mikebv

Sadly the current way of using everyone else's best rider to boost your own chances of success, whilst at the same time said rider potentially knocking himself, his team, and their fans, out of the play offs, is never going to meet with any major sponsor approval, at both club and national level.. If it is "all we have" and I do realise it is, then "something else" is definitely needed to make punters want to turn up... What that is? I suppose we will never find out...

Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank for me...

All bang on points... The bottom line though is that there isn't enough (pardon the pun), riding on the results, or enough "entertainment" to be had... Same old, same old, guestfest after guestfest, simply doesn't cut it anymore does it? T20 Cricket, The Hundred, Snooker's Shoot Out, Premier League darts, all are aimed at a "night out" as well as the sport itself... And all those sports did what they did as they had the similar demographic of followers as Speedway so knew doing the same thing as crowds dropped would only end badly for them, and they needed a "new following"... "Pygama cricket? Not watching that!", the places are now full of those who want to.. Seven rider teams, 15 heats, 4 laps, no brakes, faster than a F1 car 0-60, "This dedication is for Elsie who is 79 years young today and her favourite rider of all time is Ole Olsen" etc etc etc ad infinitum... Oh. "And bring a friend"... Yawn...

The problem now is that crowds are so low that "winning at home" is key to maintain them, (or at least keep a loss of numbers within cost controls)... You can see from how many times when many mention to others about the sport that the reply is "Speedway? Is that still going? I used to go", shows it was the racing they went for, not the team aspect.. BV is an obvious example where so many "used to go" but thought they had closed down.. If any sports team you had emotional investment with closed down, you would know.. Nowadays that home win can keep the punters who are left, returning as, I presume that is what floats their particular boat...

Been twice, and the 2nd time was only to see if the first time being so poor was a "one off".. It wasn't ..... One of those tracks that average riders, who can gate, can do pretty well at... Not great to watch, but sends the home fans happy with the win most weeks... Victory at home, not entertainment, is the priority for most clubs, with a select few being able to serve up "exciting" home wins...

When it's all going so well, who needs to advertise...?

Absolutely no need for any of that... You only have to see the joy on the faces of the managers and promoters during the TV meetings to see how seriously they take it to know all is well, and that they must be delighted at the way they run the sport, and the direction of travel that they have the sport heading in.... They certainly don't need any outside help from "professionals" in expert fields given they run things so well... More of the same next season please..... And the season after.... And the season after that.. And the etc etc etc (If it still is going)...

Wow....

I would hope that the event had a different limited liabilty company made up to promote it...

Poland have Thursday, Friday, Saturday (and Sundays) tied up... Thursdays given away by the UK... As previously said, post Covid was the time for a "complete reset, and relaunch"... With over a year of no speedway, the sports followers would have been open to some innovation, and radical changes... It got none of the above...

The improving of the levels hasn't worked either it appears, but will have increased costs.. No disrespect to any riders, but hardly any of them put "bums on seats", so lose one "middle level" rider per team and invest that money into marketing.. £40k or so would interest someone to get involved in the marketkng of a club surely? Especially if you add on some commission based on income growth.. Maybe even all 7 could join forces and nationallv advertise? When trying to gain new fans, or getting ex fans to return, the big plus they currently have is that each club is pretty much down to the hard core so any "watering down" won't impact the die hards, and any newbies or ex fans will have either zero knowledge or little knowledge of who the "top riders" are.. And if the clubs keep the "top twos" you would still have GP stars to advertise.. Doing the same old, same old certainly isnt cutting it, so some innovation to the operating model is long overdue....

You cannot get away with what you could do in these days of instant information. For me, I think each top division team should lose their 3rd HL and run six rider teams.. Thus 'spare riders" become available to replace injuries and loss of form.. And. Whilst not knowing all the salary info, I would guestimate, for a season, the 3rd HL would be picking up £35k to £40k, or so... Therefore, use that money as a promotional budget locally... Keep your "crowd pulling" top two.. Same costs but maybe a different outcome crowd wise..? Edit: and use a fit for purpose RR facilty...!!

And yet promoters will still expect their own fans to fork out several hundred quid a season knowing that their own No1 could help another team to a better season than his own ends up with.. A rider could quite conceivably ride himself out of the play offs...

But in those days you had a fair few people in front of you to take the most impact..

Birmingham crowd wise are a "natural" NDL or Championship side 500 to 600 crowds might just get them competitive in the Championship... But would be "very decent" in the NDL... Definitely down to their die hards, so might as well try and run NDL on Mondays, with those in charge of UK Speedway recognising the need to keep tracks going so they allow them to...