Premier League V Elite League

[arnieg 3,620]

I've never really understood the concept of showing a 'live' league match on the TV. Edited highlights without all the waffle and replays in my opinion would be far better. A friend of mine would rather stay indoors and watch a live broadcast than walk half a mile to see the same meeting live (Oxford). No wonder attendances started a downward spiral!

 

Much preferred the days of Screensport when one enjoyed 'Match of the Week' and Rob Mac's weekly news programme.

There's a reason they invented Sky plus and the mute button

[van wolfswinkel 635]

This is the problem with speedway's apologists, They keep telling us we are watching good stuff when as on Wednesday most of it was dull and boring. Read the comments of the Leic-Swindon thread, committed speedway fans are turning the TV over of finding something else to do which is the mirror image of the sport as a hole, if you don't entertain / excite people they will find something else to do,hence the lowest crowds we have had at speedway for a generation. There was even a poor crowd at Leicester last night when they were giving it away at £10. Contrast it with tonight's Premier League darts,3 hours of top entertainment,chalk and cheese with last night.You can't fool the public,darts has a good TV deal,has sponsors fighting each other to get on ,board and packs 9 thousand in on a weekly basis paying upwards of £30, meanwhile speedway has a pittance TV deal no main sponsor and ever dwindling crowds,the facts don,t lie !

Cant get more extreme than darts and speedway! I love those arrow warriors.

As they say football is an gents game played by morons

Rugby is a thugs game played by gentlemen psychos

and darts is a fat gits game played by fat gits

speedway must be for mentalists...riding a bike up to 70 m.p.h. without brakes, sounds great fun! must go and watch this sport, if its as exciting and as dangerous as National hunt racing should be fab.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Downsman

[steve roberts 9,242]

There's a reason they invented Sky plus and the mute button

Not an option for me...as I don't subscribe to Sky TV!

[Tsunami 10,219]

Not an option for me...as I don't subscribe to Sky TV!

And don't, by your own admission, even go to speedway. So it's free packed TV speedway or nothing.

[Gresham 928]

Typical...Chose to go to Somerset rather than Swindon...and now it's postponed...Grrrrr.

 

I can never remember there being so many cancellations in the past for 'waterlogged' tracks.

 

I think this is a contributory fact to why so many are staying away now...they find other alternatives to do weekly.

[Halifaxtiger 5,318]

Typical...Chose to go to Somerset rather than Swindon...and now it's postponed...Grrrrr.

 

I can never remember there being so many cancellations in the past for 'waterlogged' tracks.

 

I think this is a contributory fact to why so many are staying away now...they find other alternatives to do weekly.

 

I don't think that's true - its no different than it always has been.

 

Rain offs are annoying - going to Redcar last night was actually infuriating - but aside from spending a shed load of cash that the sport doesn't have on track covers - which are useless if its raining at race time - its something we have to put up with.

 

My advice is check and check again weather reports and don't rely on the Met Office. They're rubbish.

[daveallan81 330]

Figures for all meetings scheduled (inc. challenge, etc) up to and including 15th April for each year:

 

2013: 90 matches - 21 off (23.3%)

2014: 97 matches - 17 off (17.5%)

2015: 95 matches - 17 off (17.9%)

2016: 106 matches - 33 off (31.1%) (assuming Plymouth goes ahead)

 

Some other samples from the past:

 

1967: 67 matches - No postponements

1977: 143 matches - 7 off (4.9%)

1987: 92 matches - 20 off (21.7%)

1997: 84 matches - No postponements

2007: 143 matches - 9 off (6.3%)

[sparkafag 746]

Decent stats but I can’t say it comes as a shock to me that in 2007 a summer when destructive floods wreaked havoc across the country and the month of June was one of the wettest months on record in Britain there was a number of rain offs.

 

Take into account 2007 recorded one of the wettest months on record and 2012 was one of the wettest summers in 100 years it seems pretty reasonable that there would be more rain offs now than ever before.

[steve roberts 9,242]

And don't, by your own admission, even go to speedway. So it's free packed TV speedway or nothing.

For reasons I've given elsewhere on the forum.

[iris123 20,935]

It used to be mental back in the 60s at big individual meetings like the Internationale when all the riders were wearing black leathers and had the same world symbol race jacket on and all had chromed bikes that looked the same.Couldn't tell who was who and that is why people stopped going I think.

[daveallan81 330]

sparkafag, on 15 Apr 2016 - 3:42 PM, said:sparkafag, on 15 Apr 2016 - 3:42 PM, said:

Decent stats but I can’t say it comes as a shock to me that in 2007 a summer when destructive floods wreaked havoc across the country and the month of June was one of the wettest months on record in Britain there was a number of rain offs.

 

Take into account 2007 recorded one of the wettest months on record and 2012 was one of the wettest summers in 100 years it seems pretty reasonable that there would be more rain offs now than ever before.

 

1976 is remembered as 'the long, hot summer' yet it returned more cancellations that 75 & 77.

 

You can't really read an awful lot into these figures because there are so many forces at work. As you say, you could have a period of catastrophically bad weather amidst an otherwise 'normal' year and the figures will shoot up.

 

Something changes around 1987. An enormous spike in cancellations. Prior to that season the average rate is 6.7%. Since 87 that figure more than doubles to 13.7%. This could easily be explained by the 'wetter summers' theory. But I doubt that is the full story.

 

This is a problem the sport has faced since day one. Just to give you a notion of the time frame we're dealing with here speedway pre-dates Mickey Mouse and Fleming had only just started on the road to discovering penicillin. John Logie Baird had only given the first public demonstration of televison two years previously, now your telly is the size of my first car. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to successfully fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 and now we've got folk living in a caravan in space. It's a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-ng time.

 

And what have the greatest minds the speedway world has ever known come up with? We put down tarpaulins. The sports number one enemy and we fight it using technology they sussed out 10,000 years ago.

 

Now you may scoff, if indeed scoffing is your want, but cancellations are and always have been the sports biggest enemy. You cannot cancel more than 1 in 10 of your prime attractions and not expect to piss people off in the process. Cancelling matches on the strength of the forecast is extremely risky, it does nothing but plant seeds of doubt in supporters minds and leaves you open to ridicule when the forecast turns out to be wrong and you could easily have run. I submit that promotions find themselves in the crazy position of losing less money if they call it off than they would if they ran. If that is indeed the case, then you have to question just how long that situation can feasibly continue.

Edited April 15, 2016 by daveallan81

[Shale Searcher 1,264]

 

1976 is remembered as 'the long, hot summer' yet it returned more cancellations that 75 & 77.

 

You can't really read an awful lot into these figures because there are so many forces at work. As you say, you could have a period of catastrophically bad weather amidst an otherwise 'normal' year and the figures will shoot up.

 

Something changes around 1987. An enormous spike in cancellations. Prior to that season the average rate is 6.7%. Since 87 that figure more than doubles to 13.7%. This could easily be explained by the 'wetter summers' theory. But I doubt that is the full story.

 

This is a problem the sport has faced since day one. Just to give you a notion of the time frame we're dealing with here speedway pre-dates Mickey Mouse and Fleming had only just started on the road to discovering penicillin. John Logie Baird had only given the first public demonstration of televison two years previously, now your telly is the size of my first car. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to successfully fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 and now we've got folk living in a caravan in space. It's a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-ng time.

 

And what have the greatest minds the speedway world has ever known come up with? We put down tarpaulins. The sports number one enemy and we fight it using technology they sussed out 10,000 years ago.

 

Now you may scoff, if indeed scoffing is your want, but cancellations are and always have been the sports biggest enemy. You cannot cancel more than 1 in 10 of your prime attractions and not expect to piss people off in the process. Cancelling matches on the strength of the forecast is extremely risky, it does nothing but plant seeds of doubt in supporters minds and leaves you open to ridicule when the forecast turns out to be wrong and you could easily have run. I submit that promotions find themselves in the crazy position of losing less money if they call it off than they would if they ran. If that is indeed the case, then you have to question just how long that situation can feasibly continue.

 

Absolutely spot on............

 

As it is now, the first sign of rain, anywhere near the track, and people think it's gonna get cancelled, abandoned, heat 10'd...

 

That "seed" of doubt is well and truly planted in supporters noggins, and they don't attend. The few that do attend, rattle around in a half empty stadium and then the staging promoter decides to cancel early the next meeting on a mildly "iffy" forecast that doesn't materialise, and the evening turns out nice, and that haemorrhages more supporters who lose interest with no speedway, they try some other event/sport/cinema or save the cash and go to Cardiff, knowing it's a banker...

 

Also social media can be great for garnering new spectators/fans, but equally it can damage the sport with so many negative, and sometimes damn right nasty/rude/spiteful posts about speedway and its problems especially unnecessarily cancelled meetings. Promoters should do everything in their power to get meetings on, not look for reasons to not run..

[Fromafar 10,333]

Absolutely spot on............

As it is now, the first sign of rain, anywhere near the track, and people think it's gonna get cancelled, abandoned, heat 10'd...

That "seed" of doubt is well and truly planted in supporters noggins, and they don't attend. The few that do attend, rattle around in a half empty stadium and then the staging promoter decides to cancel early the next meeting on a mildly "iffy" forecast that doesn't materialise, and the evening turns out nice, and that haemorrhages more supporters who lose interest with no speedway, they try some other event/sport/cinema or save the cash and go to Cardiff, knowing it's a banker...

Also social media can be great for garnering new spectators/fans, but equally it can damage the sport with so many negative, and sometimes damn right nasty/rude/spiteful posts about speedway and its problems especially unnecessarily cancelled meetings. Promoters should do everything in their power to get meetings on, not look for reasons to not run..

Absolutely spot on............

As it is now, the first sign of rain, anywhere near the track, and people think it's gonna get cancelled, abandoned, heat 10'd...

That "seed" of doubt is well and truly planted in supporters noggins, and they don't attend. The few that do attend, rattle around in a half empty stadium and then the staging promoter decides to cancel early the next meeting on a mildly "iffy" forecast that doesn't materialise, and the evening turns out nice, and that haemorrhages more supporters who lose interest with no speedway, they try some other event/sport/cinema or save the cash and go to Cardiff, knowing it's a banker...

Also social media can be great for garnering new spectators/fans, but equally it can damage the sport with so many negative, and sometimes damn right nasty/rude/spiteful posts about speedway and its problems especially unnecessarily cancelled meetings. Promoters should do everything in their power to get meetings on, not look for reasons to not run..

Spot on,my mindset has totally changed for the reason you have given.Give them 10 heats and they will be ok seems to be the norm if weather is still dodgy when meeting is due to start ,time wasted in starting these meetings probable meant the could have finished meeting if they had just got on with it.

[Pinny 2,536]

People saying poole have it easy as a towns solo sport are talking nonsense.

 

Bournemouths just down the road to go and watch PL football.

 

The reason they are so successful is because, like him or hate him and by right or wrong, matt ford is a damn good promoter.

[iris123 20,935]

People saying poole have it easy as a towns solo sport are talking nonsense.

 

Bournemouths just down the road to go and watch PL football.

 

The reason they are so successful is because, like him or hate him and by right or wrong, matt ford is a damn good promoter.

There is no doubt Ford is a god promoter.I am not sure anyone really has argued otherwise.Fact is there is no point in bringing the recent success of Bournemouth into this.They have played 90% of the time in the bottom 2 leagues and average generally around the 4-6,000 mark.Only in the last couple of season have they found success and only in the past season have they been in the PL,but Poole have been successful for much longer than that.Bournemouth 5 years ago,wuld have had little impact on Poole and that is or even before that,when the argument appeared that Poole have little competition.It will of course be interesting to see if continued Bournemouth success has an impact.It is though far too early to judge the situation