Peter Craven Memorial Trophy - NSS - 17/03/2025

[Pinny]

Thats why this sport is knackered. 15 quid to watch a stream. Bonkers. 

[Pinny]

. 

Edited Monday at 06:36 PM by Pinny
Duplicate post

[Mr. Clemens]

15 minutes ago, Pinny said:

Thats why this sport is knackered. 15 quid to watch a stream. Bonkers. 

 

Yes I was going to give it a go, for the first time, but when I saw the price, I changed my mind. 

 

 

[ouch]

11 hours ago, secsy1 said:

With such an excellent line up, unfortunately its looking like the least supported opening event of the season.

Surely instead of advertising it to the converted, time needs to be spent now in ACTUALLY PROMOTING speedway to the un initiated.

After the debacle of attendance and third bend temporary stand at the Speedway of Nations, now something must be done.

When the best British Speedway track cannot attract spectators, then what does the future hold.

Ticket pricing must also be taken into consideration as it definitely is with many fans I know who cant afford present prices.

Exactly. They have been on TV, radio, newspapers and social media in the last few days. Any forward thinking promotion would have booked a place on Voyager's gold disc and advertised to the greater universe but not this lot. I’m so angry!!

[JoeW436]

39 minutes ago, Pinny said:

Thats why this sport is knackered. 15 quid to watch a stream. Bonkers. 

Playing devils advocate, it probably would have cost me more like £115 all in with fuel, tickets, food etc and getting home in the early hours so £15 don’t seem too bad.

[Phlipphlopp]

Gate 4 is shocking. Never seen such a bad gate. Every rider off 4 is at least 3 or 4 metres behind going into the first bend.

Edited Monday at 08:54 PM by Phlipphlopp

[Hawk127]

1 hour ago, JoeW436 said:

Playing devils advocate, it probably would have cost me more like £115 all in with fuel, tickets, food etc and getting home in the early hours so £15 don’t seem too bad.

Sadly it seems that the days of throwing caution to the wind and travelling long distances to see even top riders are long gone not least for the cost of fuel and food/drinks plus the travel time and the day/time the meeting is run has a bearing on the likely attendance. BSN does offer an option at a reasonable cost to those who are not local to the track hosting the event. Unfortunately speedway and what are prestigious meetings are no longer a major draw and the dwindling number of supporters that are willing to part with the cash is evident given that generally no clubs hold individual events like they use to back in the day. Who knows how you reinvent the sport to attract a new audience but the current promoters, t v coverage  and lack of well recognised riders is not advancing the cause.

[Cue Ball]

Only following on updates - is everybody going off gate 4 starting from a 15m handicap?

[Pinny]

Have a bit of time off work so bought the stream this morning. Been a good meeting. 
 

but they really need to change the presenter. Cringeworthy to listen to. Didn't even know Harris rode the day before at Iversens testimonial. Clueless. 
 

the camera work and quality is spot on but they still have a lot of work to do. 

[nw42]

16 rider final eh!  Imagine that😬

[JoeW436]

Well done Brady, he looked very fast.

[bill94d]

On 3/13/2025 at 9:46 AM, NickB said:

BSN streaming

Suffice to say I won’t be spending any more of my money on streaming BSN. It was frozen most of the time. You can’t even re-watch it. 

[Aries]

6 minutes ago, bill94d said:

Suffice to say I won’t be spending any more of my money on streaming BSN. It was frozen most of the time. You can’t even re-watch it. 

Then you need better internet. Never froze once for me. 

[Fromafar]

8 minutes ago, bill94d said:

Suffice to say I won’t be spending any more of my money on streaming BSN. It was frozen most of the time. You can’t even re-watch it. 

Surprised,I watched it all last season with very little problems regarding streaming.Always been able to watch the meetings the day after or any other time throughout the year.

Edited Monday at 10:08 PM by Fromafar

[Arthur54]

6 minutes ago, bill94d said:

Suffice to say I won’t be spending any more of my money on streaming BSN. It was frozen most of the time. You can’t even re-watch it. 

Nothing wrong with mine, excellent coverage 

[Heathcote]

37 minutes ago, bill94d said:

Suffice to say I won’t be spending any more of my money on streaming BSN. It was frozen most of the time. You can’t even re-watch it. 

Not blip in coverage here, as there generally hasn't been for the past 2 years. Admittedly sound was garbage for the first 20mins but eventually got it sorted. As for rewatching, of course you can, every meeting they've ever streamed is still available to watch.  

 

[mikebv]

Another decent meeting from the NSS, especially considering it was the first meeting of the season there, and was quite packed down just in case inclement weather was around, like March often brings..

Gate 4 was a bit of an issue but the canny riders cut back and used that piece of dirt at the apex of bend two at the kerb, which has appeared over the past season or so..

"Kurtz's Corridor" it is now called.  😁 

Plenty of "from the gate" racing which is to be expected early season but even those races at the NSS have enough "close racing" to keep your interest...

NKI was great to watch with several outside runs, and Bomber's last ride typified the man. A proper entertainer.

The crowd looked very decent again this year (2500+?), so gate receipts must be pretty good at around £25 or so as an average..

Once again it shows that there is still some decent demand for "top level" racing in this country, the big challenge of course is putting it on more regularly...

Well done Brady, hopefully an indicator of what is to come in the GP's for him. He has all the credentials, ie can gate, can pass, is very quick and smooth when out in front, and can mix it forcibly with others if required....

[Pinny]

12 hours ago, JoeW436 said:

Playing devils advocate, it probably would have cost me more like £115 all in with fuel, tickets, food etc and getting home in the early hours so £15 don’t seem too bad.

15 quid for a stream is outrageous. At the end of the day, its TV viewing so how does charging that price work out when you can pay half that for something like Netflix which is unlimited, 24/7 viewing?

Just to compare, I pay $25 (about 12.50) for unlimited Optus sport in Australia which gives you access to every single Premier League and FA cup match live with official coverage. There is much more on there as well that I don't bother to watch.

So 15 pound to watch that last night with its shoddy presentation is barking mad. The commentary team were OK, Staechmann has always been clued up but made many, many mistakes with rider names last night. And as I said, watching Greg Blair as presenter is an absolute joke. They need to get a good presenter on there to replace him sharpish if they are going to be charging those sort of prices.

The racing was good though, some great races. Thought Holder looked very good. Lambert and Emil were poor to say the least but would imagine they are testing set ups and that which is why charging the price they did is even more outrageous for an opening meeting.

 

[IainB]

39 minutes ago, Pinny said:

15 quid for a stream is outrageous. At the end of the day, its TV viewing so how does charging that price work out when you can pay half that for something like Netflix which is unlimited, 24/7 viewing?

Just to compare, I pay $25 (about 12.50) for unlimited Optus sport in Australia which gives you access to every single Premier League and FA cup match live with official coverage. There is much more on there as well that I don't bother to watch.

So 15 pound to watch that last night with its shoddy presentation is barking mad. The commentary team were OK, Staechmann has always been clued up but made many, many mistakes with rider names last night. And as I said, watching Greg Blair as presenter is an absolute joke. They need to get a good presenter on there to replace him sharpish if they are going to be charging those sort of prices.

The racing was good though, some great races. Thought Holder looked very good. Lambert and Emil were poor to say the least but would imagine they are testing set ups and that which is why charging the price they did is even more outrageous for an opening meeting.

 

It's called economies of scale, first of all they've got to turn a profit and will have costs to cover, content rights, staffing etc. and all that with barely anybody watching it, compared to Netflix or Opus sport, you're not comparing apples with apples.

Personally I also find £15 outrageous for a stream which is why I've never bought one and prefer to "just" watch the stuff included in the pass or attend live (which I am able to do if something takes my fancy). I've never been into the PPV single events and have never paid for any Boxing or Sky Box Office events and I can't see myself ever doing it, I don't feel as though I've missed out on anything.

[spin king junior]

1 hour ago, Pinny said:

15 quid for a stream is outrageous. At the end of the day, its TV viewing so how does charging that price work out when you can pay half that for something like Netflix which is unlimited, 24/7 viewing?

Just to compare, I pay $25 (about 12.50) for unlimited Optus sport in Australia which gives you access to every single Premier League and FA cup match live with official coverage. There is much more on there as well that I don't bother to watch.

So 15 pound to watch that last night with its shoddy presentation is barking mad. The commentary team were OK, Staechmann has always been clued up but made many, many mistakes with rider names last night. And as I said, watching Greg Blair as presenter is an absolute joke. They need to get a good presenter on there to replace him sharpish if they are going to be charging those sort of prices.

The racing was good though, some great races. Thought Holder looked very good. Lambert and Emil were poor to say the least but would imagine they are testing set ups and that which is why charging the price they did is even more outrageous for an opening meeting.

 

I wouldn't say it's a fair comparison personally. There's a reason why Optus can offer more for less, they've got more people willing to pay an amount for a popular sport and will gain a lot more in sponsorship than BSN could ever wish to.

Speedway is such a niche sport. You're not going to get anyone other than speedway fans willing to pay to watch a live stream and as a smaller venture BSN I'd doubt they'd have the pockets to operate at a loss.

 

The fairest comparison in my eyes to speedway in the UK is ice hockey, although attedance wise ice hockey does tend to garner more interest in the top league, but much like speedway in this country it is a niche product- amongst every side in the EIHL they all offer live streams of their matches and you won't find a single team offering anything below £15 per match.

 

So it lines up just about right imo and I think it's a fair price for what's on offer- ultimately if you bring down the cost by £2-3 it's not really enough to entice new customers. Bring it down by £5 and yes, I think you'd get a lot more viewers and people willing to buy in, but you'd also devalue the live expirence and would see a lot less people showing up for the meeting in person which actively needs to be avoided.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:11 AM by spin king junior