That's very true.

Speedway was on prime time TV... England won lots of world titles... And, in Peter Collins they had a "Golden Boy' who was as recognised as much as Div One footballers.. Domestic Speedway lived off the back of what the World of Sport served up many Saturdays during the summer months... Domestic Speedway wasn't as quite as "Mickey Mouse" then, as it is now, (196 Guests last year in fhe top two leagues), but still had plenty of "nonsense" going on..  The huge difference being that you only found out when you were at the track that Larry Ross was guesting for PC who had a Long Track meeting in Germany the next day, whereas today you know the meeting in two days will be a "Guestfest" and the main crowd puller will be absent.. Add in the much greater percentage impact to disposable income that attending Speedway has nowadays due to "modern living" and there is no doubt what back then worked, doesn't now..  How is it fixed?.. Not a clue, but, one million percent, doing the same thing ad infinitum, like they do, definitely won't improve their lot...

Glasgow have a few hospitality boxes that sponsors or a group of people can book to watch the speedway eat and drink. Can do it at worky and other tracks, even if not advertised they will be open to do something 😀

He’s ok if you’ve got a spare £3k guarantee for him for every meeting, he might even do the odd ht15! 

I do get frustrated by the rhetoric continually posted on here. There’s a fallacy that things were different in speedways heyday and the problems blighting our sport are of the modern era.  The other week I posted about the excessive use of guests on one Saturday night in ‘74 and the fact that most teams did NOT ride at the weekend, yet people will still point the finger as these being the failings of modern speedway Taking the now famous ‘73 KO Cup final as an example. Belle Vue used a guest and Reading ran R/R. The 2nd leg wasn’t run until the last week of the season, some 3 weeks after the 1st leg as due to the late running it was hit by the bad weather. Sounds familiar? Jim Mcmillian had been knocked out in an earlier round but enjoyed his “winners” medal as a guest for the Aces. We had been running a guest since June. The rules stated in the event of a draw it had to be re run but this was jettisoned in favour of a run off. All this was carried out on a cold Wednesday late October night.  All those people who attended that night and in ‘74, ‘75, ‘76, 77 etc did not suddenly experience amnesia, they DECIDE not to attend.  During its heyday we had ALL the ills currently affecting the sport, the big difference is that of the customers - they have changed massively and we need to find the holy grail to attract them back.  The league is as meaningful as ever. The guests & R/R as prevalent as ever. The UK FIM golds are pretty much as regular as in our heyday. Our “gaters paradise” tracks are still here as they were back then, etc, etc. If we keep kidding ourselves that the sports ills are new then we will waste an awful lot of time and energy trying to fix the bits that are not the reason for our downfall.  Speedway is primarily populated by old blokes who think the old days were better, but the reality is that’s not the case and it is to our peril that we get bogged down by this dogma instead of looking to the future and how we engage with modern customers in the modern era. 

Get in on mainstream free TV... Ideally. Three channels only, and on prime time Saturday afternoon viewing... Oh. And have prime Peter Collins beating the best the world has to offer, from the back, in what seemed to be every race.. Well, joking apart... Getting it on free TV could definitely help given the tiny amount of followers the sport has.. Which only needs 20,000 extra or so at the 14 tracks to see a 100% growth... C5 being the biggest opportunity.. A regular magazine programme using BSN and track streaming footage, and having riders in the studio being interviewed could create some interest... With the beauty being, given the low, low, starting point, you don't need much interest to see big growth...