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Lack Of Speedway Promotion?

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Debated in many places already I am sure, but just who should take responsibility for the lack of promotion about speedway in this country? With Tai being the first British hopeful actually in with a chance of winning Cardiff for many years, why are we not seeing more of this being promoted? I just checked a couple of local Cardiff?Wales online newspapers, and nothing. Whilst IMG are in charge of the GPs, surely this is a great opportunity for the BSPA to piggyback off the GP promotion to highlight league speedway across the country? I know getting newspapers to actually pick up speedway is bit of a hard job, but surely more can be done to highlight the pinnacle of the speedway year in our country?

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I'll tell you a little secret... perhaps speedway "promoters" think it's a waste of time and effort "promoting." Afterall, they have already won you over, so why else would they bother. Perhaps they believe money spent on advertising wouldn't bring in new customers, or not enough to cover ad costs.

 

Speedway promoters, and I use the term lightly, they are relying on you being there again next week.

 

You will be, won't you?

 

More effort is put into advertising the local school's carboot day than is into this sport.

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They need to worry about making domestic racing something resembling respectable first before promoting too much, it's all well and good showing people how wonderful Cardiff is, but at their first glimpse of league racing afterwards 99% of them would never return again.

Edited by CUFC_Brummie

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What makes me laugh are that the clowns who run the clubs are called Promoters they should be fined under the trade description act. I just think there still running the league like it was many moons ago times have changed and I'm afraid speedway league racing has not. Its easy to get your sport on local news and local rags also facebook etc etc do they even try. What amazes me is the amount of customers I deal who say they used to go and loved it but haven't been for years, that tells me there is an audience there it just needs to be told speedway still exists yep and its still bloody great. Far too expensive thou under 18 s £3 inc programme and adults £10 inc programme let's be honest most programmes are tosh so a simple scoresheet would do for most. All imo. But the sport is dying just hope its not terminal.

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Using social media is so easy these days and need not cost little money for promoters, especially if they get supporters to help them. Get some great video clips of speedway 'racing' on You Tube, use Facebook and Twitter promoting local clubs, even try and get fans at Cardiff tomorrow and those at home trying to get #Speedway trending on Twitter. There is so much that could, and she be done, with just a little effort, you could be reaching people. Might work, might not, but it is the lack of any real consolidated effort by the BSPA that I find annoying. Increased promotion of speedway is good for all promotions, so I don't get the lack of 'promotion' by the majority.

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Personally I am not sure it needs promoting, how many people do you know who "used" to go the speedway? they and their kids / grandkids are the ones who need to be attracted back. I think the only way to do that is lower the prices. So perhaps any outlay thats required for advertisements should perhaps be put towards subsiding special "lower" entry costs.

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Debated in many places already I am sure, but just who should take responsibility for the lack of promotion about speedway in this country? With Tai being the first British hopeful actually in with a chance of winning Cardiff for many years, why are we not seeing more of this being promoted? I just checked a couple of local Cardiff?Wales online newspapers, and nothing. Whilst IMG are in charge of the GPs, surely this is a great opportunity for the BSPA to piggyback off the GP promotion to highlight league speedway across the country? I know getting newspapers to actually pick up speedway is bit of a hard job, but surely more can be done to highlight the pinnacle of the speedway year in our country?

The reason it is a hard job is because nobody is interested in the sport or more importantly aware of it anymore. Especially in Wales with no tracks. I have plenty of friends from Cardiff who have lived in Cardiff all there life, and know the SGP is in the Millennium Stadium, even a couple have worked in the Stadium but when asked if any of them would be interested in going or more importantly spending £29 on going to something they are vaguely aware of? The answer is no. They simply have far better things to spend their money on. Promotion of the SGP in Wales particularly or interest in it has no massive impact on attendance. Why is a Welsh Newspaper that doesn't cover speedway going to want to spend a significant amount of money spending time on writing articles that nobody will read. Compared to spending it on writing about the Lions (this year which everybody in Wales) will have an interest in.

Using social media is so easy these days and need not cost little money for promoters, especially if they get supporters to help them. Get some great video clips of speedway 'racing' on You Tube, use Facebook and Twitter promoting local clubs, even try and get fans at Cardiff tomorrow and those at home trying to get #Speedway trending on Twitter. There is so much that could, and she be done, with just a little effort, you could be reaching people. Might work, might not, but it is the lack of any real consolidated effort by the BSPA that I find annoying. Increased promotion of speedway is good for all promotions, so I don't get the lack of 'promotion' by the majority.

Increased promotion is only good if people become interested in it in significant enough numbers to make it worthwhile, too many speedway fans assume that everybody that doesn't go is a potential customer, which is fine if the awareness is there but quite simply It isn't. I went to work in Bristol for 4 months in amongst a team of 200 people approximately. I wore speedway clothing and spoke to I'd say about 120 people out of that total that worked in my department. About 10 people had heard of Speedway and about 3 of those 10 had ever watched it on sky, none of them had ever been. I asked them what the people who had watched thought about the sport and they said it was quite enjoyable to watch if nothing else was on, then they asked me about the cost of admission and there reaction was no way. I agree trending on twitter and things within social media particularly have to move forward now the sport has been stuck 10,20 years behind where it needs to be in marketing for to long. But the reality is they aren't going to. Trending on Twitter would be great but what benefit is to be gained from it, Speedway fans will know what it is, but who else will? Edited by CrystalCastles

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Increased promotion is only good if people become interested in it in significant enough numbers to make it worthwhile, too many speedway fans assume that everybody that doesn't go is a potential customer, which is fine if the awareness is there but quite simply It isn't. I went to work in Bristol for 4 months in amongst a team of 200 people approximately. I wore speedway clothing and spoke to I'd say about 120 people out of that total that worked in my department. About 10 people had heard of Speedway and about 3 of those 10 had ever watched it on sky, none of them had ever been. I asked them what the people who had watched thought about the sport and they said it was quite enjoyable to watch if nothing else was on, then they asked me about the cost of admission and there reaction was no way. I agree trending on twitter and things within social media particularly have to move forward now the sport has been stuck 10,20 years behind where it needs to be in marketing for to long. But the reality is they aren't going to. Trending on Twitter would be great but what benefit is to be gained from it, Speedway fans will know what it is, but who else will?

 

But part of promotion is raising awareness among people who aren't aware of speedway. I work for one of Swindon's largest employers (around 3,000 people in our offices) but there is absolutely no mention of speedway on the noticeboards, sports and social clubs, news items or staff discount schemes.

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Mick Horton has done alot to promote Coventry this year including discounts, stands at Events & Belgrave theatre. Working with Telegraph & Coventry Blaze. I even saw a advert for Coventry Bees at the cinema.

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But part of promotion is raising awareness among people who aren't aware of speedway. I work for one of Swindon's largest employers (around 3,000 people in our offices) but there is absolutely no mention of speedway on the noticeboards, sports and social clubs, news items or staff discount schemes.

I don't disagree however how do you got about promoting it to raise awareness to those people? I personally don't think advertising a sport as a fantastic family sport and exciting really does enough to do that, if I didn't know what speedway was an advert like that would quite frankly mean nothing to me, I wouldn't even bother to read it.

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Regarding Cardiff, I assure you the meeting is promoted here. They had the advert on in the advert break of Coronation Street in the Wales region as well as other programmes in the last 2 weeks, the meeting has been advertised on banners on the street lights in the city centre, on bus stops. There have been leaflets in the bay. Friends have mentioned to me that the speedway is taking place this weekend just gone so people are aware but lets be honest, what put them off is the £30 for a ticket - it's a lot of money.

 

I honestly don't know how much more they could do to advertise it really. you cant make the media want to print/film stories. They already use social media well for the GP series.

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But part of promotion is raising awareness among people who aren't aware of speedway. I work for one of Swindon's largest employers (around 3,000 people in our offices) but there is absolutely no mention of speedway on the noticeboards, sports and social clubs, news items or staff discount schemes.

 

Well go to it Matt. Request permission to put up the odd Poster or two. I'm sure your Company wouldn't mind. If they did it would be a bit mean of them.

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I don't disagree however how do you got about promoting it to raise awareness to those people? I personally don't think advertising a sport as a fantastic family sport and exciting really does enough to do that, if I didn't know what speedway was an advert like that would quite frankly mean nothing to me, I wouldn't even bother to read it.

 

OK. Three ideas for promoting speedway within a large company...

 

Firstly, the simple. Get a friendly supporter to put up posters on the noticeboards and distribute leaflets into the common areas such as by drinks machines and comfy chairs. This requires supplying more materials by the club, but should cost less than a hundred quid.

 

Two - a bit more involvement from the club. We have sports and social clubs ranging from the taking part such as football and tennis, up to wannabes, like the karting club that I am a member of. Sponsor a "speedway supporters club" by offering a staff discount and something for people to remember their first speedway meeting by, such as a pit walk or watching the last heat form the centre green. This idea is more reliant on employees organising and signing up members, but a few times a year there is a sports and social roadshow, so introducing at least a couple of hundred new fans to speedway should easily be possible.

 

Third - which requires the most effort from the club. We have a number of local and national businesses which offer staff discounts. Every eight to ten weeks these companies do a roadshow where they come to our head office and promote their products. The club would have to have a TV screen with a DVD playing, maybe a bike and even a rider in attendance to get people's attentions, but again I am confident you could introduce a couple of hundred new people to speedway by this method.

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Regarding Cardiff, I assure you the meeting is promoted here. They had the advert on in the advert break of Coronation Street in the Wales region as well as other programmes in the last 2 weeks, the meeting has been advertised on banners on the street lights in the city centre, on bus stops. There have been leaflets in the bay. Friends have mentioned to me that the speedway is taking place this weekend just gone so people are aware but lets be honest, what put them off is the £30 for a ticket - it's a lot of money.

 

I honestly don't know how much more they could do to advertise it really. you cant make the media want to print/film stories. They already use social media well for the GP series.

That does sounds good promotion, but I assume it was limited to South Wales? Not sure the same promotion went on elsewhere outside of South Wales? An example of where I feel there is a lack of local efforts, where I am, I within a hours drive of two speedway tracks, Arena Essex and Eastbourne, and yet I have never seen any local promotion of either track.

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