How Do We Attract A New Young Audience?

[Skid Sprocket 243]

It would work if Bees were regular visitors to Wasps games and Wasps were banned from Brandon! I think links with other clubs can work especially on presentation and getting the sport/club noticed.

That is one thing that annoys me most. It cannot be difficult to put some advertising out and about the city, In Coventry you'd hardly know we had a speedway team. They do attend the odd local event and the advert at showcase cinema was good to see. I even offered on the FB page a year or 2 back to put a poster at my work where over 400 people work. Didnt get a response.

I wouldn't rely on offering I go direct to the marketing manager and get 100 or so, you get some very interesting conversations with pub and shop owners who don't even know what speedway is. I only get around 2% refusal and that's usually from national companies where it is head office policy.

[mikebv 10,298]

I don't mean reading on here to learn about speedway, I mean spread the word in pubs, clubs and on the street with posters and even a chat over the garden fence. All you can do on here is try and motivate supporters to act.

I think sadly that the unpalatable truth is that getting people to pay circa 18 quid to watch something that is, without meaning to be disrespectful, worth nowhere near that level of outlay will always be the major stumbling block..

 

Lets be honest the admission charges don't reflect the sport but its outgoings...

 

When a club runs a 'free meeting' the place is packed..

 

When a club runs a meeting for a 'tenner', the place is fuller than usual by a considerable margin...

 

All these people who attend the 'freebie' and the reduced admission meeting then disappear again when the £18 admission signs go up...

 

Therefore that suggests that the increased crowd level potential is out there. It is just that the key price point to attract them regularly isn't where it needs to be..

 

Maybe get the costs down so a tenner is 'the going rate' and enough adults may be there to let all kids in for free to build a customer base for the future?

 

One thing is for sure, keep charging £18 and £7 for kids just because you are paying £200 a point or a 3k basic to your No1 won't grow your business sadly...

Edited January 6, 2016 by mikebv

[uk_martin 1,606]

I don't mean reading on here to learn about speedway, I mean spread the word in pubs, clubs and on the street with posters and even a chat over the garden fence. All you can do on here is try and motivate supporters to act.

Yeah but we live now in a "what do others think" culture. Suggest a holiday somewhere and people look at what others say about it on TripAdvisor. Suggest a product and people read reviews on Amazon and ebay. Suggest speedway and where else will people find out what people are saying about it?

[ColinMills 1,728]

In that case then get the owners to supply the paint etc I'm sure deals could be done and everybody wins.

bit of advertising in exchange maybe

[Odds On 373]

I think sadly that the unpalatable truth is that getting people to pay circa 18 quid to watch something that is, without meaning to be disrespectful, worth nowhere near that level of outlay will always be the major stumbling block..

 

Lets be honest the admission charges don't reflect the sport but its outgoings...

 

One thing is for sure, keep charging £18 and £7 for kids just because you are paying £200 a point or a 3k basic to your No1 won't grow your business sadly...

 

Excellent post and hits the main problem on the head...£15-£18 for 15 minutes of entertainment is disgraceful, add to that you stand out in all elements and we all know that the first few races are processional and in some cases all 15 races are processional, any sign of bad weather and the riders don't want to ride as they have another fixture in another Country to ride in.

Speedway isn't worth £15-£18 a meeting, the only way this can be changed is to reduce costs, riders wages etc.

[speedibee 3,091]

 

Excellent post and hits the main problem on the head...£15-£18 for 15 minutes of entertainment is disgraceful, add to that you stand out in all elements and we all know that the first few races are processional and in some cases all 15 races are processional, any sign of bad weather and the riders don't want to ride as they have another fixture in another Country to ride in.

Speedway isn't worth £15-£18 a meeting, the only way this can be changed is to reduce costs, riders wages etc.

Spot on with reducing costs , what we need to do is get promoters and a percentage of supporters to take on board that foreign riders and superstars are not necessary , Eastbourne and Bham both dropped to NL last year and thrived , no superstars (only a few who think they are, but thinking that costs nothing ) and only 1 or 2 loophole foreigners . the national league today is like the national league in the 70's a product equally as good as any other , but at an affordable price

[Sings4Speedway 3,247]

Ive been harping on about this for ages but what clubs need to do is set out a defined pay structure when looking to sign riders and stick to it. e.g number ones £5, heat leaders £4, second strings £3 & reserves £2 (obviously not realistic figures but scalable depending on which league/team it is). Then as riders move up / don the pay in/decreases accordingly.

 

Clubs then approach riders and say this is the deal are you interested? There may be several rejections at first but there will be plenty of riders ringing the clubs come January when they do not have a team place anywhere.

[Gemini 4,894]

Because I like to annoy people............

 

https://www.facebook.com/janet.hambleton/posts/10154461960927785?comment_id=10154462063722785&notif_t=feed_comment

[Star Lady 5,400]

Because I like to annoy people............

 

https://www.facebook.com/janet.hambleton/posts/10154461960927785?comment_id=10154462063722785&notif_t=feed_comment

I think you need lessons in annoying people, I'm sure there is a forum member somewhere who is an expert and likes giving tips

 

Edit.

 

If only he would give me tips on getting smilies to work on mobile devices ggggrrrr

Edited January 7, 2016 by Star Lady

[Red Flag 454]

Ive been harping on about this for ages but what clubs need to do is set out a defined pay structure when looking to sign riders and stick to it. e.g number ones £5, heat leaders £4, second strings £3 & reserves £2 (obviously not realistic figures but scalable depending on which league/team it is). Then as riders move up / don the pay in/decreases accordingly.

 

Clubs then approach riders and say this is the deal are you interested? There may be several rejections at first but there will be plenty of riders ringing the clubs come January when they do not have a team place anywhere.

All sounds very nice but not in the real world, riders would resist until someone breaks rank,which they would then you back to survival of the fittest

[xmas 19]

I would think the heat leaders in the EL are on a lot more than £100 a point

[ch958 2,395]

i argued a couple of years ago on quite a long thread that it was a ten quid sport - based on what else you could do for a tenner - cinema etc

unfortunately it is too radical for the sports administrators to achieve - you would have to find a budget bike, persuade all but the elite that its not a full time job, etc

i got dogs abuse on here but facts are facts - the only way to get a good level of punters back is to charge a realistic figure

the elite league attracts crowds on a par with footballs conference north or south or even lower and they dont fly footballers in from all over europe - hardly any at that level are pros - usually semi pros

[Vince 9,458]

The thing I don't get is if the answer is lowering admission to £10 why are NL tracks not attracting lots of newcomers? The standard of riders isn't what stops new people coming along because they don't know the difference.

 

Not even entirely sure that getting people along and them enjoying the sport initially is even the answer, just look at towns where they re-open tracks after years of being without the sport. Weymouth opened and for the first couple of years pulled very good crowds indeed but over the years they gradually dwindled away to the stage where there weren't enough there to pay the bills most weeks. They had a lot of people helping out and promoting the sport but gradually the crowd dwindled down to a hardcore of regular support.

 

The same pattern is repeated throughout the history of the sport, new track opens and draws good crowds which slowly reduce year on year. I think weekly Speedway is too much for many people and fortnightly meetings would probably do better, however that is no good for paying landlords or riders.

Personally I think Speedway will pretty much muddle on as it has for years to come with peaks and troughs of support.

 

The one light at the end of the tunnel is the rise in popularity of amateur Speedway, the more opportunity there is for people to get on a bike the more are likely to go to watch weekday Speedway and take along family and friends. Hopefully alongside that will come a rise in the number of British lads capable of holding down team places at their local tracks. League clubs should be getting more involved with this, getting riders and Promoters along to meetings to look out for and help talented riders.

[topsoil 2,498]

Some very good points on here regarding cost cutting and paying riders. Here's a few of my thoughts:-

Firstly, riders need to realise that there are very few places in the sport for full-time professionals, perhaps only at the GP level. There simply isn't the money in the sport. If that means cutting back on equipment then so be it.

In an ideal world a pay structure could be brought in, whereby all clubs pay heat leaders a certain amount, seconds string likewise and reserves the same. But this is never going to happen as long as the sport is not policed. The Conference League was supposed to have a fixed pay structure but that was abused left, right and centre.

The sport in general needs to look at reducing costs. I don't know the answer because I am simply not mechanically minded. Anything that reduces the costs of buying and maintaining machinery needs to be looked into.

The sport needs to have a prolonged promotion to attract new fans. I hope other teams look at the example Glasgow were setting last season, as they seem to be doing a lot of good work and attracting a lot of attention to themselves. This will not happen overnight. A lot of clubs do good promotional work, then give up when they don't get overnight results. There will need to be a lot of hard work done over a long period of time.

[Paul Johnson 285]

For me its the price thats keeps people away, I tried last year to help Scunny attract new or to get stay away supportes back, People at work knew i was a speedway fan and saw the posters i put up, There were many that said they remembered going to to 2 old tracks but never been to the EWR, when i told them it would probably set you back just under £20 just for 1 they said no chance, especially when most went to watch Scunny Utd.Some who had been once or twice said reduce the price then we would go, £10 was the ideal price for them.

KIds definately have to go for free,Mums and dads would probably spend lots once in on food and drink for them.If we dont get kids interested then theres no future supporters, Scunny is great regarding kids as it has the mini track and if you can fetch a pushbike they ride round that all meeting long, also a mini park near the bar.Also with them riding round the track they can pretend they are their favourite riders, just like we all probably did growing up so hopefully they can get to go on small bikes in the training schools.

Put some upto date music on, get rid of the "now thats what i call music 7" cd, give them an opportunity to be club mascots every week, not just the same one ,make them feel part of the club, make it a place they want to go to, not because mum,dad had to bring them