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TonyMac

Time British Speedway went AMATEUR

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1 hour ago, iwright71 said:

Speedways demise is all the more galling when we are told by promoters and pundits alike that the product ie the racing is better than ever.

It needs to be better than ever 100% ....

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A first rate opening Post, on this very worthwhile Thread by tmc, with which I fully concur.

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9 minutes ago, The White Knight said:

A first rate opening Post, on this very worthwhile Thread by tmc, with which I fully concur.

Trouble is TWK, this subject has been discussed on here for years now. And, in the past, when it has been discussed, people got accused of being negative or being a troll etc. However, it does appear the brown stuff is hitting the fan. Not being negative, but perhaps being realistic, I don't think the situation can be easily reversed, which is perhaps stating the obvious and is also perhaps, the 'elephant in the room'?

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3 hours ago, stevehone said:

back to the day of riders using one bike and the sport being run like grasstrack here i think.

too many think the sport can sustain paying extortionate wages. it's not all about the GP riders, as the leagues become weakened then riders of a certain average become the sought after ones and their demands get higher which defeats the object of weakening

Brings back memories of an old Weslake on a bike rack, perched on the back of a Cortina, flip the bonnet up and charge the magic box

Edited by Bald Bloke
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19 hours ago, Ray Stadia said:

Trouble is TWK, this subject has been discussed on here for years now. And, in the past, when it has been discussed, people got accused of being negative or being a troll etc. However, it does appear the brown stuff is hitting the fan. Not being negative, but perhaps being realistic, I don't think the situation can be easily reversed, which is perhaps stating the obvious and is also perhaps, the 'elephant in the room'?

Spot on.

But its been "bleedin' obvious" for years what is wrong hasn't it but no one has led the required change..

Running a business whereby your employees completely dictate to you when they will turn up, as they have several jobs and yours may be the least paying, is a disaster from a successful business perspective...

Running a business in the entertainment sector but, in the main, not at weekends when the majority of the country have their free time, is also a disaster from a successful business perspective..

And charging an admission fee which only reflects the outlay to your employees, rather than the value of what you are selling, is again a disaster from a successful business perspective..

Yet Speedway in Britain feels that all this works..

Add in a tiny, small time, localised marketing plan, built around "bring a friend" and "speedway is a family sport" and you have what we have today..

All of the above make up the ludicrous unfit for purpose business plan and operating model..

Bottom line is there are too many professional riders..

This has been clear for at least a decade yet nothing has been done..

Year on year the leagues get less credible and more Mickey Mouse..

Year on year that results in less people paying to watch something becoming annually more and more devoid of credibility..

Year on year inflation busting price increases therefore come in to cover the shortfall of people who have stopped attending..

Year on year the inflation busting price increases to cover the shortfall of people who have stopped attending, means an even larger shortfall of people attending and the need for even further inflation busting price increases....

The result? A true race to the bottom...

A race which four clubs have 'won' in the past six months.

How many more will 'win' before the penny drops?

Or is the plan to actually let nature take its course and only the survival of the fittest remain?

Less teams will mean more competition for places...

And more competition for places means less money getting paid out as supply exceeds demand...

So maybe there is a brilliant cunning plan after all and 'less is more' will be the sports saviour..

Not holding my breath to be honest..

 

Edited by mikebv
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A lot of what holds us back as a sport is a lack of the product being put in people's faces online and on tv.

I don't know the ins and outs of everything but it's seems this seems to be because GO Speed??? own all the video and broadcast rights. Meaning that we (as a sport) can't go and offer the NL or Championship (For free!) To potential broadcasters, fans are being threatened with stadium bans for uploading heats to the internet. (No I am sorry but if your happy to watch grainy vids online to replace attending meetings and buying dvds, then chances are you was never going to go much anyway.)

Offer what is a fantastic raw and simple to follow sport is almost being kept in the shadows due to the stranglehold a middleman company holds over the entire sport in the UK.

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7 hours ago, mikebv said:

So maybe there is a brilliant cunning plan after all and 'less is more' will be the sports saviour..

Not holding my breath to be honest..

Me too, not holding my breath as I don't believe for a nanosecond that the BSPA is capable of coming up with a brilliant cunning plan of any kind. Totally agree with everything else that mikebv wrote. A race to the bottom and to extinction. 

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15 hours ago, BWitcher said:

I agree with many points in the post, but not focusing on the current fan base.. the current fan base is the biggest killer of the sport.

So we should ban admission to all those with grey hair? Or perhaps charge them double? Herd them into a section of the stadium where the sight of them does not put off the hordes of eager young new fans? That would be an easy way to discriminate against them despite the fact is that many of them have been keeping the sport going for 40 or 50 years. There really would be only tumbleweed and those few fans still 100% optimistic about how UK speedway is now run, left on the terraces.

Edited by waytogo28
additional point made
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Spot on !!!     What a pity there was not a voice on the BSPA  like  'mikebv' ,  someone who see the sport as it really is.     The sport in this country has been governed by short sighted people for far too long.   Only a fool would not grasp the fact that the ends have to met, and when failing to do that there is only one guaranteed outcome.  Each year the fans expect wholesale changes but they never come,   They appear to sit up in their ivory towers, distancing them from their loyal fan base.  believing the 1960s model can still work.    Rather than listen to the fans and their comments,  they turn a deaf ear......    

There's an old saying   ' you reap what you sow'   and that sure is correct as far as BSPA are concerned....

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TOO often on here, in my opinion, riders are accused of milking the honeypot and making a fortune. Extortionate demands, etc, etc. But, surely, it is worth remembering that speedway riders have a short (often prematurely short) and potentially dangerous career. And also that costs have risen massively since the "old days." even without expensive tuning. Looking at the CL this season ... a rider travelling from Eastbourne to Glasgow has a round journey of almost 1,000 miles. Conservatively that is likely to cost him £200 in fuel alone. Okay, that is an extreme but while I agree with much of what Tony Mac has to say (and Speedway Star is suffering massively from the mass exodus of fans from the sport) continual watering down of the product is not the answer.

Many moons ago a wise man said of speedway in the UK: You cannot keep cutting costs until there is nothing left. Sooner or later you have to increase revenue.

What remains infuriating is that the actual product can still be exciting, spectacular, enthralling, etc. But roughly 15 minutes of entertainment over a two--hour plus span is not enough for the current price of admission. Filling in the gaps doesn't have to be costly.

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1970's 19 hts per meeting good crowds and it worked 2018 15 hts with riders missing because they "had" to be in poland doesnt work simple !

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Talking about speedway's demise and what needs to be done has been over-indulged. I for one feel like I did on Christmas Day night after all that chocolate and stuff. 

There is no more to say. Ideas have been put across but the few people who are steering the sport know best.

 

 

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2 hours ago, waytogo28 said:

So we should ban admission to all those with grey hair? Or perhaps charge them double? Herd them into a section of the stadium where the sight of them does not put off the hordes of eager young new fans? That would be an easy way to discriminate against them despite the fact is that many of them have been keeping the sport going for 40 or 50 years. There really would be only tumbleweed and those few fans still 100% optimistic about how UK speedway is now run, left on the terraces.

I think the obvious point is to encourage younger people as well as the older people.

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1 hour ago, PHILIPRISING said:

TOO often on here, in my opinion, riders are accused of milking the honeypot and making a fortune. Extortionate demands, etc, etc. But, surely, it is worth remembering that speedway riders have a short (often prematurely short) and potentially dangerous career. And also that costs have risen massively since the "old days." even without expensive tuning. Looking at the CL this season ... a rider travelling from Eastbourne to Glasgow has a round journey of almost 1,000 miles. Conservatively that is likely to cost him £200 in fuel alone. Okay, that is an extreme but while I agree with much of what Tony Mac has to say (and Speedway Star is suffering massively from the mass exodus of fans from the sport) continual watering down of the product is not the answer.

Many moons ago a wise man said of speedway in the UK: You cannot keep cutting costs until there is nothing left. Sooner or later you have to increase revenue.

What remains infuriating is that the actual product can still be exciting, spectacular, enthralling, etc. But roughly 15 minutes of entertainment over a two--hour plus span is not enough for the current price of admission. Filling in the gaps doesn't have to be costly.

I am not blaming the riders. I would have loved to have raced speedway but wouldn't race my push bike without brakes let alone a 500cc driven machine. But you can't use the reason they are paid more than the sport can afford simply because it's a short career. The state pension age is now 67 or something, so even a rider who retires at 40 can expect to work another two and half decades.  

I blame a lot of speedway's current plight down to being weak and allowing riders to have too much leeway.

Edited by moxey63
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Just now, Grachan said:

I think the obvious point is to encourage younger people as well as the older people.

But how? I'd reckon four out of five people are introduced to the sport by family or friends. When the time comes that family and friends decide they can no longer follow the sport, who is there to introduce the next generation? Speedway is an exciting spectacle, but a kid soon gets bored of seeing what seems like the same race they have just watched.

Much of speedway's attraction is the filling in of a programme. Perhaps an idea would be to introduce it as part of a school's maths lesson and invite kids from local schools in class numbers. I was introduced by friends, got bored after a few races, but then was shown what a programme was like to fill in. Keeping scores and watching racing are important.

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