Does UK speedway need a new televised product?

[Toady 231]

35 minutes ago, truthsayer said:

A Euro league would be the perfect 'made for TV' product but with the same riders racing in each country it's just not viable.

But what you say is the dilemma speedway faces. Any good 'product' requires paying the money, so it's a bigger gamble because you have to gain more income through gate receipts, TV income and sponsorship.

But (and I understand why) we're going the other way, with costs being cut to try and balance the books. It's understandable, but the product suffers and it's only going to end one way.

Unfortunately the main issue with gate receipts is the dwindling amount of gates left to go through.Perfectly good businesses have closed down(Swindon) in recent times because of greed with more to follow i am afraid.

League racing has always been better than pointless open meetings as fans never support these for long you only have to look at the Cardiff attendances to see that.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Toady

[iainb 5,020]

9 hours ago, Najjer said:

In addition to what you have said, even the Poles don’t support individual events other than the main Polish Championship.

Anything that isnt their team they aren’t interested. I watched one of the events at Poznan earlier this year and Buxton probably got bigger crowds than that one.

Open meetings used to attract massive crowds in Poland back in the day before their league became number 1. That's because they got the chance to see the big stars when normally they wouldn't... now they can see them every week in a league match so an open meeting doesn't generate much interest

[Ben91 1,743]

43 minutes ago, truthsayer said:

While I don't really disagree with you, I would add that the promoter's job is to run their own business to make it profitable. 'Doubling up' (I don't really have a problem with it TBH) is cheaper than importing or developing new riders, so it's hard to blame them for that. Personally I have more problems with guesting, where riders can ride for a dozen clubs in a year.

The lack of riders coming through is a core problem and that's caused by a mixture of things, but comes back to my age old gripe that speedway does nothing for people who want to access the sport as competitors.

Riders have power as there is a shortage of supply and have to make a living. The biggest issue is that these things can't be fixed overnight. Time is not on speedway's side, so five year plans are not really an option when surviving the next five days is often not guaranteed. The structure of the sport is mad. There's no direction, because it's not run by someone with a vision but by a committee of stakeholders.

The trouble is, self interest and short sightedness sees promoters doing the best for their own businesses and killing their competition off at the same time. Then all of a sudden they have no opponents to race and their business dies too. 

Guesting is as bad an evil as doubling up. But doubling up is a huge cause of the “lack of riders,” which isn’t true by the way. There just aren’t enough riders of the standard British Speedway tries to run at. Why? Because the existing riders are taking up all the team spots, so there are fewer left for up and coming riders to fill and develop in. 

The team element of speedway makes it unique to other motorsports. That should be embraced, not scrapped. 

In any other sport you can’t be a full time professional unless you are very good at your sport. That isn’t the case with Speedway and it is a huge problem on multiple levels. If you want to ride you should be prepared to pay your way and invest and graft until you reach a level where you can turn it into your profession. Otherwise if you need an outside job to help fund your hobby then so be it. 

If a rule was put in place in the winter where riders were allowed one club only then they’d have to cope with it and long term it would help the sport massively. But nobody has the bollocks to do anything for the greater good, only for their own short term benefit, all the while the cancer spreads. 

[iainb 5,020]

6 minutes ago, Ben91 said:

If you want to ride you should be prepared to pay your way and invest and graft until you reach a level where you can turn it into your profession. Otherwise if you need an outside job to help fund your hobby then so be it. 

The trouble is the riders feel they need super tuned rocket ships, wheel rims with their names on and a chair in the pits with their logo on and all this costs, so they have to be professionals. Standardised equipment also needs to be looked at... but we've been through all this before and it's all getting rather tiring now 

[Star Lady 5,400]

You can have all the brilliant meetings in the world but if the presentation team and director are rubbish folk will turn off. 
Kelvin Tatum may well know Speedway inside out but his constant using and ahi g is annoying in the extreme. Have him as an expert by all means but with a professional presenter. The same with the pits reporter, no one has come close to Sophie Blake IMHO. Don’t get me started on director using fancy drone, side on start pictures in real time. Leave them for replays.

rant over

[truthsayer 234]

3 minutes ago, iainb said:

The trouble is the riders feel they need super tuned rocket ships, wheel rims with their names on and a chair in the pits with their logo on and all this costs, so they have to be professionals. Standardised equipment also needs to be looked at... but we've been through all this before and it's all getting rather tiring now 

This 100% but also comes back to the point I keep coming back to: if you are a speedway rider you pretty much have to be a league speedway rider, there are no facilities to simply race for the fun of it, or to ride to progress to a higher level.

Speedway is at the level of semi-professional football in many ways, but with much higher overheads. I get it, the days when riders could have a full-time job and then race at weekends is largely gone with Monday and Thursday racenights. Equipment is more highly tuned (expensive) and so they have to take all the bookings they can get to make it a profession. Standardised equipment/sealed engines is a way to reduce costs for sure, but that can be either part of a reboot of the sport or part of the race to the bottom.

In every other national motorsport less than the top 1% are earning really good money, with another 2-3% earning a living or covering costs, with the vast majority paying for their hobby. Accept speedway is different, but the percentage of 'professional' riders is way too high. They're not doing it 'for our entertainment' they are either doing it to make a living or for the thrill of the race (or a combination of both) so don't let that cloud your view. As a spectator, you pay to help them do their sport!

[bellevueace 913]

15 hours ago, Bavarian said:

Forget it. There is nothing like league teams racing. So please, not another individual series, we already have the SGP and the SEC, that is more than enough.   

Here in Germany we had the German Speedway Masters series, which was in principle run extactly like what You propose here, as a combined individual and club team competition. It lasted no longer than two years. Riders were missing most of the time and had to be replaced by others, it was just not worth following this.

 

Years ago every track had their own big individual meetings, Pride of the East, Golden Gauntlets, Internationale, Golden Hammer etc, top line ups and big crowds, even challenge matches were well attended. These type of meetings nowadays are unviable to run hence their disappearance. Hard to think now a speedway season would have 36 league matches, KO cup, challenge matches, individuals, World Championship qualifiers. With the exception of Poland the sport seems to be struggling everywhere, the influence of the Poles and the GP,s has had a negative effect in my opinion, and with rumour of increasing GP rounds will speedway end up like F1 with the GP taking over?

[SPEEDY69 1,260]

1 hour ago, bellevueace said:

Years ago every track had their own big individual meetings, Pride of the East, Golden Gauntlets, Internationale, Golden Hammer etc, top line ups and big crowds, even challenge matches were well attended. These type of meetings nowadays are unviable to run hence their disappearance. Hard to think now a speedway season would have 36 league matches, KO cup, challenge matches, individuals, World Championship qualifiers. With the exception of Poland the sport seems to be struggling everywhere, the influence of the Poles and the GP,s has had a negative effect in my opinion, and with rumour of increasing GP rounds will speedway end up like F1 with the GP taking over?

I agree.  Regarding your question I think that that is also in danger of withering.  I am completely bored with it - I much prefer team events.

[bellevueace 913]

11 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

I agree.  Regarding your question I think that that is also in danger of withering.  I am completely bored with it - I much prefer team events.

Totally agree with you Speedy, i know the arguements for a GP style series but it has nowhere near the atmosphere of the one off final.

[GeneralMelchett 482]

21 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

I agree.  Regarding your question I think that that is also in danger of withering.  I am completely bored with it - I much prefer team events.

I dont watch the GPs in full now, I tend to watch either the shorter highlight version. I much prefer the SWC and team events - even Pairs events I used to like. Individuals can be good for a one of meeting like the NLRC / PLRC etc.

I always enjoyed attending Cardiff - but haven't been since Tai came second to Bartosz, and I must admit i feel no need to go again

[GeneralMelchett 482]

1 hour ago, bellevueace said:

Years ago every track had their own big individual meetings, Pride of the East, Golden Gauntlets, Internationale, Golden Hammer etc, top line ups and big crowds, even challenge matches were well attended. These type of meetings nowadays are unviable to run hence their disappearance. Hard to think now a speedway season would have 36 league matches, KO cup, challenge matches, individuals, World Championship qualifiers. With the exception of Poland the sport seems to be struggling everywhere, the influence of the Poles and the GP,s has had a negative effect in my opinion, and with rumour of increasing GP rounds will speedway end up like F1 with the GP taking over?

Always loved the 16 lapper and 12 Lappers at Ipswich / Arena

of course a lot of individual meetings used to be qualifiers as well like world championship rounds and the Grand Slam etc so there desire was always there for riders to go for it!

[mikebv 10,290]

3 hours ago, Ben91 said:

It really can’t be overstated how Mickey Mouse it is for a rider to be riding for two clubs in one country.

 

How Mickey Mouse is it then for all riders being allowed to ride for every team in one country..?...

[mikebv 10,290]

1 hour ago, Crumpet125 said:

99.9% of the population have got no interest in speedway, times have changed, and no tweaks or cosmetic changes are going to get people through the turnstiles. It's just going to die a natural 'death'. 

I agree to a large extent...

But. You would think that those in charge would at least try something different before it inevitably happens wouldn't you?  

Post Covid really was a huge chance to make the radical changes needed, completely missed..

A gift horse passed up...

Presumably, you can only think, it was passed up due to everything being "all good" in the eyes of the Promoters? .

Which probably explains a lot, if that was the case. 

[SJA 40]

Live speedway as a product does not work on TV, unless you are going to screen three meetings live, alternating between each venue. That way you are not having to fill dead air. Also an added benefit to those fans watching live in the stadium of not having a long drawn out meeting.

The alternative is the Quest, 1 hour highlights package, where they can drop a dull race and focus on a race and some professional analysis.

[iainb 5,020]

1 hour ago, bellevueace said:

Totally agree with you Speedy, i know the arguements for a GP style series but it has nowhere near the atmosphere of the one off final.

 

59 minutes ago, GeneralMelchett said:

I dont watch the GPs in full now, I tend to watch either the shorter highlight version. I much prefer the SWC and team events - even Pairs events I used to like. Individuals can be good for a one of meeting like the NLRC / PLRC etc.

I always enjoyed attending Cardiff - but haven't been since Tai came second to Bartosz, and I must admit i feel no need to go again

I think the GP series only works when there's more than one rider competing for the top prize, look how good the 2021 F1 season was and how dire it's been since then with the domination of Verstappen. Same goes for Speedway, pretty boring no there's no real contender to Bartek. At least back in the day of TRick's dominance he had real challenges from Gollob, Crump, Pedersen, Hamill, Hancock etc. How good would it have been to watch Nielsen & Gundersen battle it out over a GP series!

It's all about jeopardy, Bartek doesn't really have any, he can miss a GP and still end up winning, a one off final adds that jeopardy, one rash move and you're toast... assuming you've even made it through the qualifying rounds. Same with the GP series, if you've got a close challenger, have a bad round and you're toast

Edited August 30, 2023 by iainb