The Start Of The Decline

[george.m 3,063]

Would it necessarily be speedway related?

What about alternative forms of entertainment?

 

Speedway's hardcore support won't have decreased as much as the rest which would be easier drawn away.

 

Colour TV in the early '70s (depends when you think the decline started)

Sky TV - Especially live Premier football games

[Fromafar 10,375]

Lay -Down engines that led to banked and slick tracks .Take banking off tracks and that will slow the racing down and we may see some overtaking.

[Starman2006 2,355]

Lay -Down engines that led to banked and slick tracks .Take banking off tracks and that will slow the racing down and we may see some overtaking.

 

Might be looking good at poole this year then!

Edited January 13, 2013 by Starman2006

[Vince 9,458]

When they stopped calling Speedway dangerous and started with the 'family sport' image building. It was a family sport anyway but in the 60's many of the kids annuals and comics would have something about Speedway and it always emphasised the risk. That also applied to the newspapers. My memory is not good enough to say whether their coverage decreased in line with the spectators but I have a feeling the sport fell out of popularity with the press before it did with the public.

 

To my way of thinking the idea of promoting Speedway as a family sport was very much 'selling coals to Newcastle' what teenager wants to like the same things their parents do unless they can say they do so for different reasons?

 

There is a lot more competition for peoples money anyway so I think spectator numbers would have declined no matter what but the marketing has been poor.

 

For me the racing is at least as good as I have ever seen (I believe better) and rose tinted glasses bear a lot of responsibility for people knocking the sport.

[HAMMER57 27]

Hard to say really

Cost maybe but what other sport can you see some of the best in the world for 17 quid

Lay down engines maybe as a lot of money spent on tuning now

But i think what really puts the fans off is going to a meeting and seeing your team lose because of

that B----Y silly TR rule if the team has ridden to a good lead let them keep it.I think it would also stop

top heavy teams ie Poole last year

[Jonny the spud 2,281]

Failing to move with the times, Supercross was unheard of 30 years ago, now with loud modern music and razzmatazz they pull in hundreds of thousands of young (and old) fans worldwide. Speedway spends too much time looking backwards then wonders why other forms of motorcycle sport are way ahead of them. I'm trying hard to think of another kind of motorcycle sport that has declined so much from its former glory and what do people moan about on here ???????

 

ehh in the old days we had 2 valve zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[skydog 156]

Although I remember it, I was too young to know what the impact was... but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the News Of The World.

[waiheke1 4,295]

i've got programmes/speedway stars from the 80s lamenting the decline of speedway, so it must have started in the 70s or earlier.

causes mentioned back in the 80s were slick tracks/poorly prepared tracks which didn't provide exciting racing, too many mediocre foreigners, people having less money/competing attrractions etc. - pretty much the same complaints as today!

I guess in terms of the British League being the number one one world speedway, the fall of communism and rise of speedway (and presence of money in speedway) in POland was one fo the main factors.

1980 was i guess the last year that England was a superpower of speedway, grandslam winners, then of course the following year i believe it was either the SCB or the BSPA made the brilliant call of refusing to allow Peter Collins to ride either for England or in the world championship as he was takeing a year out from British domestioc speedway, Mike Lee started to go off the rails, and arguably never since have England/GB been the sports leading nation.

Of course the decicsion in the early 70sfor Great Britain to mean just that, rather than includign the commonwealth nations, was also a pretty big factor, if the Aussies raced for Team GB of course GBwould still be a super power with a reigning world champion.

in terms of crowd attendances, i'm guessing speedway has technically been in decline since the end of the boon post-war years of the 40s/50s?

and as someone eslse has already mentioned, tvs becoming a standard household feature (rather than a rare luxury) was porbably a significant factor in declining attendances.

 

Its not all doom and gloom though - last seasons's GP series was superb (IMHO) in terms of the quality of racing, and the 2013 series has arguably one ogf the great all time lineups, personally i can't wait for it to kick off MArch 24th at Western Springs

[ShadowCaptain 57]

Not sure I agree with the premise that speedway did something wrong that started the decline. Was the problem not that speedway did nothing while other sports worked hard to modernise, and to retain existing supporters and get new supporters?

[Gatwick Rocket 53]

This is an interesting topic. Clearly over a lengthy period of time the decline can be attributed to more than one thing. For me the biggest negative developments have been:

 

1. The 1950s entertainment tax, which massively reduced crowds and saw a number of tracks fold

2. The 4-valve engine and then the lay down engine, for successively ramping up the cost of taking part and making it more a contest of machine than a contest of man

3. The points limit, which penalises success and rider loyalty as promoters form new teams each year

4. Absence of track covers or other means of preventing meetings being postponed due to weather

5. The limited effort put in to promote the sport to new customers (as far as I can see)

6. Planning laws that make it nigh on impossible to establish new tracks, which severely restricts the ability of the sport to expand its geographic footprint

 

The proliferation of alternative forms of entertainment hasn't helped but speedway needs to get its own house in order rather than blame others.

 

PS I've got programmes from the 1950s with promoters complaining that crowds are down to single figure thousands so please bring a friend

[topaz325 1,859]

I blame Thatcher.....every year someting happens its the end for Speedway.....its still here....for now!!

[cityrebel 2,960]

_{in my era 1968 onwards, the start of speedway's decline was the loss of wembley as a world final venue after 1981. within a couple of seasons the BL had started to lose long established top flight venues like wimbledon, hackney, halifax, leicester, poole and birmingham. some to the NL and others to redevelopment. the BL never recovered from losing these tracks and it's been going downhill ever since.}

[michaelcroucher 30]

SPeedway was decline when speedway stadiums start to close down. ALso when big sponors got invlolved. Takling about whe riders use to turn up with 2 bikes and thats it was true but if you look at the GP nows. tomasz gollob turns up he has 19 engines with him just for the weekeend. Thats stupid. Also if you look at what a rider gets now compare to what they use to get. Its not a sport as it use to be its a business.

[oldace 1,678]

Although I remember it, I was too young to know what the impact was... but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the News Of The World.

 

It was the Sunday People not the NOTW

 

SPeedway was decline when speedway stadiums start to close down. ALso when big sponors got invlolved. Takling about whe riders use to turn up with 2 bikes and thats it was true but if you look at the GP nows. tomasz gollob turns up he has 19 engines with him just for the weekeend. Thats stupid. Also if you look at what a rider gets now compare to what they use to get. Its not a sport as it use to be its a business.

 

It is a bit of a myth that speedway was ever really a credible successful sport for any sustained period.

 

The late 20s/early 30s it was a new phenomenon but it was in decline within a few years. Team racing was invented and that gave it a boost before the war. Of course the war put paid to most racing for 6 years and when the war ended the nation were clamoring for live sport and so speedway was in demand but by the early/mid fifties it was in serious decline again. The formation of the British League in 1965 gave the sport its longest period of stability (16 or 17 years) but by the early 80s it went into decline again, a decline that has continues to this day. In a history of 85 years probably only 25 years has the sport been really popular

[ch958 2,395]

Oldace, great post and it puts things in proper perspective. For me I believe we should reduce expenses to a level commensurate with crowd levels, even if it means losing star names. The sport is essentially about 4 evenly matched riders racing - doesn't have to be world names. Plenty of PL fans, NL fans never see world class names and yet they still pay to go in and watch. And are entertained.