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Blimey..speedway on BBC1!

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On ‎9‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 9:47 PM, falcace said:

I am a bit puzzled why you bundled up women’s sport as examples of sports that speedway is ‘huge’ in comparison to. You must have your reasons.

Women’s cricket is still in relatively formative stages, but netball and swimming are definitely comparative or bigger.

We can all throw out sweeping statements based on nothing but opinion. But without any facts to back it up, it’s nothing but noise. Then again, there’s a lot of it about these days..

Let’s take netball. How is speedway huge in comparison? Number of participants? League spectators? TV ratings? Social media followers? Sponsorship revenue? What are you basing it on?

Even the most rudimentary bit of internet research demonstrates netball compares favourably to speedway.

Just because we like speedway doesn’t make it relevant to the British public. That might be unpalatable, but it’s a fact.

Steve might have misplaced his comparisons here, but he's still right.

His point is that other minority sports get places on the Sports Personality of the Year, so there's no reason why speedway shouldn't (especially given Woffinden's likely unprecedented third world title). 

Its not a question of minority sport, its a question of whether that sport fits (for whatever reason) with the BBC. That's simply got to be wrong. 

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1 hour ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Steve might have misplaced his comparisons here, but he's still right.

His point is that other minority sports get places on the Sports Personality of the Year, so there's no reason why speedway shouldn't (especially given Woffinden's likely unprecedented third world title). 

Its not a question of minority sport, its a question of whether that sport fits (for whatever reason) with the BBC. That's simply got to be wrong. 

It's always been that way...

Its just become more obvious over the past couple of decades as satellite TV has taken over most of what the BBC used to show..

I believe they are taking steps this year to prevent the orchestrated block voting for minority sports after Rea came second last year..

If only we could get a British, blind, one armed, non binary, dwarf winning a British Speedway GP...

Winner, winner, chicken dinner...

:rolleyes:

Edited by mikebv
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6 hours ago, mikebv said:

 

If only we could get a British, blind, one armed, non binary, dwarf winning a British Speedway GP...

 

 

You forgot female, gender neutral and ethnic minority.:P

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3 hours ago, Star Lady said:

You forgot female, gender neutral and ethnic minority.:P

And is a sexual assault survivor... i.e. a male touched her on the shoulder once in 1987.

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15 hours ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Steve might have misplaced his comparisons here, but he's still right.

His point is that other minority sports get places on the Sports Personality of the Year, so there's no reason why speedway shouldn't (especially given Woffinden's likely unprecedented third world title). 

Its not a question of minority sport, its a question of whether that sport fits (for whatever reason) with the BBC. That's simply got to be wrong. 

So, he hasn't been able to substantiate the outlandish claims of how significant speedway is in comparison to other sports.  So, if you are also going to hop on that bandwagon, then at least try and bring something compelling to the table of a) why speedway is so significant b) the big BBC conspiracy against speedway.  Otherwise, again, its just baseless paranoia. Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition.  Jonathan Rea, Phil Taylor, Kevin Sinfield are three that spring to mind. 

The challenge for speedway is not only is it a niche sport among the wider sporting world, it's small fry in even just in a motorsport context. Think of it this way...imagine every sport is a mountain and the base is made up of those with a casual interest, then supporters up to recreational participants, local level competitors, up to national level up to continental level up to world level and the best in the world at the top. Guys like Lewis Hamilton, Mo Farah, Andy Murray and Anthony Joshua are - or have been - up at Everest levels. Tai Woffinden is atop Snowdon. 

As for the BBC bias, well I reckon the most likely contenders this year will be Geraint Thomas, Anthony Joshua, Lewis Hamilton and Dina Asher-Smith, all apart from Asher-Smith are predominantly featured on rival broadcaster's channels. See if I am wrong in December and you can justify your paranoia.

13 hours ago, mikebv said:

It's always been that way...

Its just become more obvious over the past couple of decades as satellite TV has taken over most of what the BBC used to show..

I believe they are taking steps this year to prevent the orchestrated block voting for minority sports after Rea came second last year..

If only we could get a British, blind, one armed, non binary, dwarf winning a British Speedway GP...

Winner, winner, chicken dinner...

:rolleyes:

I hardly ever, in fact never agree with the SPOTY top three. We're all biased. But my preference would be for it to go back to an experts panel to avoid some of the block voting that can skew the real picture. Some sports can rally their followers much easier than others. That's why guys like Tony McCoy have won it  - rightly or wrongly. It's probably true that if Tai Woffinden was shortlisted he probably would do quite well as I suspect speedway supporters would rally round. But that wouldn't make it a fair result. No matter what, horse racing fans will always vote for a jockey, petrol heads will always vote for an F1 driver and Scots will always vote for anyone Scottish. ;)

7 hours ago, Star Lady said:

You forgot female, gender neutral and ethnic minority.:P

Lesbian and a muslim immigrant too? How witty! I had forgotten all about those 70s sitcoms. Comedy gold!  I really must pick up a copy of the Mail and Sun tomorrow to take me back to those amusing times of ridiculing minorities and the notion of inclusivity. Happy days.

3 hours ago, BWitcher said:

And is a sexual assault survivor... i.e. a male touched her on the shoulder once in 1987.

Classy.

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2 hours ago, falcace said:

 

Lesbian and a muslim immigrant too? How witty! I had forgotten all about those 70s sitcoms. Comedy gold!  I really must pick up a copy of the Mail and Sun tomorrow to take me back to those amusing times of ridiculing minorities and the notion of inclusivity. Happy days.

Classy.



Not classy, truthful. I have said nothing against actual victims, just those celebrities who seek to usurp them with their own 'look at me' story.
 

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On 9/29/2018 at 10:27 PM, keepturningleft said:

Speedway mentioned on BBC1 Breakfast again this morning.

A bit of a non article to be honest re Polish rider getting tangled up with the tapes.

But at least we saw the incident.and a bit of chat about when Mike had a go.

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And from the BBC Sport site:

Director of BBC Sport Barbara Slater said: "BBC Sports Personality of the Year is a much-loved BBC show that is constantly evolving. Bringing in these changes allows us to celebrate even further what has been an incredible year of sport whilst also paying tribute to the achievements of individuals.

"Announcing the much-anticipated shortlist at the start of the show will add even another layer of excitement to what is set to be a thrilling night for everyone."

As has been discussed elsewhere on the forum this is arrant tosh. It is intended to restrict choice to those the BBC want and those only; no sports that they don't televise or regard as worthy of an award. If the BBC were honest about it, it might not be quite so bad, but to pretend it is for 'another layer of excitement' ....      It will take at least a fire hose to extinguish your pants Barbara! :nono:

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Tai came across very well this morning. Good exposure for the sport. Cannot be bad that the BBC gave the sport this time. 

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Just happened to be flicking between Sky news and BBC when I saw speedway and there was Tai.

He came over very well, completely relaxed.  The sports presenter (can't remember his name) clearly knew a bit about speedway but he was chatting away to all three presenters.   Nice to have the big trophy there prominently in picture.

And Monster will be happy with their exposure as well. :)

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On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 9:56 PM, falcace said:

So, he hasn't been able to substantiate the outlandish claims of how significant speedway is in comparison to other sports.  So, if you are also going to hop on that bandwagon, then at least try and bring something compelling to the table of a) why speedway is so significant b) the big BBC conspiracy against speedway.  Otherwise, again, its just baseless paranoia. Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition.  Jonathan Rea, Phil Taylor, Kevin Sinfield are three that spring to mind. 

The challenge for speedway is not only is it a niche sport among the wider sporting world, it's small fry in even just in a motorsport context. Think of it this way...imagine every sport is a mountain and the base is made up of those with a casual interest, then supporters up to recreational participants, local level competitors, up to national level up to continental level up to world level and the best in the world at the top. Guys like Lewis Hamilton, Mo Farah, Andy Murray and Anthony Joshua are - or have been - up at Everest levels. Tai Woffinden is atop Snowdon. 

As for the BBC bias, well I reckon the most likely contenders this year will be Geraint Thomas, Anthony Joshua, Lewis Hamilton and Dina Asher-Smith, all apart from Asher-Smith are predominantly featured on rival broadcaster's channels. See if I am wrong in December and you can justify your paranoia.

 

Speedway, in comparison with many other sports, isn't significant.  But yet again you are missing - or, more likely, avoiding - the point. 

Given the title of this thread,  if Steve & I are suffering from paranoia so are a lot of others. Clearly, there is a belief within speedway circles that it does not get the coverage from the BBC it deserves in comparison with other minority sports (and that's the point) and I think that belief is well founded (at least, perhaps, until very recently). Only the other morning, the headline report on 5live was the number of uncapped players called up for the England women's cricket squad. 

I don't think there is a speedway fan who believes that it should attract the same attention as highly publicised sports such as boxing, motor racing or tennis. Women's cricket, on the other hand, is a very different matter. 

Womens' cricket at the top flight is semi professional and has just 6 teams. In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches. Speedway (and discounting the NL) has 18, and is largely fully professional. It would attract 20,000 fans over two weeks. 

As such this isn't a matter of speedway fans as a collective being paranoid or having chips on their shoulder. Its a matter of them asking for fairness and coverage not being determined by political correctness (as Mike bv has stated). 

As you have so rightly said : 'Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition'.

Woffinden can reasonably claim to be the greatest British speedway rider of all time - something that very few indeed (including Hamilton, Joshua, & Murray) can claim within their own sport.

Wouldn't you agree that that would mean that he would fall within the above category ?  

 

 

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As I've hinted at elsewhere in this thread there are quite clearly agendas in today's mainstream media and unless you play to that agenda you're very unlikely to get any regular coverage unless you make a major achievement (Tai Woffinden). If you take a look at attendance figures for women's football you'll see they're remarkably similar to that of Speedway (or what I'd guess speedway's to be), yet speedway doesn't get a look in. The best thing Speedway can do to get some consistent mainstream media coverage is to get a decent pool of female riders competing throughout all 3 leagues

Edited by iainb

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23 hours ago, Halifaxtiger said:

Speedway, in comparison with many other sports, isn't significant.  But yet again you are missing - or, more likely, avoiding - the point. 

Given the title of this thread,  if Steve & I are suffering from paranoia so are a lot of others. Clearly, there is a belief within speedway circles that it does not get the coverage from the BBC it deserves in comparison with other minority sports (and that's the point) and I think that belief is well founded (at least, perhaps, until very recently). Only the other morning, the headline report on 5live was the number of uncapped players called up for the England women's cricket squad. 

I don't think there is a speedway fan who believes that it should attract the same attention as highly publicised sports such as boxing, motor racing or tennis. Women's cricket, on the other hand, is a very different matter. 

Womens' cricket at the top flight is semi professional and has just 6 teams. In total last season 20,000 people watched all matches. Speedway (and discounting the NL) has 18, and is largely fully professional. It would attract 20,000 fans over two weeks. 

As such this isn't a matter of speedway fans as a collective being paranoid or having chips on their shoulder. Its a matter of them asking for fairness and coverage not being determined by political correctness (as Mike bv has stated). 

As you have so rightly said : 'Minority sports have been recognised when the achievement has been so great that it deserves recognition'.

Woffinden can reasonably claim to be the greatest British speedway rider of all time - something that very few indeed (including Hamilton, Joshua, & Murray) can claim within their own sport.

Wouldn't you agree that that would mean that he would fall within the above category ?  

 

 

Nope. I am not missing any points and I certainly never "avoid" any points or cherry-pick my way through a discussion. I am happy to debate on any point raised, as you will see below. I simply disagree with you. As you will see from my postings previous, I acknowledged that women's cricket is still a sport in its formative stages. Is it bigger or smaller than speedway? Well it's certainly debatable.

I am unsure where your figures on 20,000 fans attending league speedway over a two week period come from - are you able to share that source of information? Women's league cricket is definitely in formative stages and league crowds are small and I tend to agree on that front. I suspect they are lower than speedway's, which we can confirm when you produce those speedway league attendance figures.

But its World Cup Final sold out Lord's and was watched by 1.1m TV viewers on Sky Sports and 180m TV viewers worldwide. So, there's definitely a lot of wider interest in the sport. So whilst it might irk you that it gets a mention on 5 live, there is clearly an audience who are interested.

I hope the sofa appearance on BBC Breakfast of Tai Woffinden eased your rising annoyance over the BBC ignoring the sport. Again, the BBC showed their unique quality of offering fair recognition when it's due. Kind of renders the political correctness point as groundless doesn't it? But let's also not kid ourselves. There would have been other people with other sporting tastes watching that saying "Who cares? Why are they bothering with that Mickey Mouse sport?" Such is the rock and hard place that the BBC often finds itself positioned in between.

You wonder why you are not alone in disagreeing with me? Well, this is a speedway forum, used by speedway fans, who are biased towards...you guessed it...speedway. Naturally, a more neutral perspective is bound to get a kicking by some of the more blinkered among this happy band.

Finally, yes I agree Woffinden is the best British speedway rider of all time. Does that make him a greater sportsman than an Andy Murray for example? Of course not. Murray reached the top in a truly global sport in - arguably - its most competitive era.  Come SPOTY, I'm sure Tai's achievement will get a rightful nod, but even in pure motorsport terms, the significance of the achievement will likely come behind that of Lewis Hamilton (5th WC) and Jonathan Rea (4th WC) - and given the modest size of our sport, that's fair enough.

Edited by falcace
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8 hours ago, falcace said:

Nope. I am not missing any points and I certainly never "avoid" any points or cherry-pick my way through a discussion. I am happy to debate on any point raised, as you will see below. I simply disagree with you. As you will see from my postings previous, I acknowledged that women's cricket is still a sport in its formative stages. Is it bigger or smaller than speedway? Well it's certainly debatable.

I am unsure where your figures on 20,000 fans attending league speedway over a two week period come from - are you able to share that source of information? Women's league cricket is definitely in formative stages and league crowds are small and I tend to agree on that front. I suspect they are lower than speedway's, which we can confirm when you produce those speedway league attendance figures.

But its World Cup Final sold out Lord's and was watched by 1.1m TV viewers on Sky Sports and 180m TV viewers worldwide. So, there's definitely a lot of wider interest in the sport. So whilst it might irk you that it gets a mention on 5 live, there is clearly an audience who are interested.

I hope the sofa appearance on BBC Breakfast of Tai Woffinden eased your rising annoyance over the BBC ignoring the sport. Again, the BBC showed their unique quality of offering fair recognition when it's due. Kind of renders the political correctness point as groundless doesn't it? But let's also not kid ourselves. There would have been other people with other sporting tastes watching that saying "Who cares? Why are they bothering with that Mickey Mouse sport?" Such is the rock and hard place that the BBC often finds itself positioned in between.

You wonder why you are not alone in disagreeing with me? Well, this is a speedway forum, used by speedway fans, who are biased towards...you guessed it...speedway. Naturally, a more neutral perspective is bound to get a kicking by some of the more tunnel-visioned among this happy band.

Finally, yes I agree Woffinden is the best British speedway rider of all time. Does that make him a greater sportsman than an Andy Murray for example? Of course not. Murray reached the top in a truly global sport in - arguably - its most competitive era.  Come SPOTY, I'm sure Tai's achievement will get a rightful nod, but even in pure motorsport terms, the significance of the achievement will likely come behind that of Lewis Hamilton (5th WC) and Jonathan Rea (4th WC) - and given the modest size of our sport, that's fair enough.

Speedway's reluctance to publish attendance figures makes it difficult but....

There are 28 speedway teams in Britain. Accepting that they ride once a week over the season (which in reality they should) if each attracts an average gate of 400, then that's just over 11,000 people per week. Even if those figures are warped, if half the teams ride and the average gate is 300, that's still over 4,000 a week so speedway attracts the same number of spectators in just over a month that women's cricket attracts in a season. 

Its entirely possible that Belle Vue alone (Aces & Colts) pull in more than 20,000 in a season.  

Lords cricket ground holds 30,000. Cardiff gets about 40,000 for a meeting that isn't anywhere near as big as a world final. 

The only reason that coverage of women's cricket (and I have no issue with that sport, its viewers or players at all) annoys me is that speedway is - based upon attendance figures, the professionalism of the sport, the number of competing teams etc - easily bigger and that is nowhere near debatable. What they have on their side - as some have pointed out - is the massive advantage of political correctness and the BBC mention the male version and ignore the female one at their peril. 

I would certainly accept the bias of speedway fans and that the 'tunnel visioned' do exist, but here - and taking into account the above factors - a neutral (and possibly even someone biased towards women's cricket) would agree that speedway is most definitely the poor relation. Its little wonder, then, that speedway fans have a bit of a chip where this is concerned.

All credit to the BBC for some recognition and I thought both the interviewer and interviewed came across very well. The fact that it took them almost a week to do it is, however, relevant. My suspicion is the captain of the woman's cricket team would have been interviewed the same day had they won something as big.

I really don't understand - even allowing for the size of the sport and my undoubted bias - that someone who finishes 5th in the Formula 1 World Championship is worthy of a bigger mention and has achieved more than someone who has won his world title 3 times (also in one of the most competitive fields the sport has had) and, as we have agreed, is the greatest Britain has ever known. I doubt very much that Woffinden will win the BBC award - and its entirely possible that steps will be taken to ensure that he does not - but he most definitely deserves a nomination and I think that most speedway fans would be very happy with that. 

Edited by Halifaxtiger

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