Why speedway is failing

[GAH 409]

53 minutes ago, KeirStarmerFan said:

Speedway is very expensive for what it is. £20 for 15 one-minute races is a joke.

I can go to Lord's for £100 and watch play from 11am to 6pm. That's a whole day's worth of entertainment. You can also take your own food and drinks.

Take it down a level and you can watch County Championship matches for £10.

We need to reduce the cost of bikes and have more races. We should have 30 heats, rather than 15 at a very minimum!

cricket entertaining  do me a favour boring zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[dontforgetthefueltapsbruv 10,706]

17 minutes ago, GAH said:

cricket entertaining  do me a favour boring zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Now your contributions are more understandable...

No class or taste 

Edited July 14, 2021 by dontforgetthefueltapsbruv

[GAH 409]

22 minutes ago, dontforgetthefueltapsbruv said:

Now your contributions are more understandable...

No class or taste 

5 days to find  a winner boring boring boring  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[TINYS 292]

Would rather watch paint dry than watch cricket 

[Falcon1983 557]

5 hours ago, Midland Red said:

Can you really make a 20 heat meeting a day out at each track?

You dont make it a full day, you make it worthwhile in terms of what you get for your money, so it could be that events are hosted two hours before the event starts

 

Meet the riders, getting photo opportunities on bikes, signed photos etc.

You could have a speedway workshop with an ex rider talking through what a speedway bike is, set ups, etc. Which for a new fan or a child would be quite interesting 

Maybe open the sport up to an onsite mobile betting company and have betting stations 

Meet and greet the pit girls

Meet and greet legends of british speedway ex british champions

Virtual reality speedway simulator

Merchandise stands

Speedway museum stands

Probably more to add if you really think more into it

 

For £15/20 you'll walk away thinking that was value for money 

[Daniel Smith 5,661]

43 minutes ago, Falcon1983 said:

You dont make it a full day, you make it worthwhile in terms of what you get for your money, so it could be that events are hosted two hours before the event starts

 

Meet the riders, getting photo opportunities on bikes, signed photos etc.

You could have a speedway workshop with an ex rider talking through what a speedway bike is, set ups, etc. Which for a new fan or a child would be quite interesting 

Maybe open the sport up to an onsite mobile betting company and have betting stations 

Meet and greet the pit girls

Meet and greet legends of british speedway ex british champions

Virtual reality speedway simulator

Merchandise stands

Speedway museum stands

Probably more to add if you really think more into it

 

For £15/20 you'll walk away thinking that was value for money 

What the hell is this nonsense 

Speedway is on it's backside because people are walking away (or dead) & not being replaced. 

All the above are catering for those that are already at the meetings. 

A newbie will have zero interest in bike setup's, meeting formats, ex-rider's, merch, museum pieces etc. This comes later if you regularly keep returning. 

All you've done is run off stuff YOU'RE interested in & will add nothing to bring in outsider's. 

Apologies as I know I've been a quite rude but these ideas keep being rewashed year in year out. Not meaning to be angry at you but this isn't what's needed. 

I've seen mentions of 20-30 heats too, why?? 15 heats are pretty boring now so why make people hang around for an extra hour of more boring racing?? 

Speedway is a very very simple sport. It just needs to stop all the modern day faffing about, delays between heats, fixed 2mins like GP's etc. There needs to be a hige crackdown on track standards, these bikes don't like grippy tracks. Make them all slick. 

1hr 30mins per meeting as standard, from parade to parade. 

It needs to be all students free. 

2 meetings, mid summer, £5 adults & concessions.

200-300 free family ticket giveaways in town / city centres & / or supermarkets. 

Get scheme's set up with Primary / Secondary School's. 

 

Basic basic basic ideas. Speculate to accumulate. Speedway doesn't need to be clever, it just needs to get "The Main Event" right. Get that right, everything else will fall in to place. 

[Falcon1983 557]

6 hours ago, Daniel Smith said:

What the hell is this nonsense 

Speedway is on it's backside because people are walking away (or dead) & not being replaced. 

All the above are catering for those that are already at the meetings. 

A newbie will have zero interest in bike setup's, meeting formats, ex-rider's, merch, museum pieces etc. This comes later if you regularly keep returning. 

All you've done is run off stuff YOU'RE interested in & will add nothing to bring in outsider's. 

Apologies as I know I've been a quite rude but these ideas keep being rewashed year in year out. Not meaning to be angry at you but this isn't what's needed. 

I've seen mentions of 20-30 heats too, why?? 15 heats are pretty boring now so why make people hang around for an extra hour of more boring racing?? 

Speedway is a very very simple sport. It just needs to stop all the modern day faffing about, delays between heats, fixed 2mins like GP's etc. There needs to be a hige crackdown on track standards, these bikes don't like grippy tracks. Make them all slick. 

1hr 30mins per meeting as standard, from parade to parade. 

It needs to be all students free. 

2 meetings, mid summer, £5 adults & concessions.

200-300 free family ticket giveaways in town / city centres & / or supermarkets. 

Get scheme's set up with Primary / Secondary School's. 

 

Basic basic basic ideas. Speculate to accumulate. Speedway doesn't need to be clever, it just needs to get "The Main Event" right. Get that right, everything else will fall in to place. 

I never said it was to bring in new fans, what I listed is to get current and old fans off their behinds and to attend meetings, that should be the first thing that the sport does reconnect with existing fans as they know what the sport is about, so you make the grand prix series I've mentioned already more of an experience by offering things additionally,still people have the option to turn up 15 minutes before the racing

I've not mentioned anything about what I would do to attract more fans, this is all purely for a grand prix style British championship 

[iainb 5,011]

6 hours ago, Daniel Smith said:

I've seen mentions of 20-30 heats too, why?? 15 heats are pretty boring now so why make people hang around for an extra hour of more boring racing?? 

Speedway is a very very simple sport. It just needs to stop all the modern day faffing about, delays between heats, fixed 2mins like GP's etc. There needs to be a hige crackdown on track standards, these bikes don't like grippy tracks. Make them all slick. 

1hr 30mins per meeting as standard, from parade to parade. 

I only say 30 heats because if you do away with all the faffing about you're still only left with 15 minutes of action, you have to give the punter some sort of feeling of value for money, it could all be over in 30-45 mins with no faff and people maybe leave feeling short changed.

I think 15 heats are pretty boring because they are spread out sometimes over 2 and a half hours, there's still quite a lot to admire even in a poor race. The interminable delays often mean a meeting has no flow or momentum and the atmosphere can go flat very easily.

One of the many down turns in Speedway was the loss of the old 2nd half. I can only speak on what initially got me interested in Speedway and it was the noise I could hear from about a mile away, I badgered my dad to take me along to see what the noise was and in those days at Leicester it was free admission to the 2nd halve, we went to a number of those together, then started paying to watch the main match. The 2nd half also allowed promotions to get local companies involved with sponsored rider of the night trophies and a sprinkling of "junior" races to help bring on future talent. All in all there were around 20 races in the evening. It all stopped, if memory serves, because the riders got greedy and wanted extra appearance money for the 2nd half events, what a very short sighted view and we're now reaping what they sowed.

It's obviously going to take a hell of a lot more than that but that's a start to get new people coming along again.

 

[Guest compost]

I think that Speedway is failing because the core product is flawed when looked at in a modern light.

Most of us appear to agree that the sport has many fundamental flaws - clubs not owning stadiums and those stadiums belonging (with possibly the odd exception) in the 60's & 70's, too expensive, poor value for money, an ageing supporter base, 'teams' of guests and no consistency, a governing  body that seemingly doesn't have a clue on how to govern, be fair and not look beyond its own self interest, and so on (the list of complaints/issues is indeed long).

Many say that the 'core product' of 4 riders doing 4 laps on machines with no brakes is okay, it's everything else that's at fault.

But is it ?

As far as I can recall there have been many ideas tried and none have changed the seeming downward spiral the sport finds itself in.

Maybe it's time to be radical.  Maybe scrap Speedway as it currently is (cue howls of outrage from the vested interest) and invent 'new-Speedway'. Go electric (still with no brakes as that is one of the few good selling points), race clockwise and do 2 laps with 30 heats, add your own outlandish comments and ideas but do something outside the box. How about have a governing body that actually cares about the sport enough to save venues and clubs !!?   I'm not saying what to do, just do something outside the box.

Because if something isn't done, and soon, then the sport will end up with a couple of venues holding half a dozen individual meetings a year and that's all.

And thanks for the memories, quite a bit of it was good while it lasted.

[Deano 1,318]

My kids are just not interested. I always ask if they want to go when I go, but all I get is "who wants to stand up all night watching that". The things that gripped me, the smell, the excitement, just doesn't appeal anymore to kids.

[iainb 5,011]

1 hour ago, Deano said:

My kids are just not interested. I always ask if they want to go when I go, but all I get is "who wants to stand up all night watching that". The things that gripped me, the smell, the excitement, just doesn't appeal anymore to kids.

When did you start attending?

[Skidder1 7,636]

It would be interesting to get a senior rider's perspective on Paul Bowen's 'chart of failure' and maybe also a promoter's view as there are some that frequent this forum.

[Deano 1,318]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

When did you start attending?

I think it was about 75 or 76 I would have been 4 or 5 years old. Horns , rattles the announcer/presentation pulled me in.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Deano

[iainb 5,011]

25 minutes ago, Deano said:

I think it was about 75 or 76 I would have been 4 or 5 years old. Horns , rattles the announcer/presentation pulled me in.

About the same time as me then, it sounds like the overall atmosphere attracted you, there used to be big crowds in those days though. Tough to generate an atmosphere with no fans and long gaps between races. 

[Deano 1,318]

Yes no atmosphere these days. Also I can say a 5-1 in speedway doesn’t generate half the energy levels in me that a try gives me in rugby.

some serious marketing is needed on what grabs the under 16 and the 16-30 attention and holds them. What speedway does now isn’t working.