Speedway Promotion or Lack of it.

[iris123 20,969]

3 hours ago, brandonmole said:

You reckon? - you obviously have no idea of how many of those 200,000 are interested in speedway - or even know about it.

Doh, that is the point !!!

[brandonmole 85]

17 minutes ago, iris123 said:

Doh, that is the point !!!

Doh! So having 2 or 3 Speedway Stars tucked behind the other motorcycling magazines is going to make a difference. Your point is ridiculous.

 

[Chris116 756]

The real point is that it should be the BSPA bringing Speedway to the attention of the general public and not Speedway Star losing money by selling through WH Smith's. 

[brandonmole 85]

12 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

The real point is that it should be the BSPA bringing Speedway to the attention of the general public and not Speedway Star losing money by selling through WH Smith's. 

Indeed it is Chris.

 

[iris123 20,969]

16 minutes ago, brandonmole said:

Doh! So having 2 or 3 Speedway Stars tucked behind the other motorcycling magazines is going to make a difference. Your point is ridiculous.

 

Seeing a speedway magazine on the shelf in a shop was the way I got interested again in speedway. With 200,000 people passing through the place I would say it is more important to have a few there than in a supermarket

The more people, the more chance of interesting someone. And people have more time to kill and look around in an airport anyway

Obviously you ain’t going to get that though, but not only was there plenty of football magazines, but they also had big ads with changing photos of Liverpool, ManU, Leicester City, Wolves and individual players..... and for good reason

[Guest]

A moment for consideration: a small oval car racing site details that sport's three day holiday schedule as:

(1) 2,000plus cars in action

(2) 28 tracks

(3) over three day holiday

I wonder what the total number of paying spectators and other speedway involvement will be when this is compared with the Bank Holiday speedway offerings?

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by Guest

[Piotr Pyszny 206]

On 8/10/2019 at 9:41 PM, chunky said:

We know that the media has never been reliable or consistent, and they just choose what they want to - or don't want to - cover, without there being any valid reasons.  We have to ask ourselves this :

Is the current state of British Speedway responsible for the lack of press and media coverage?

Is the lack of press and media coverage responsible for the current state of British Speedway?

Are the two inexorably connected, or is it just coincidence?

Even leaving aside our old friend Dave Lanning's contributions, we had the Sunday Mirror World Championship, results posted in the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express Spring Classic, the LBC Dons, results announced on Radio Luxembourg, team lineups posted in the London Evening News, the Yorkshire TV Trophy, and plenty more.  So, why???

As a print journalist for 33 years (who, incidentally, reported on a speedway club for three seasons - 1994-96 - while chief sports sub at an evening newspaper), I'll say this:

The press (and the wider mainstream media) covers the stuff it thinks is going to sell papers and interest a decent number of readers (or viewers/listeners). Choices have to be made because space (or air time) and resources (staff, mainly) are finite. On the whole, there are valid reasons for those selections. As speedway attendances have collapsed (in line, unfortunately, with the fortunes of print publications - but that's another story, as it were), so coverage has diminished.

Despite the advent and proliferation of DIY social media, lack of profile in the press (and the wider mainstream media) can't be helping speedway. I imagine millions have no idea what it is.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Piotr Pyszny

[chunky 6,090]

On 8/28/2019 at 9:52 AM, Piotr Pyszny said:

Despite the advent and proliferation of DIY social media, lack of profile in the press (and the wider mainstream media) can't be helping speedway. I imagine millions have no idea what it is.

My thoughts exactly...

[OveFundinFan 4,140]

Anyone know why Tai is not on the panel of Question of Sport.? Maybe he has and I missed it, but that would be good way to front speedway, when he gets his own questions may get a few bits of speedway action for his to answer questions on.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, OveFundinFan said:

Anyone know why Tai is not on the panel of Question of Sport.? Maybe he has and I missed it, but that would be good way to front speedway, when he gets his own questions may get a few bits of speedway action for his to answer questions on.

Maybe because Question of Sport is only interested in those sports which are attended in reasonable numbers by the sporting public.

[TheReturn 1,724]

On 8/7/2019 at 4:29 PM, Fortythirtyeight said:

Glasgow openly admit to spending £100,000 on advertising last year and it made no difference whatsoever to the average size of their crowd.

Its alright saying speculate to accumulate but it didn't work in Glasgow .

It depends how they utilised that £100k though.  There's advertising and there's effective advertising. 

The original poster is right, promotion of speedway is poor, the only place I have ever seen speedway promoted was when I lived in Bournemouth for a while, Poole speedway posters were everywhere.   I was sat on a tube years ago and I remember seeing a guy opposite reading a Polish newspaper and I realised a few minutes later he was reading all about Gollob. Targeted marketing for specific audiences, i.e Polish community for example could be tried.  If a club as a big Aussie name, they could appeal to Aussies in the area to come and support their countryman/ Lots that could be tried... if there is a will.

There's so much that the BSPA and clubs could do to promote speedway, but you have to get the basics right, for starters what's the first thing most non speedway fans will do if you manage to hook them with advertising?   They will go to Google and what will they be presented with?   Some of the most pitiful, unattractive websites there are, utter mess (some are better than others).   For example, go to the BSPA website and on the homepage it's a cluttered mess, fans will find what they're looking for eventually, but non fans will log off within 20 seconds IMO.   The first thing I would do on the homepage for non-fans is create a prominent UK map with the words 'find my nearest speedway action', which when clicked opens a clickable map of the UK with each track pinpointed, when clicked it displays stadium details, location, link to fixtures.  That's just one example. Another is we need short race clips of fantastic action on screen, nice and big and bold.  Need to build an active database of followers from the website too, create an enewsletter action sign up, you can even get clever with these and create regional enewsletters. 

My point is, speedway advertising and promoted is needed, but before that need attractive websites to ensure we retain hooks. The BSPA needs to stop giving it's media and website jobs to mates and in the case of website, spend the required £20k to develop a top website (done right, and maintained with new plugins when they become available you can get a good few years from).  

Just as a point, an example of a very good speedway website is the SGP website. Modern, attractive, not cluttered, good navigation, responsive (for devices).  The SGP website is very good, 8/10 perhaps, maybe even a 9.... the BSPA website fails on all the points just mentioned, it's not modern, it's ugly, it's cluttered, poor navigation, not truly responsive so you could only give it 1 or 2 out of 10.

But the other basic that speedway should look at is appealing to a younger audience, certainly here in the UK.   I was watching Swedish speedway the other night and they scanned the crowd and it was 50ish year old men, grey hair... speedway needs to find a way to bring in the younger generation, as someone else already stated, at the moment it's usually younger family members of those 50 year old men I would guess.

[RS50 359]

7 hours ago, OveFundinFan said:

Anyone know why Tai is not on the panel of Question of Sport.? Maybe he has and I missed it, but that would be good way to front speedway, when he gets his own questions may get a few bits of speedway action for his to answer questions on.

 Possibly his tattoos and those things in his ears put them off.

[OveFundinFan 4,140]

5 hours ago, RS50 said:

 Possibly his tattoos and those things in his ears put them off.

I had that on my mind as well, together with all the foul language he came out with whilst being interviewed. Of course he had many supporters on here for both those actions, a role model for youngsters. Difficult to get rid of those tattoos, virtually impossible, but regards the foul language, I recon the tv broadcasters warned Tai and all the other riders using bad language to cut it out or not get interviewed. Maybe sponsors had a say as well.

Having said that, I can see Atari has changed, he does a decent interview today and I enjoy his commentating efforts, not bad at all.

[DSC67 1,465]

Personally I don't think that the Tattoos are a problem, plenty other sports stars have them David Beckham for example had plenty and they never did his profile any harm 

[teaboy279 1,038]

19 hours ago, gustix said:

Maybe because Question of Sport is only interested in those sports which are attended in reasonable numbers by the sporting public.

Tai only rides in front of decent crowds though, the lowest being his swedish club which is still around 2000 average. And every competitive speedway match he has ridden in, in 2019 has been televised.

And tbf I ve seen badminton and table tennis players on there and they play world champs in front of a couple of hundred people.