Could Speedway Move Forward With A Hearn Type.?

[waytogo28 2,054]

Neatly sums up the situation -

 

"IF British promoters were to run the sport properly and people got value for money they wouldn't need any Barry Hearn type."

 

Too much vested interest and far too much of " I know best" from those in a position to influence the direction of speedway within the BSPA.

[The White Knight 9,039]

Neatly sums up the situation -

 

"IF British promoters were to run the sport properly and people got value for money they wouldn't need any Barry Hearn type."

 

Too much vested interest and far too much of " I know best" from those in a position to influence the direction of speedway within the BSPA.

.......................... add to that bending of Rules in self interest. :sad:

[New Science 1,059]

To be fair anybody could do for speedway what Barry Hearn has done for darts

Simply

1: Go to Sky and demand a lucrative long term TV contract. Tell Sky you offer then exclusive access to the worlds best all year round, insuring them a standard of the sport never seen before with guaranteed entertainment , all with the back drop of a sell out attendances with a bouncing atmosphere.Then get other broadcasters interested bidding against Sky for a piece of the pie.

2: Go to sponsors and get them bidding against each other to become event lead sponsors or associate sponsors, allowing them to promote their business to a varied demographic of sell out crowds and utilise numerous add breaks in front of an increasing TV audience.

3: Charge the punters coming to watch 25 quid bottom price rising to in excess of 50 quid for finals night and increase the price periodically.Involve a large travel company to offer corporate hospitality at major events and ticket and hotel packages. And last but not least flood the market with merchandise.

 

Unfortunately from this you can see speedway's shortcomings and why darts and speedway are going in the opposite directions . Not even an entrepreneur like Barry Hearn could fix speedways shortcomings

[Humphrey Appleby 13,955]

You can't compare speedway with darts and snooker. It's relatively simple and cheap to stage a darts or snooker tournament, they're easy sports to televise, and you can scale the prize money according to what sort of audience you get.

 

Barry Hearn got into both sports at a time when the professionals were earning a pittance and there wasn't much in the way of governance so it was easy to take control. The competitors also largely move around on the same circuit, so he's not really competing with other leagues and can control the costs.

 

We can argue about Barry Hearn's role in football, but I think it would be fair to say he's not had the same success in that sport. It's a completely different governance and cost model which is impossible for one individual to influence significantly.

 

Speedway has the problem of needing specialist venues, expensive track preparation and more complicated television requirements, before you even get to the issue of environmental stuff and having to compete with other teams and leagues for riders. It's very difficult to control the product and costs, and unlike darts and snooker, the average person will never have 'played' speedway so you're always going to be up against it trying to interest a new audience.

 

Barry Hearn seems to have been very successful and good luck to him, but I don't think the conditions are right in speedway to replicate what he's done with darts and snooker. In any case, he possibly already looked at speedway in the past and decided to steer well clear.

[Vince 9,458]

Obviously you don't know anything about darts.

There is no such thing as the darts GP series.There is however The PDC Darts Premier League which runs for 16 weeks from Feb until May. This is a weekly thursday night fixture shown on sky tv and held in big arenas which attract upwards to 12000 supporters.

Judging by Witchy's reply to your post you obviously don't know anything about Leyton Orient or Barry Hearn's tenure of that club either.

16 nights x 12000 = 192000 for the year which wouldn't be close to Speedways annual crowds.

 

The point that you can't compare something that runs weekly throughout the country with something that happens once or twice a year locally is very important in my opinion. I can go and watch a good standard of darts (probably equal to PL Speedway) in my local for free and most certainly won't get trampled in the rush to find a viewing point.

[New Science 1,059]

16 nights x 12000 = 192000 for the year which wouldn't be close to Speedways annual crowds.

 

The point that you can't compare something that runs weekly throughout the country with something that happens once or twice a year locally is very important in my opinion. I can go and watch a good standard of darts (probably equal to PL Speedway) in my local for free and most certainly won't get trampled in the rush to find a viewing point.

Don't forget the 66 thousand tickets sold for the recent world championships. Its probably fair to say that over 250 thousand tickets for PDC darts were sold in this country this year. They could sell more, most venues are sold out and next years World championship is anticipated to be staged at a bigger hall at the current venue.These tickets will cost 25 quid bottom price going up to 60 quid for the finals where as, most on here are calling for speedway to be a 10 pound sport

[BWitcher 12,453]

Don't forget the 66 thousand tickets sold for the recent world championships. Its probably fair to say that over 250 thousand tickets for PDC darts were sold in this country this year. They could sell more, most venues are sold out and next years World championship is anticipated to be staged at a bigger hall at the current venue.These tickets will cost 25 quid bottom price going up to 60 quid for the finals where as, most on here are calling for speedway to be a 10 pound sport

 

Let's not forget also, you're effectively paying to go watch tv.

[THE DEAN MACHINE 4,740]

If your walking down a street and you see a cardboard box you walk past it , if you see the same cardboard box with 50 people round it you stop to have a look , as Guy Martin says "crowd creates a crowd creates a crowd creates a crowd "

[Shale Searcher 1,264]

And don't forget how expensive darts is to compete....

 

You need at least 1 set of darts, a spare set of stems and a couple of packs of flights, oh, and a piece of chalk....

 

Thick end of £75!!!!

 

And the noise!! And finding somewhere to practise, and all those trick dartboards, you know, the tiny slick ones, and then you've got the large ones abroard!

 

Then you need a fully ply lined van, a state of the art workshop, a couple of mechanics, and all that safelty wear, trainers or shoes, big sized shirt.... The costs are astronomical to compete in darts, and then the injuries, since the flights regs were changed, there's so many more serious accidents in darts.....

[Bryce 349]

Regarding Barry Hearn, my son does some coaching work for Leyton Orient and he assures me that every single member of staff off the pitch would have him back tomorrow over the Italian guy that now owns the club.

 

Regarding the concept of a high profile mogul coming in and revamping the sport, I believe it's never going to happen for one simple reason. The people currently running and owning the clubs are not interested in the bigger picture. Most of them seem content to just scrape an existence from season to season. Short of an extremely rich person literally buying them all out, it's a non starter of an idea; and anyone that rich is probably not going to throw that amount of money away to own a dying sport.

[keepturningleft 589]

Shortly before Christmas, my local paper, the Huddersfield Examiner, carried an advert on the front page advertising a stock car meeting at the Belle Vue dog track.

This ad was in the form of a long strip stretching the width of the paper and covering about a fifth or so of the entire front page in a newspaper advertising an event that wasn't even happening in the same town/city.

 

Perhaps speedway just needs to similarly start banging the drum with more basic tactics.

[BWitcher 12,453]

If your walking down a street and you see a cardboard box you walk past it , if you see the same cardboard box with 50 people round it you stop to have a look , as Guy Martin says "crowd creates a crowd creates a crowd creates a crowd "

 

It really is that simple.

 

And yet it's a concept that for 17 years has passed speedway by as they broadcast meetings in front of empty stadia.

[THE DEAN MACHINE 4,740]

 

It really is that simple.

 

And yet it's a concept that for 17 years has passed speedway by as they broadcast meetings in front of empty stadia.

once they get them in that's where the Bspa really need up their game and do their bit because if they just find out it just a cardboard box with nothing in it the will walk away again

[cityrebel 2,960]

The biggest advantage darts and snooker have over speedway is they aren't affected by the weather. The mere threat of rain is enough to decimate the crowd at most meetings.

[New Science 1,059]

The biggest advantage darts and snooker have over speedway is they aren't affected by the weather. The mere threat of rain is enough to decimate the crowd at most meetings.

Makes you wonder how the ECB sell every ticket for every day of an Ashes series in England 9 months in advance at 80 pound a pop when the weather in England in the summer is so bad. Blaming the weather for the decline of speedway in Britain is lame.