heard a few riders in interviews allude to the fact that Swedish speedway is on the decline and that British speedway has benefitted with some big names returning.

As someone that has only casually watched (and always enjoyed!) Swedish meetings over the years but would very much like to see speedway thrive, I was wondering if anyone could share any insights? Is it simply a knock on effect from crowds dropping?

[racers and royals]

2 hours ago, Mjolnir said:

I’ve heard a few riders in interviews allude to the fact that Swedish speedway is on the decline and that British speedway has benefitted with some big names returning.

As someone that has only casually watched (and always enjoyed!) Swedish meetings over the years but would very much like to see speedway thrive, I was wondering if anyone could share any insights? Is it simply a knock on effect from crowds dropping?

Simply not true- true the lack of Swedish riders coming through is a worry but you only have to look at the strength of the 8 teams that took part in the opening round last Tuesday to see that Sweden is still the 2nd league in the world- over 3000 at Smederna as well.

[JamesHarris]

It is strange only seeing one Swede (Lindgren) in the GP but I don't think they are on the decline. They have a good youth system but it could just be the current crop of their international are not top class. Countries that once dominated tend to have dips. It happened to the Danes in the years between Nielsen's retirement and the emergence of Nicki Pedersen. The Aussies had a duff period for a while until Crump and Adams started to make a name for themselves and even the Yanks are going through that stage now though Luke Becker is approaching the breakthrough stage of his career.  I would say given a few years time there will be some more top class Swedes. 

[Bavarian]

There is not much coming through the system, though, and there is an alarming lack of young riders even down in the 85cc youth division. Two many foreign stars, mostly Polish riders, employed by the Swedish clubs.     

[arnieg]

 

Some stats from a recent article:

Sweden
	2009	2023
Meetings	232	122
Riders	122	48
Youth riders	60	30

Excluding reserves there were only four Swedish regulars in last season's Elitserien: Lindgren, Nilsson, Thorsshell and Berntzon

Edit: add Lindback to make 5 as DazS has pointed out

Edited May 13 by arnieg

[IainB]

20 hours ago, JamesHarris said:

It is strange only seeing one Swede (Lindgren) in the GP but I don't think they are on the decline. They have a good youth system but it could just be the current crop of their international are not top class. Countries that once dominated tend to have dips. It happened to the Danes in the years between Nielsen's retirement and the emergence of Nicki Pedersen. The Aussies had a duff period for a while until Crump and Adams started to make a name for themselves and even the Yanks are going through that stage now though Luke Becker is approaching the breakthrough stage of his career.  I would say given a few years time there will be some more top class Swedes. 

They need to get themselves over here to learn their trade instead of setting their sights on a Polish U24 team spot

[arnieg]

2 hours ago, iainb said:

They need to get themselves over here to learn their trade instead of setting their sights on a Polish U24 team spot

Polish under 24 league rides on Tuesday. For that reason Swedes hardly ever ride in the U24 league.

[DazS]

4 hours ago, arnieg said:

 

Some stats from a recent article:

Sweden
	2009	2023
Meetings	232	122
Riders	122	48
Youth riders	60	30

Excluding reserves there were only four Swedish regulars in last season's Elitserien: Lindgren, Nilsson, Thorsshell and Berntzon

as lindback not got a team. ?

[Mjolnir]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Glad to hear that Swedish clubs are generally doing well, and that things are better than I’d assumed based on a few passing comments that I’d heard!

On 5/12/2024 at 12:54 PM, JamesHarris said:

It is strange only seeing one Swede (Lindgren) in the GP but I don't think they are on the decline. They have a good youth system but it could just be the current crop of their international are not top class. Countries that once dominated tend to have dips. It happened to the Danes in the years between Nielsen's retirement and the emergence of Nicki Pedersen. The Aussies had a duff period for a while until Crump and Adams started to make a name for themselves and even the Yanks are going through that stage now though Luke Becker is approaching the breakthrough stage of his career.  I would say given a few years time there will be some more top class Swedes. 

A very good point @JamesHarris - and us British fans certainly know a bit about that!

[Ghostwalker]

On 5/12/2024 at 2:11 PM, Bavarian said:

There is not much coming through the system, though, and there is an alarming lack of young riders even down in the 85cc youth division. Two many foreign stars, mostly Polish riders, employed by the Swedish clubs.     

I agree with you and allot of fans have been saying the same thing "too many foreign riders" but the naysayers always have the same answer
"look at Allsvenskan, they have many Swedish riders but not many spectators, so people don't want to see many Swedish riders".

They had a good chance after Covid when they changed to 6 man teams. Allot of Swedish riders got the chance to prove their worth and took it.
There was still very good racing despite lower quality riders. Then after for 2022, the rules were changed back how it was (7 men teams and 15 heats
as well as change of tactical substitute back to only 6p behind. I also think track preparations has become much worse, atleast in Eskilstuna
due to several seasons of complaint from opposing teams about track not being safe. Legitimate complains or not I don't know, but I do know
that Smederna's hometrack advantage disappeared and racing quality dropped from pretty good to absolute snore fest and it was the same last week.
I have season tickets (one for me and for my dad) this seasons too, but if the racing quality is the same for the rest of the seasons, note
sure if I will bother next year. The racing is just so boring and tickets princes are quite high too in relation to how actual contents one gets.

If I could decide I would set the following rules:

• 6 man teams with fixed pairs
• three 3 Swedish riders per lineup (minumim)
• Each pair does 4 heats each
• Back to 3 nominations heats
• Absolutely no tactical substitutes (better to make sure teams are at even strength then giving benefits to the loosing teams)
• No RR (sorry @racers and royals ) so teams will have to use a replacement rider in the lineup.
• No transfer windows
• Maximum 1 transfer per season and no transfer after halfway point in the series, but keep possibility to temporary
  replace injured riders but any replaced rider will receive a 5 week racing ban within all FIM-Europe jurisdiction.
• New riders has to do minimum 16 heats to be eligible for play offs.
• Lower ticket prices (Smederna charges 220 SEK for a regular non seating ticket and 250 SEK if you want a seated ticket
  along the straights).
• The league have their own play service (ESS play) but decided to increase the monthly subscription fee from 249 SEK to 349 SEK
  without any real improvements. No way I'm paying that much for 4 meetings/week

Basically teams and some fans (on very high horses) say that fans should support their team and that all talk about increased cost for fans
or upped prices for lay service is just whining. Some people just want to quell any negative opinions, full steam ahead everything is fine.
The truth is that many people just don't want to acknowledge that there are problems.

The Swedish Speedway Academy managed by Linus Sundström is definitely a step in the right direction but too little and too late
and doesn't fix the core problems.

 

[IainB]

3 hours ago, Ghostwalker said:

I agree with you and allot of fans have been saying the same thing "too many foreign riders" but the naysayers always have the same answer
"look at Allsvenskan, they have many Swedish riders but not many spectators, so people don't want to see many Swedish riders".

They had a good chance after Covid when they changed to 6 man teams. Allot of Swedish riders got the chance to prove their worth and took it.
There was still very good racing despite lower quality riders. Then after for 2022, the rules were changed back how it was (7 men teams and 15 heats
as well as change of tactical substitute back to only 6p behind. I also think track preparations has become much worse, atleast in Eskilstuna
due to several seasons of complaint from opposing teams about track not being safe. Legitimate complains or not I don't know, but I do know
that Smederna's hometrack advantage disappeared and racing quality dropped from pretty good to absolute snore fest and it was the same last week.
I have season tickets (one for me and for my dad) this seasons too, but if the racing quality is the same for the rest of the seasons, note
sure if I will bother next year. The racing is just so boring and tickets princes are quite high too in relation to how actual contents one gets.

If I could decide I would set the following rules:

• 6 man teams with fixed pairs
• three 3 Swedish riders per lineup (minumim)
• Each pair does 4 heats each
• Back to 3 nominations heats
• Absolutely no tactical substitutes (better to make sure teams are at even strength then giving benefits to the loosing teams)
• No RR (sorry @racers and royals ) so teams will have to use a replacement rider in the lineup.
• No transfer windows
• Maximum 1 transfer per season and no transfer after halfway point in the series, but keep possibility to temporary
  replace injured riders but any replaced rider will receive a 5 week racing ban within all FIM-Europe jurisdiction.
• New riders has to do minimum 16 heats to be eligible for play offs.
• Lower ticket prices (Smederna charges 220 SEK for a regular non seating ticket and 250 SEK if you want a seated ticket
  along the straights).
• The league have their own play service (ESS play) but decided to increase the monthly subscription fee from 249 SEK to 349 SEK
  without any real improvements. No way I'm paying that much for 4 meetings/week

Basically teams and some fans (on very high horses) say that fans should support their team and that all talk about increased cost for fans
or upped prices for lay service is just whining. Some people just want to quell any negative opinions, full steam ahead everything is fine.
The truth is that many people just don't want to acknowledge that there are problems.

The Swedish Speedway Academy managed by Linus Sundström is definitely a step in the right direction but too little and too late
and doesn't fix the core problems.

 

We've had quite a few Poles return to Britain this year and quite frankly they've added nothing!

[Skidder1]

What  is club sponsorship like in Sweden? Is there still good interest and good funding?

[racers and royals]

16 minutes ago, Skidder1 said:

What  is club sponsorship like in Sweden? Is there still good interest and good funding?

As far as i’m aware the answer is yes as otherwise most clubs would be skint !

The other main difference is that the clubs are run by the local community.

[iris123]

There is a decline in all countries. At least with numbers of riders, and has been noted for well over a decade. Anders Michanek talked about the huge drop in numbers riding from his day, in an early Backtrack issue

At some stage the whole thing will cease to be workeable without enough riders.

When i first started going to the local meetings in Germany, they had a few qualifying rounds for the U21 championship, North and i think South, due to the numbers. Back in 2003/4. I think it way before 2013/14 that they were dropped and there were even guest riders from the Netherlands in the final etc. The Bundesliga went down hill and the second division disappered and then started up a while later in a less attractive format imo. Some of the junior riders from the North were racing in youth leagues in Denmark instead of Germany

But even as has been stated a number of times, the Danish youth system seemed to falter, and hasn't produced much in a decade. Lower numbers, despite council owned tracks being available more often than most countries.

[arnieg]

On 5/12/2024 at 1:11 PM, Bavarian said:

There is not much coming through the system, though, and there is an alarming lack of young riders even down in the 85cc youth division. Two many foreign stars, mostly Polish riders, employed by the Swedish clubs.     

Given their line-ups last night wouldn't it be better when Indianerna meet Piraterna to stage it in Krosno rather than Kumla?

[Both teams tracked an all Polish top 5 last night]

[iris123]

Seem more talk of new innovations and cross border cooperation 

Germany are moving to a new junior class to lower the costs. They say maintaining 250cc bikes is too costly ! Which comes as a surprise to me, as I thought that was mooted a decade or so ago as the future

Germany and quite possibly Poland and Denmark, if I have understood correctly, want to move to something called 500R for 13-17 year olds . Not sure what that is. They say they want the same classes for juniors as their neighbours to make it easier for their juniors to ride in other countries.