SpeedwayGB website?

[Lefty 1,268]

Is it time to drop the Promo Film ?

[Chris116 756]

Up until this season the news section always gave information if a match had been postponed for any reason but now all they do is remove the pre meeting promotion article and you have to go to the fixtures page to find out if the meeting has been postponed or if the website is just playing games and has lost the article for some reason. A bad case of not keeping your paying public up to date.

[uk_martin 1,606]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:03 PM, Lefty said:

So why doesn't each site have a link to the other to help promote the sport? Or have I just answered my own question??? 

The BSPZzz site only looks after its own self-interest, i.e. covering what it does, namely the British leagues.  That's it. As far as the BSPZzz are concerned, the rest of the sport can take a hike. Promoting the other aspects of the sport should be the domain of the SCB / ACU or even the FIM, in their opinion.

And this is where the media coverage of speedway in the UK falls down. There isn't a national media organisation that gives speedway the kind of coverage that say, WP does in Poland. WP (Wirtualna Polska) is like the Murdoch media empire of Poland, running TV stations, newspapers and online news too, most famously Sportowefakty which it acquired and added to its online empire a few years ago. Thanks to Sportowefakty all branches of the sport are covered, and not just in Poland but from many other countries where speedway takes place. 

If speedway were taken seriously by the general public, it too would feature in national press publications and we as fans wouldn't have to rely on the silo'd perspectives of those with only their own interests at heart. You could argue also that this is the role that the Speedway Star (at the very least) should be leading on...but hey ho..

Edited July 6, 2022 by uk_martin

[Trees 2,814]

15 hours ago, uk_martin said:

The BSPZzz site only looks after its own self-interest, i.e. covering what it does, namely the British leagues.  That's it. As far as the BSPZzz are concerned, the rest of the sport can take a hike. Promoting the other aspects of the sport should be the domain of the SCB / ACU or even the FIM, in their opinion.

And this is where the media coverage of speedway in the UK falls down. There isn't a national media organisation that gives speedway the kind of coverage that say, WP does in Poland. WP (Wirtualna Polska) is like the Murdoch media empire of Poland, running TV stations, newspapers and online news too, most famously Sportowefakty which it acquired and added to its online empire a few years ago. Thanks to Sportowefakty all branches of the sport are covered, and not just in Poland but from many other countries where speedway takes place. 

If speedway were taken seriously by the general public, it too would feature in national press publications and we as fans wouldn't have to rely on the silo'd perspectives of those with only their own interests at heart. You could argue also that this is the role that the Speedway Star (at the very least) should be leading on...but hey ho..

Are there not results in the national newspapers and a story now and again?

Surely Speedway Star does give results from all the leagues, what do you mean?

I wouldn't be promoting a company who stop my potential, self employed workforce from doing work for me either!

Do the Swedish and Danish speedway authorities give worldwide results on their websites, SVEMO don't, just looked.

[uk_martin 1,606]

5 hours ago, Trees said:

Are there not results in the national newspapers and a story now and again?  - Once in a while and when again???

Surely Speedway Star does give results from all the leagues, what do you mean? - Show me where please?  - https://www.speedwaystar.net/

I wouldn't be promoting a company who stop my potential, self employed workforce from doing work for me either!  - see below

Do the Swedish and Danish speedway authorities give worldwide results on their websites, SVEMO don't, just looked.  - see below

Your last two points show why the fans reliance on the leagues organising body's web site is the wrong way of going about it. Of course, SVEMO, the Swedish equivalent of the BSPZzz don't cover worldwide results, nor do the PZM in Poland.

Football, rugby cricket etc fans can get their news coverage from the web sites of the national papers, just like Polish speedway fans can (thanks to WP), in effect. It's just too bad that the national papers in this country don't (apart from a very "now and again") want anything to do with speedway at all let alone cover the global aspects of the sport on a serious or regular basis. British (& probably Swedish fans) being kept in the dark does nothing to promote the sport let alone any individual club.  Is it any coincidence that those sports that flourish in the UK are the ones where you can find out anything you want about Real Madrid, or Bayern Munich, or IPL cricket, or the All Blacks or Ferrari, etc. from British publications? Keeping a global interest in the sport keeps you attached to the sport and the local teams benefit from that interest and attachment. Not that the BSPZzz or the Speedway Star understand the first thing about that.

[Skidder1 7,637]

Speedway Star carries scores, reports and news from all the European leagues/competitions every week - along with Grasstrack news.

Incidentally, the Sun have a new(ish) weekly column on a Tues/Weds called 'The Inside Track' which covers all motor sports and has included a few bits and bobs about speedway (Dan Bewley; Woffy etc)

The Star also have Peter Oakes as a regular contributor.

[uk_martin 1,606]

On 7/7/2022 at 6:39 PM, Skidder1 said:

Speedway Star carries scores, reports and news from all the European leagues/competitions every week

Can you provide a link to that please?

[Skidder1 7,637]

8 minutes ago, uk_martin said:

Can you provide a link to that please?

You can get the magazine on subscription. Not sure if all the detail is in the online version  www.speedwaystar.net

[uk_martin 1,606]

8 minutes ago, Skidder1 said:

You can get the magazine on subscription. Not sure if all the detail is in the online version  www.speedwaystar.net

That's just the point though, isn't it? This is 2022 and this thread is all about web sites. Waiting a week to hear about what happened last night, in a paper magazine, is SO 1950's. But maybe that's just symptomatic of the whole sport, isn't it?

[Trees 2,814]

1 hour ago, uk_martin said:

That's just the point though, isn't it? This is 2022 and this thread is all about web sites. Waiting a week to hear about what happened last night, in a paper magazine, is SO 1950's. But maybe that's just symptomatic of the whole sport, isn't it?

You only have to be on social media to find out what happens in speedway, that's pretty 2022?  Who looks on newspaper websites for speedway news, I never hsve tbh? It's all about sharing the news on social media imo, speedway fans are notoriously crap at that though!!

[PotteringAround 633]

3 hours ago, Trees said:

You only have to be on social media to find out what happens in speedway, that's pretty 2022?  

Some people will whinge about anything.

When I was a kid I generally wouldn't know the result of an away match until I got home from school the following day and say the evening paper.  The only way of getting results the same night was the sports bulletin on Radio 2 at 9.57.  If they had 5 seconds left at the end of the 3-minute sport bulletin, they would say "and finally tonight's speedway results..." and then rattle through them at breakneck speed.  Otherwise I would have to wait to see a friend's copy of Speedway Star at weekend to know results from other clubs.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet,  not only do I know the result of every meeting within minutes of it finishing, I know every rider's individual score.  In fact I know the result of every individual race within about a minute of it finishing.  And I can even download a copy of the referee's official scorecard the following morning!    Not sure what more I could want.

[uk_martin 1,606]

On 7/9/2022 at 1:28 PM, Trees said:

Who looks on newspaper websites for speedway news, I never have tbh

Nor does anyone, I dare say, because finding speedway news in the mainstream press is like finding a needle in a haystack, and that assumes that the needle is in the haystack in the first place.

Any other sports though, and the BBC web site is my first port of call. Right now I can get updated on what's going on in the F1 GP and who's leading in Wimbledon. Not only that but I can read great write ups about yesterday's rugby internationals featuring all our home nations as they took on southern hemisphere teams in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa. Oh, and yesterday, I was getting score by score updates, as they happened, on the Australia v England match from the BBC via their mobile App.  That's a sports service done properly.

Accepting that the mainstream news outlets are never going to take speedway seriously again, it comes down to the likes of Speedway Star to service the audience. And if they did, they'd get a lot more people making use of their web site. Mind you, Speedway Star, being the puppet of the BSPZzz, I can't imagine that they will do anything that will upset their working relationship. If anything was to upset it, and if the BSPZzz decided to stop cooperating with SS, and the flow of press releases from teams to SS was to stop, the SS would be left out on a limb, wouldn't it?

Edited July 10, 2022 by uk_martin

[Normski 1,315]

On 7/9/2022 at 5:29 PM, PotteringAround said:

Some people will whinge about anything.

When I was a kid I generally wouldn't know the result of an away match until I got home from school the following day and say the evening paper.  The only way of getting results the same night was the sports bulletin on Radio 2 at 9.57.  If they had 5 seconds left at the end of the 3-minute sport bulletin, they would say "and finally tonight's speedway results..." and then rattle through them at breakneck speed.  Otherwise I would have to wait to see a friend's copy of Speedway Star at weekend to know results from other clubs.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet,  not only do I know the result of every meeting within minutes of it finishing, I know every rider's individual score.  In fact I know the result of every individual race within about a minute of it finishing.  And I can even download a copy of the referee's official scorecard the following morning!    Not sure what more I could want.

Radio Luxembourg used to do speedway results years ago

[chunky 6,093]

25 minutes ago, Normski said:

Radio Luxembourg used to do speedway results years ago

Aye, that's where I used to get my results!

[The Dog 413]

3 hours ago, uk_martin said:

Nor does anyone, I dare say, because finding speedway news in the mainstream press is like finding a needle in a haystack, and that assumes that the needle is in the haystack in the first place.

Any other sports though, and the BBC web site is my first port of call. Right now I can get updated on what's going on in the F1 GP and who's leading in Wimbledon. Not only that but I can read great write ups about yesterday's rugby internationals featuring all our home nations as they took on southern hemisphere teams in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa. Oh, and yesterday, I was getting score by score updates, as they happened, on the Australia v England match from the BBC via their mobile App.  That's a sports service done properly.

Accepting that the mainstream news outlets are never going to take speedway seriously again, it comes down to the likes of Speedway Star to service the audience. And if they did, they'd get a lot more people making use of their web site. Mind you, Speedway Star, being the puppet of the BSPZzz, I can't imagine that they will do anything that will upset their working relationship. If anything was to upset it, and if the BSPZzz decided to stop cooperating with SS, and the flow of press releases from teams to SS was to stop, the SS would be left out on a limb, wouldn't it?

It's hard not to agree with a lot of this tbh, but the biggest problem speedway has is that its a very niche and minority sport nowadays. All the PR in the world isn't going to pack stadiums out anymore, everyone knows this and this is why promoters won't throw money at it, it's a pointless exercise. 

The other sports you mentioned are known by nearly every person alive and that's where you get huge demand and interest. Although streaming is a modern concept for speedway, I can't see how it will attract any new people. All it will do is keep regular fans at home where they haven't got the hassle of traffic, parking, delays, rider absence at the last minute or a rain off at 7.28pm.

A Barry Hearn type would fail to find anything to turn the sport around because there are so many pitfalls they wouldn't know where to start. 

It's probably best being an amateur sport with clubs being able to survive on the few hundred paying customers that are left and the riders doing it as a hobby with enough to cover expenses.