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What a difference in stadiums

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2 hours ago, Skodaman said:

A lot of lower level football stadiums are not owned by the clubs!

Indeed. We did have a little discussion about Dulwich Hamlet a while ago and how they are searching for a new stadium as the owners of their have been playing about. Think kicked them out once and they played at Tooting and Mitchams ground. Local council has fund a new site for them though.....

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3 hours ago, nw42 said:

They did have a blank piece to start but it was still within the confines of what was already in place around it, the track was always going to take precedence and as you know they got that absolutely right.  I imagine the rest was down to space available and financial constraints, there is room to upgrade it if ever the need arose but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Spot on. You get the feeling that the track and the grandstand were the absolute priorities and the rest was managed with what funds were left. The back straight is obviously a temporary structure but I enjoy watching from there as much as the seating in the opposite side. 

I’m sure with a bottomless pit of money the NSS could have been the greatest speedway arena in the world but in reality there were financial constraints. Having a blank canvas misses the point rather. 
 

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It is a bit like chalk and cheese discussing a multi billion pound backed sport like Football and what Speedway has, and as a regular in the 80's and early 90's many football grounds were dreadful..

Sadly it took tragedies such as Heysel, Hillsborough and Bradford to move forward the stadia in football, as "all seater" became the norm, and a pre requisite to gain entry into certain levels..

To do this many clubs received large grants to help make the changes.

And then Pay TV companies started paying in billions which encouraged many more to invest for the future by upgrading their stadiums..

What Speedway could do though, given all their restrictions, is to improve the "look" of the stadiums similar to how the football clubs have done with empty stadiums during Covid.. 

Not a space in front of a camera has been missed to advertise, and Speedway, particularly when on TV, has lots of empty spaces which these "seat covers" could be used to display sponsors names and next match details etc..

Covering empty terracing, either seated or standing, with some branded advertising for the club for example, would add colour, improve the professional look of the place and improve "brand image" massively to the person watching at home..

I always think the NSS is perfect both down the back straight and the grandstand to move fans into sections (making it look fuller straight away) and giving "blocks" over to advertising covering the seats, and sections of the back straight..

There is loads of TV coverage of these areas in every single race which could also earn the track a few quid in extra revenue by allowing sponsors or even just local businesses to rent it for the night..

Like a lot of things, it doesnt always need much money throwing at something to make it look better and more appealing..

Edited by mikebv
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Yes

When I go to WH Smiths, the football magazines are all right at the front, and if they have a Speedway Star at all, it is tucked away. Is that the cause or the effect of speedways decline I wonder ? You might also ask why when you are 80 years old, you can't run as fast as when you were 20 ? Or why you don't catch as many fish with a rod and line as a trawler does with a large net.....or that piece that Eric Cantona said about seagulls or something :D

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4 hours ago, Skodaman said:

A lot of lower level football stadiums are not owned by the clubs!

And the some "top level" football clubs like Coventry City have to pay rent to Rugby Union clubs like Wasps.

...now Rugby Union - there's an interesting comparison. Compare the parkland and open fields that many rugby clubs played their matches on in the "amateur days" of the 1970's (when Speedway touted itself as the 3rd biggest spectator sport) to where they are playing today, as a benchmark of what could have been.  I was well impressed by the Llanelli stadium that hosted the Wales v England match on Saturday. One sport on an upward trajectory and another sport on a downward spiral.

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5 hours ago, iris123 said:

I Heard- Stock Cars also have crap stadiums. Nothing to be compared with F1

Stock Car fans are in uproar because they like Stock Cars so think they should be racing at Silverstone. 

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30 minutes ago, uk_martin said:

I was well impressed by the Llanelli stadium that hosted the Wales v England match on Saturday. One sport on an upward trajectory and another sport on a downward spiral.

The match, however, was the usual barely watchable, overhyped dross - scrum follows line out follows kick follows pick-and-drive - one expects from modern international rugby union. 

The backdrop to rugby league's Super League Grand Final, the previous evening, the KCOM Stadium, Hull, was pretty impressive, too. And the action on the pitch rather more interesting.

On the point about grants for football clubs: much of that money was generated by football itself. Plenty has been made available to non-league and grassroots clubs. In terms of the quality of facilities, compared to other sports, it shows.

The local authority-owned Shay, Halifax, track removed and rebuilt on one side and at both ends, is now a very smart stadium - something I'm afraid it never was when the Dukes were in residence. The town's football and rugby league clubs, co-tenants, are the beneficiaries.

Sadly, most of British speedway's facilities are stuck about the period - mid-1980s - speedway finished at Halifax.

 

Edited by Piotr Pyszny

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1 hour ago, Piotr Pyszny said:

Sadly, most of British speedway's facilities are stuck about the period - mid-1980s - speedway finished at Halifax.

As recently as the mid-1980s? Many years before that IMO!

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33 minutes ago, JohnHyam said:

As recently as the mid-1980s? Many years before that IMO!

Ha, ha. Some, I grant you, are more dilapidated than others.

Edited by Piotr Pyszny
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I believe if possible that the current numbers of stadiums will eventually become obsolete. Some may remain in private hands .. 

The sport should look to move to arenas on grass Circuits with shale - temporary seating - lower costs and family focused - cadets - juniors - teams - semi professional set up as community interest companies - as a proper constitution - with the broader focus on the community - families and re addressing the mistakes of the past and moving away from the old private individual owners business format . so profits can be reinvested into the sport - supporters clubs - memberships etc . 
 

Re - establish their sport under a new business model 

 


 

 

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13 hours ago, Ben91 said:

I know of a rich man who has a nice house and a poor man who has a not so nice house. 
 

 

...and I know a poor man who doesn't have (own) a house at all. If he wants to have "an event" he has to  rent it for one day in a week.

He has no ways, or more precisely the money for improvement or modernisation, so his "do's" are staged at places which people less and less want to attend. No sitting , no proper loos facilities, but entry to it cost more money than an average working man wishes to part with.

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23 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

I always felt that with the NSS they had a blank piece of paper and that’s the best they could come up with ? When you see something like Toruń or gorzow or even Łódź which are very basic in design but very effective and creates their own atmosphere even when you walk into them when they empty they give you a sense of a special place ,the NSS doesn’t do that, 

yeah, lets build a 10k plus seater stadium for a sport that attracts a couple of 1000 fans on a very good day

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21 hours ago, JohnHyam said:

Not sure but isn't the Ipswich motorsport stadium - speedway and oval track car racing - also council owned? I think that the present main stadium tenants -  Spedeworth Motorsport - are there on a 100 year agreement (or something akin to that).

I think the land that Leicester is built on is owned by the council and out on a 99 year lease

19 hours ago, iris123 said:

When I go to WH Smiths, the football magazines are all right at the front, and if they have a Speedway Star at all, it is tucked away. 

I hope you move them all to the front doing your bit for the sport :lol:

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37 minutes ago, iainb said:

I think the land that Leicester is built on is owned by the council and out on a 99 year lease

I hope you move them all to the front doing your bit for the sport :lol:

I do that in my Tesco. .:D

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1 hour ago, Phil The Ace said:

yeah, lets build a 10k plus seater stadium for a sport that attracts a couple of 1000 fans on a very good day

Łódź stadium is only slightly bigger capacity than Belle vue and is rarely over half full but has that wow factor about it, Belle vue is nice but no wow about its design, a speedway stadium should be like a gladiatorial arena, it should make you feel part of it and Belle vue doesn’t capture that although I will say it’s better on the back straight than in the seats 

Edited by THE DEAN MACHINE

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