MattK

Poland could run Friday and Sunday meaning their regular season will only take seven weeks. The riders will love Poland on a Friday, GP on a Saturday and Poland on a Sunday. It is therefore British speedway's problem to work around this.

You can see the riders here: https://sportowefakty.wp.pl/zuzel/pge-ekstraliga/statystyki/2019 The first drop down let's you select the league.

These are the riders who raced in at least 10 meetings in Poland last year and who've ridden recently/signed in Britain Ekstraliga Jason Doyle Nicki Pedersen Kenneth Bjerre Fredrik Lindgren Max Fricke Niels Kristian Iversen Chris Holder Brady Kurtz Liga 1 Troy Batchelor Tobiasz Musielak Jacob Thorssell Nicolai Klindt Rohan Tungate Sam Masters Liga 2 David Bellego Kevin Woelbert Tero Aarnio Josh Grajczonek Jaimon Lidsey Dimitri Berge Rene Bach

Why not? 50-60 year olds are a perfectly valid target market. They have good levels of disposable income and many have lots of time on their hands and therefore are looking for something to do. The other benefit is that there aren't a great deal of past times marketing themselves towards that group, whereas there are numerous leisure activities aimed at families, which speedway would have to compete with. The other benefit of course is that the current presentation of speedway is perfectly suited to that age group.

That sounds like the dictionary definition of "build it and they will come" - which we all know is both a misquote and from a fictional movie. What is Belle Vue doing to promote speedway? Ironically, I do a bit of work in Manchester from time to time and have never once seen any kind of advert for the speedway since I started going up there last summer.

That's because McDonald's gear their products towards appeal to children. Bright colours, tie-ins with kids films and TV, toys in the Happy Meals. As I said, speedway could do this but it would require a complete revamp of how the sport is presented today.

How's that panned out this last decade or so for speedway though? If you to appeal to young fans, which in and of itself isn't a bad approach, the whole way speedway is presented needs to be overhauled. Then in turn, you risk alienating your current customer base (who are largely over 50) because they don't like the style of music, presentation etc. For me, it is obvious that speedway should be promoting itself to the over 50s.

No. It makes absolutely no sense. What do kids like? Just Bieber, Fortnite and Supreme. What do you get when you go to speedway? AC/DC, scores written with pen and paper and Wulfsport. The presentation of speedway is like something from the 1970s, the music is from the 1970s and the fashion is from the 1970s - therefore promote speedway to people who liked the 1970s - i.e. the over 50s. This isn't a pop at old people. This is a valid marketing technique. How many new Ferrari's do you think Ferrari sell to the under 16s? I'd suggest zero. Yet last year they sold over 10,000 cars and had revenues of over 3.7 billion euros. How? Because they know their customer.

Again, proof that speedway doesn't understand its target market. Why promote speedway to kids? It makes no sense.

Less almost certainly is more. However would stadium landlords accept a reduced speedway calendar? There comes a point where speedway simply isn't cost effective and alternative revenues (or redevelopment) will to be sort. Coupled with the fact that there are fixed costs of riding. As I said, this all sounds like a race to the bottom which eventually leads to speedway being amateurs racing round in a field.

I agree that the presentation of your average speedway meeting is something out of the 1970s. However, would you go and see supercross every week? That's the fundamental problem club promoters face. Putting on a one-off meeting and charging £45+ a ticket is perfectly possible - the GP does it every year. I don't see how that translates into 20 meetings per season though.

It is very much down to marketing, but I don't think marketing a series of individual meetings is any easier than marketing a team-base league. In fact, I think trying to market the Swindon Robins to people who primarily live in Swindon is a much easier sell than a individual meeting full of riders nobody has heard of.

No, I don't think they would. That's a play-off finals size crowd, but without any prestige or club loyalty in the mix. I honestly don't think tinkering with the format or race nights will make a material difference. The problem is promotion or lack thereof. I can walk around Swindon and not see a single indication of the speedway season about to start, even though Swindon's first meeting was theoretically last week. I can walk around Swindon's largest employers and not see a single sign that a speedway team exists in the town. People aren't going to magically appear about of thin air at the gates.

Being noisy, dirt and anti-social are not necessarily bad things. Look at the massive popularity of mixed martial arts. The top fighters earn millions, as do the owners of UFC. It depends how they are promoted. I remember Lakeside promoting speedway as an extreme sport, which I always thought was a great angle for precisely the reasons you describe. However, other clubs promote it as family friendly, which I never really understood. Again, a fundamental problem with speedway is that they don't know who their target market is, so take a scatter gun approach to trying to get new fans.

You can possibly make the argument that the GPs have stolen the Friday/Saturday night slots from British clubs. However, I think Britain's inability to pick a lane and instead choosing to run throughout the week was a large factor in that. You cannot argue that the GPs have robbed Britain of the top riders though. All the top riders still ride league speedway in Poland, Sweden and increasingly Denmark. Therefore the blame lies solely at the feet of British speedway, their inability to be flexible (running of a Friday before a GP for example), declining crowds/poor sponsorship meaning earnings are comparatively low and going even further back to the 80s and 90s their decision to not invest in the future.

You do accept that over the years as the standard of the leagues have dropped so have attendances? Likewise, the Premiership on average gets better crowds than the Championship and the Championship on average gets better crowds than the NL? Therefore, this approach would be a race to the bottom. As for people being die hard supporters, no, people who cannot stomach a drop in quality, pick and choose meetings etc. are not die hard supporters. However, speedway cannot exist on die hard supporters alone, as recent years have shown. In my opinion, this idea would see speedway quickly relegated to a similar level as grasstrack. An amateur sport where die hard fans watch riders racing round in a field.

The league would have to be pitched midway between the current Championship and NL level in order to be competitive.

Do you agree that over the last decade there has been a gradual reduction in quality across British speedway and in turn a gradual decline in crowds? If so, what makes you think that a significant reduction in quality won't have an even more detrimental impact on crowd numbers?

Presumably you and a guest had your own Christmas party up to the value of £150 each?

How many riders are genuinely self-employed (as in the HMRC definition) rather than an employee of their own limited company? I've always assumed they operate under a limited company structure.

There are two things here. Firstly, riders clearly are self-employed at the moment. Therefore they will not be eligible for the existing Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme announced by the Govt last week. Help for the self-employed is on the cards, but yet to be presented. However, going forwards (it was supposed to come into effect on 5 April, but has been deferred for a year) the end client, in this case the clubs, will have to determine the employment status of riders and clubs are liable for unpaid taxes if the employment status is incorrectly determined. HMRC have a tool to determine this here. If you look at the tool, riders very clearly should be employees. They cannot substitute, they have to work as and when their end client specifies, they have to work from the location of their client, they even have to wear the clients uniform. There was a recent court case brought by HMRC against Eamonn Holmes, which he lost, as he claimed he was not an employee when he clearly should have been.

A couple of things. Firstly, the Government can't print money, the Bank of England does that. The government issues Gilts (government bonds), which the Bank of England can buy. During the last round of quantitative easing the BoE bought around a quarter of all gilts in existence. The benefit of this is we the taxpayer now no longer have to pay interest on those gilts. Secondly, inflation isn't a bad thing. IN fact most people agree that a bit of controlled inflation is good, as it erodes debts relative to income. In the last decade the government has borrowed roughly £50bn every year, plus we've had £400bn of QE and yet inflation has stayed around historical norms. I am less concerned about how the government will fund its extravagant plans and more whether help will actually get to those who need it. At the moment I am not so sure.

Can you explain why speedway clubs, which are limited companies, would not to eligible to apply for the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme: https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-interruption-loan-scheme-cbils/

Do you have a link to this "compo"?

Have you been to BBQ Nation yet? That is one of only two places where I didn't eat everything put in front of me. At BBQ Nation they brought out chicken legs and mine was a bit pink, so I politely passed! The other was when a member of our party ordered Curried Brains (sheep I believe).