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Phil The Ace

Fixed race nights... early indications!!!

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24 minutes ago, RobMcCaffery said:

If that 'tail' didn't keep supplying your league with tracks you'd be in even a far worse position than you are now. 

The result of a totally nonsense operating model which benefits no one....

Running any business which shares employees with others, and whose availabilty dictates to their employer when the operation can 'open for business', is pretty much doomed to failure I would suggest..

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5 hours ago, lastword said:

Hi,Phil,

As a regular at Aces meetings I agree that the attendance appears below expectations.

But do you have access to attendance figures or are you just taking a guess?

I have been once this year, (Pooles 'all conquering' septet tempted me)...;):rolleyes:

And have to say the crowd wasn't great even for that meeting and from what I have heard even less have attended the other Prem matches..

Over the past two years the Grandstand has looked most weeks I have been there around two thirds to three quarters full...

Against Poole I would suggest it was around half full...

And as the Grandstand holds around 1800 that alone is a few hundred missing...

In the South Stand where I go, I would suggest at least 150 - 200 less given the gaps between spectators that last year weren't there..

The 'Entertainment and Leisure' business do their promotions and 'specials' on a Monday for a reason...

And I am sure it's more necessity than any 'enthusiastic' choice that makes them do that...

 

Edited by mikebv

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4 hours ago, ouch said:

The big problem with speedway and it’s difficult for us to understand is that people don’t like speedway. 

We’ve all had the “is that still going” chat and even with that they don’t come again. Similarly I have mates that I keep asking to come along without success. Belle Vue have done school visits, work visits, radio adverts, city wide posters, been on both local evening news channels, been on Sky, ran cheap entrance meetings both Aces and Colts, we’ve been in shops, we’ve had posters for fans to give out, the list goes on and on but people just look and think it’s not for them. 

The demographic of fans is and has always been the most precarious as once money gets tight then speedway or similar is the first to go. Multi channel tv and the screen society has diverted their attention way from a night at the speedway. 

Dont get me wrong though the powers that be have done a great job of turning away fans, a mind boggling achievement in my eyes. 

2000-3000 crowds are still possible as we had only two decades or so ago, if the current group of promoters stop being dicks. 

 

 

You make many good points...

But one of the major issues the Sport has is exactly that it does all the 'Promotion' at such a very low level...

All well meaning I am sure, but visiting Schools or standing in a Supermarket lobby with club memorabilia on a folding table is miles away from a 21st Century advertising plan..

Instead of all doing their own advertising 'small time' at a local level, the Sport finally needs to run a properly executed National Marketing plan to see if that will change its fortunes..

The Nineteen Prem and Championship clubs should all have a directive to put £50k into a fund to hire a Company to advertise the Sport nationally..

To deliver the money, it would mean that over the 28 matches in the Prem you would need to trim your costs by less than £2k a match so I would suggest doable..

That would release £950k to hire a marketing company...

With crowds so low and so many people who 'used to go' living on the doorstep of so many tracks it surely would be a huge opportunity for some 'proper' marketing Company to make plenty of money on a commission basis.... They grow crowds and income, and get a share of the spoils...

Instead of paying almost a Million quid to todays riders who, with the greatest of respect, have little impact to crowd levels, it surely now is the time to invest that money in a Company that could increase those crowds..

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6 hours ago, mikebv said:

You make many good points...

But one of the major issues the Sport has is exactly that it does all the 'Promotion' at such a very low level...

All well meaning I am sure, but visiting Schools or standing in a Supermarket lobby with club memorabilia on a folding table is miles away from a 21st Century advertising plan..

Instead of all doing their own advertising 'small time' at a local level, the Sport finally needs to run a properly executed National Marketing plan to see if that will change its fortunes..

The Nineteen Prem and Championship clubs should all have a directive to put £50k into a fund to hire a Company to advertise the Sport nationally..

To deliver the money, it would mean that over the 28 matches in the Prem you would need to trim your costs by less than £2k a match so I would suggest doable..

That would release £950k to hire a marketing company...

With crowds so low and so many people who 'used to go' living on the doorstep of so many tracks it surely would be a huge opportunity for some 'proper' marketing Company to make plenty of money on a commission basis.... They grow crowds and income, and get a share of the spoils...

Instead of paying almost a Million quid to todays riders who, with the greatest of respect, have little impact to crowd levels, it surely now is the time to invest that money in a Company that could increase those crowds..

Brilliant proactive ideas that would put the sport into the shop window and promote the sport on a professional level.    Like you say, in this day and age  we need to move with the times.   Unfortunately the BSPA don't think like that, all their ideas are short term and most  are governed by personal gains.   Promoting on a professional level would be a sure-fire way to connect with the public and that could only benefit the Sport and the Promotors in the long run.

Going back to your original question and making conclusions about fixed race nights  (FRN)  is difficult.   The actual  Wednesday race night has not changed much for Lynn,  but because of the adverse weather, we have only been able to run 2 meetings, and one of them  we were missing 3 riders,  so without those FRN we could have changed the day for something more suitable.  I feel at the moment the  FRN appears to be working, but it will become  harder to sustain.   There have been many cancellations, and to fit them all in to the FRN schedule will be difficult.

I can understand your concerns,  Mondays  must be the worse night possible to hold your home meetings.   Belle Vue as a club, don't appear to have the persuasion powers as say Sheffield or Ipswich, who voiced their choice of race-night ,  when it would have obviously benefit the sport to comply with our European friends..  I find it laughable that teams like Sheffield can run with 7 riders who race in both divisions have that must power.    How can this sport be taken seriously when that happens.  

But not to worry,   as with all new ideas,  they will be changed next season and we'll have something else to  chew over... :t:

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So far as I know Belle Vue, as a new promotion, didn't have a vote at the AGM. 

It will be interesting to see the crowd tomorrow. Generally, we get good crowds on a bank holiday and particularly against Wolves. The weather is going to be good, it starts at noon, so no problems with school the next day for the kids and Belle Vue took over the complete front and back pages of the local paper to advertise the meeting. If the crowd is as good as on previous bank holidays it will be more evidence that the problem is the change of race night.

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11 hours ago, mikebv said:

Instead of paying almost a Million quid to todays riders who, with the greatest of respect, have little impact to crowd levels, it surely now is the time to invest that money in a Company that could increase those crowds..

Got to be one of the ways forward, as rider's names ( whoever ) on the team sheets seems to do little to "bring them in". Standardised 250cc bikes and handicap races should also be tried in an effort to make the sport more interesting and attractive to new supporters.

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17 hours ago, Phil The Ace said:

Nobody as access to attendces. So it seems anyway 

The BSPA Chairman has previously stated that attendance figures prove nothing. Perhaps when you add up the takings they do?

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27 minutes ago, waytogo28 said:

The BSPA Chairman has previously stated that attendance figures prove nothing. Perhaps when you add up the takings they do?

With comments like that no wonder the sport is dying.

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8 hours ago, waytogo28 said:

The BSPA Chairman has previously stated that attendance figures prove nothing. Perhaps when you add up the takings they do?

Well so according to him if nobody turned up for meetings that would be no problem. I know that I would rather set my sights on crowd of 2000 + than an empty stadium.

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On 5/5/2018 at 10:17 PM, Aces51 said:

There is obviously much wrong with the sport but the there is no significant difference between this year and last year so the only explanation for the significant drop in crowd numbers at Belle Vue must be the change in race night.

Monday may work for a team like Wolverhampton, who have a long history of racing on that night but it is probably the worst night of the week for the entertainment and leisure industries. That is why many offer incentives to try to attract people in. If you want the best chance of getting a decent slice of the leisure pound you have a far better chance on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I suspect that it was for those very reasons that the previous promotion changed from Monday, which was forced on them by their landlord and never successful, to Friday.

It may be that as the season progresses crowds will improve but I have my doubts. In fact, when the TV coverage starts in a couple of weeks I think that is going to tempt some more fans to stay away especially if the weather is bad.

People may blame TV coverage but that is only one meeting a week and how many times in a season is a club televised. What about all the weeks TV is not there? The biggest problems I can see is that there is a large number of riders who have other commitments, especially the foreign riders, this limits the choice of days when speedway can feasibly be run , so we see a hotch-potch of riders in a team, there is not a team any more to support, with guest riders in abundance.

Last year I remember Chris Harris guested so many times he must have appeared in about ever team in the League. Then we  look at value for money -- working out at £1 a race, plus programme, sometimes parking and travelling make attending a meeting making attending a meeting way beyond what they can comfortably afford. One can easily do a round trip of 40+ miles, or a few quid to travel, to attend a meeting, get there, and find at the last moment it is rained off. Not very encouraging, is it and can hardly be called good value for money and with more and more people having to watch their pennies speedway will take a hit if they do not soon do something about it.

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On 5 May 2018 at 7:35 PM, mikebv said:

You make many good points...

But one of the major issues the Sport has is exactly that it does all the 'Promotion' at such a very low level...

All well meaning I am sure, but visiting Schools or standing in a Supermarket lobby with club memorabilia on a folding table is miles away from a 21st Century advertising plan..

Instead of all doing their own advertising 'small time' at a local level, the Sport finally needs to run a properly executed National Marketing plan to see if that will change its fortunes..

The Nineteen Prem and Championship clubs should all have a directive to put £50k into a fund to hire a Company to advertise the Sport nationally..

To deliver the money, it would mean that over the 28 matches in the Prem you would need to trim your costs by less than £2k a match so I would suggest doable..

That would release £950k to hire a marketing company...

With crowds so low and so many people who 'used to go' living on the doorstep of so many tracks it surely would be a huge opportunity for some 'proper' marketing Company to make plenty of money on a commission basis.... They grow crowds and income, and get a share of the spoils...

Instead of paying almost a Million quid to todays riders who, with the greatest of respect, have little impact to crowd levels, it surely now is the time to invest that money in a Company that could increase those crowds..

Its no good spending the best part of a million quid to bring new fans through the turnstiles, if the  product on offer is do poor it can't even hold on to the existing fanbase.

Unless and until the governance and management is put on a sound footing its a waste of time spending money to bring in fans that won't stay.

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20 minutes ago, Daytripper said:

Its no good spending the best part of a million quid to bring new fans through the turnstiles, if the  product on offer is do poor it can't even hold on to the existing fanbase.

Unless and until the governance and management is put on a sound footing its a waste of time spending money to bring in fans that won't stay.

Again, very wise words. The sport in Britain needs a thorough rebuild from the bottom upwards. Get the foundations right then focus on building the top layers. Making the sport value for money, or to leave the customer believing they have had value for money is fundamental. A credible structure with a solid, respected rule book and a focus on the customer is a crucial start. Giving the customers credible teams with minimal absences, racing to make them want to return and a regular and reliable fixture list is the next layer. Once you have a sustainable product then start shouting about it to the world.

To even begin to follow that path there has to be a massive change in attitude in all corners of the sport. Somehow, despite all that has decayed so far I don't think there is the will, intelligence or integrity to tackle the job .... yet. 

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On ‎05‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 5:33 PM, Phil The Ace said:

What do we think now we're a few month into the season? 

 

We have since found out Denmark take priority over Wednesday's meetings. So we've already had guests in 1 meetings. 3 to be precise. 

 

I can only speak for belle vue but our crowds have fell probably approx 500 ppl moving to Monday from Friday. And that's when we have had nice weather and the world champ in town. 

 

Clearly for my club who have had to change race nights it's not working. What about the others that have changed what's your crowd like?????

Its affected my attendance at Belle Vue. When you wake at 4.45 for work getting home at 10.30 or so isn't the best.

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5 hours ago, RobMcCaffery said:

To even begin to follow that path there has to be a massive change in attitude in all corners of the sport. Somehow, despite all that has decayed so far I don't think there is the will, intelligence or integrity to tackle the job .... yet. 

In my opinion there definitely isn't. And will not be until the sport has collapsed in on itself, black hole style, in the UK. The BSPA and a number of others really seem to believe that"there is not much wrong with it" and carry on regardless. Foolishly thinking that the next rule change or re-naming will bring a flood of new fans, sponsors and loadsa money!

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Oops, sorry, thought this thread was about a Matt Ford betting probe? Still, they’re bound to get more than 35 at Blunsdon today? :)

 

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