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keepturningleft

More On The Decline Of British Speedway

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we'll always have our memories...worth an awful lot

Well said Mike - and very true. :t::) :)

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I think the British GP is considered a single event, whilst the Six Nations is a tournament. There are of course many one-off events with larger attendances than 69K - the FA Cup Final being the prime example.

 

I'd imagine that horse racing, boxing and golf would be somewhere behind rugby league and cricket, but ahead of speedway. Boxing probably doesn't really count many live spectators all told, but has a larger following on television.

I think the figures for F1 for a complete season would average a whole lot more than 69,000 and count as one competition.

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I think the figures for F1 for a complete season would average a whole lot more than 69,000 and count as one competition.

 

With respect - surely only F1 attendances in the UK count? A good point though. Thank you.

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I think Cowes sailing event claim something like 200,000 spectators for just a few days which alone without any other sailing event rates well against a season of speedway

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Not a very good question ..it's a simple question of cost .. Test matches are not run anymore for the simple fact that the crowds don't make them pay .the same would apply to a World Cup trying to use a test match format with 7 riders .

Not *just* cost - the chances of bringing together sufficient riders for even one meeting are minimal.

 

Also ... Test Match format is 18 heats, with six riders per team, plus two reserves (the reserves being the only tactical changes allowed).

 

I can't recall the final score if the fabled England v USA test match at Foxhall (John Cook's classic team riding on World of Sport, see YouTube), but I think it was 36-72 ...

Edited by Had Enough Too

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I think the figures for F1 for a complete season would average a whole lot more than 69,000 and count as one competition.

There are some pretty sparsely attended GPs as well. The Silverstone figures are also an aggregate over 3 days, when you'd probably imagine the race day figure is closer to the number of unique spectators, so it's difficult to compare like-with-like.

 

I found an average figure of 161k for F1 in 2009, which is presumably a 3-day aggregate, so that would put the number of unique spectators closer to if not lower than the 69k figure. Silverstone pulls something like 120k on race day, which is somewhere around 40% of the aggregate.

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Football is obviously top in all categories, but I'd think rugby union would be second in term of live audiences (if you include the Six Nations which has highest average attendance of any sports competition in the world), following by rugby league and cricket. Maybe motor racing (non-speedway) might be up next, followed by horse racing, ice hockey and then perhaps speedway. Three-day eventing gets a reasonable following though, and might beat speedway.

I've long thought that the biggest paid attendance for a single sporting event is 300,000 to 450,000 at the Indianapolis 500, and that seems to b e borne out by

http://www.topendsports.com/world/lists/crowd-largest.htm

 

I believe the largest Non-paying audience is reckoned to be the 2 or 3 million who line the roads for cycling's Tour de France.

 

Biggest speedway crowd ever? According to Speedway Star, in 1959 at Prague, a 4-nation tournament attracted 200,000! http://www.internationalspeedway.co.uk/czsl4team.htm

Edited by TwoMinuteWarning

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As for a women's speedway match - is there such a thing?

 

According to Tai, there was an inter-gender clash at Edinburgh some years back. :wink:

 

All the best

Rob

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For a sense of the popularity of various sports go to:

 

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/profiler#/

 

and type in speedway.

 

you will find that there are 70 speedway fans in the yougov panel.

 

Compared with:

 

22761 football fans

14440 rugby union fans

13191 cricket fans

7944 golf fans

5530 rugby league fans

3597 american football fans

1847 basketball fans

122 people who like volleyball

 

and

1066 people who like aardvarks.

Edited by arnieg

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For a sense of the popularity of various sports go to:

 

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/profiler#/

 

and type in speedway.

 

you will find that there are 70 speedway fans in the yougov panel.

 

Compared with:

 

22761 football fans

14440 rugby union fans

13191 cricket fans

7944 golf fans

5530 rugby league fans

3597 american football fans

1847 basketball fans

122 people who like volleyball

 

and

1066 people who like aardvarks.

Says it all really..................................... :sad: :sad: :sad:

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Them figures suggest speedway promoters are doing a good job. The average Premiership football attendance is 36000 so about 150% than in the YouGov Poll. The average Aviva Premiership attendance is 12500 so about 95% of the youGov Poll, the average 2020 cricket attendance is 7000 so about 50% of the YouGov poll. The average Super League (Rugby League) is 9000 so about 190% of the YouGov poll

 

So with there being 70 speedway fans, even if you matched ti tot he best performing sport (Rugby League) there should be about 130 people at the average Elite League meeting in the UK. But promoters manage to get 10 times that (1300 is surely not an unfair average for the EL right?). So well done to the individual members of the BSPA who actually manage to geta greater % of their fan base to meetings that any of the major sports in this country!

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Them figures suggest speedway promoters are doing a good job. The average Premiership football attendance is 36000 so about 150% than in the YouGov Poll. The average Aviva Premiership attendance is 12500 so about 95% of the youGov Poll, the average 2020 cricket attendance is 7000 so about 50% of the YouGov poll. The average Super League (Rugby League) is 9000 so about 190% of the YouGov poll

 

So with there being 70 speedway fans, even if you matched ti tot he best performing sport (Rugby League) there should be about 130 people at the average Elite League meeting in the UK. But promoters manage to get 10 times that (1300 is surely not an unfair average for the EL right?). So well done to the individual members of the BSPA who actually manage to geta greater % of their fan base to meetings that any of the major sports in this country!

But not as good a job as the aardvarks!!
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So well done to the individual members of the BSPA who actually manage to geta greater % of their fan base to meetings that any of the major sports in this country!

I'm sure the above remark is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the thinking is somewhat flawed. I'm sure the percentage of croquet participants is very high in comparison to the fan base (possibly nearly 100%), but it doesn't mean the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is promoting it well.

 

The more minority the sport, I'm sure the more hardcore supporters remain, but you really want to have a large casual following to be successful as that's what attracts sponsors.

 

I think Rugby League remains the biggest disappointment though, in terms of how much money and promotion has been thrown at the sport in the past 20 years. It seems most people still prefer to see the version where ex-public schoolboys roll on top of each other around in the mud. The legacy of Eddie Waring will never die... :D

Edited by Humphrey Appleby
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I'm sure the above remark is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the thinking is somewhat flawed. I'm sure the percentage of croquet participants is very high in comparison to the fan base (possibly nearly 100%), but it doesn't mean the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is promoting it well.

 

The more minority the sport, I'm sure the more hardcore supporters remain, but you really want to have a large casual following to be successful as that's what attracts sponsors.

 

I think Rugby League remains the biggest disappointment though, in terms of how much money and promotion has been thrown at the sport in the past 20 years. It seems most people still prefer to see the version where ex-public schoolboys roll on top of each other around in the mud. The legacy of Eddie Waring will never die... :D

Eddie Waring - all time great. :t:

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