Ive never understood the comparison with football, as you say fans turn out season after season even for clubs who are only making up the numbers and really have no chance of ever getting any success clubs like Fulham, Bournemouth, Burnley have next to no chance of getting top four let alone winning leagues fa cups, Palace only won their first trophy last season, no manipulation of team strengths to try to have all teams equal, but fans of the lower reaches clubs are there in numbers home and away, speedway lost that tribalism a long time ago.

Thats it I suppose JP is a real entertainer and especially around Scunny. So long as the racing is its usual top drawer at home, win, lose or draw thats the deal we accept.  Away will be a different matter. Can see JP being a bit of a lone gun, but exciting to watch.  In a way it reminds me of Halifax in the Carter era. Kenny always leading the scorecharts and taking on & beating the oppo No1s. The rest of the Dukes not following his lead.  When JPs average changes it will be vital to come up with a No2 who can back him Home & Away in those Big Heats in my opinion.              

I disagree that less than 0.1% of fans who follow the sport are drawn to the big names. We’ve had Ipswich fans stating many times how crowds increased when Jason & Emil came on board. Maybe we could do some kind of test where we run on a Sunday without the big names. If they charged less admission then it can only be a great success - can’t it? We could all do our own national marketing campaign at no cost to the sport. Just ask 50 family, friends, colleagues etc to come along. There’s no better salesperson available than us speedway nuts. A million extra fans, brilliant. 

Dont the home fans sing you have only come to see City? It is certainly the case that tickets for matches at more readily available for smaller games so the opposition is a big factor especially when it comes to cup competitions where the tickets are not included in the cost of a season ticket. I would also suggest that my team Poole would generate a bigger crowd than normal if it was one league.

Plenty of empty seats when not on TV, too... "Big Names" are only that to the less than 0.1% of the polulation who follow the sport... They mean nothing to the 99.9+% of the population who don't.... What an opportunity for growth though if you could make admission affordable for more people, allied to a properly joined up national marketing campaign to try and make many, many millions of people aware that they have a Speedway track within a 45 minute drive of their home...

QED