mikebv

The sport is riddled with guestfest, after guestfest anyway... So, just run the guestfest on the best night for the home team to deliver their best crowd... Just 100 extra could be a major difference given the pi$$ poor numbers at most tracks... Home promoters are happy now for an away team to turn up with four guests and a RR facility.... So, deliver such nonsense on the best night you can to deliver your best crowd.. The happy clappers who still take it seriously (even when they only have two riders from their own team out on track), will definitely be there anyway... And, those many hundreds at each track who don't take it too seriously, but just like watching the racing, will go more often if not tied down to race nights that they cannot attend..

If it goes ahead, it's just yet another example of promoters not taking it too seriously... But, to be fair to them... We know that already though don't we..? Can't blame them if people still turn up and take it seriously.... Why change? I wouldn't...

Take the top league money, and spend as little as is possible... Then. Bank the difference... Pay good money next year in the 2nd tier, and get promoted again.. And then. Rinse and Repeat...

Do something (or stop doing something), for 28 days continuously, and you then become "unconsciously competent" at it, and it becomes your norm... Which is why so many clubs who choose to go so long without a meeting, is truly baffling... And a big risk... Hope the crowd is a big one this evening...

Not at all..... I think it is a major sporting competition that delivers a title full of kudos, huge financial rewards, and a fantastic amount of national media recognition... Edit And like all other major championships, whoever wins it are deserved champions...

I really do hope for your sake that Ipswich win the league... Because... If you do a "Devon Loch" and throw it away... You best hope this forum goes offline for at least a week after...

Little by little changes are definitely maybe required... But will Mike acquiesce to it....? Whatever he decides... He certainly won't want their title defence to slide away....

Maybe they could be blindfolded for triple points?

Good.... No guests.... In fact, what would be better is that Fricke could take two rides, and anyone else at the managers choosing, also takes two... A fit for purpose RR facility would eradicate dozens of guests, give that teams riders more rides, and keep the sport credible... And Fricke will take two rides if a TAC is needed, so just make that the plan from the outset...

Excellent post... Rozelle was initially a properly disliked Commissioner by many owners, (and some players with big personal sponsorship)... However, he knew that so many working in a "I am all right Jack" SILO, couldn't ever be successful for the sport overall... As he knew that one day the historically successful teams would end up playing themselves and no one else!! Which would mean sponsors and TV deserting in droves.. Sharing revenues equally, inc official merchandise regardless of which team sold most, and having national league sponsors front and centre, in front of any local, or personal agreements, (and sharing the money equally), saw the sport generically move forward... The historically big teams are still pretty much the same ones, as, organically they are the biggest, but the "cannon fodder" teams nowadays at least have a chance, and big money coming in from shared TV, merchandise and sponsorship agreements, regardless of position in their conference... A perfect blueprint for UK Speedway I would suggest... In fact, I suggested the same thing well over a decade ago on here!!! British Speedway should be "The Brand" with one overarching "leader" who is given complete autonomy, but held accountable by the owners, with every track being a franchise that can be lost if that franchise doesn't meet the standards expected of the overall generic business of "British Speedway Ltd"... All TV money, sponsorship and merchandise money, pooled with each team getting an equal share regardless of their own sales or TV matches... UK Speedway will fall together, if they don't work together as a collective...

It could be as high as 10C on Saturday.... Good news re Worky, not been yet, so hopefully going before football season starts...

I admire your optimism....

You can only hope that they have collected plenty of databased feedback from their fans as to why some don't attend regularly, but still passionately follow the sport... And that feedback has had "price of entry" high on the list... And, the only way to drop the price is to lose circa £15k to 20k total two match cost from one home income... And that could mean losing the top earners.. Personally, I would keep them and save the money further down the team by only having the top riders fully professional, (just how it used to be)... But also. PROMOTE THE BLOODY THING PROFESSIONALLY!!!!

Which team do you want to buy to knock out £30 Speedway? Good luck selling four guests and RR to a couple at sixty quid a pop... In fact, if you want to throw lots of money away I will send you my bank details and I will gladly accept it.... I pay for my lad at the NSS as he works PT, and I pay over £50 for entrance so we go very infrequently given the competition isn't ran as a "proper sporting championship", and has very little jeopardy or consequence for the vast majority of the year... If the same nonsense got dished out for £30 for us both, I would be there far more often... 12 trips at thirty quid, or three at fifty...? What would a business prefer? Many on the Unofficial BV FB page also state entrance fees as a barrier to more regular attendance from themselves..... If you want to charge £30 then there has to be top riders, jeopardy and consequence to every meeting, a very competitive league, no ad hoc made up teams, and a 2025 fit for purpose entertainment package.... The actuality is I fear, is that we will end up with a very much reduced offering, with all the usual nonsense surrounding how the sport is ran still very firmly in place... The rumoured plans, if true, look very much like short term survival mode decision making, rather than a longer term growth strategy... A five year plan anyone?

If there are no "top riders" then those tracks, now once again used to having them, wiill get hit at the turnstiles... However, if there are still "top riders" (max one per track), then that might work to increase crowds at the Div 2 tracks who haven't seen them for a while, and could maybe keep attendances OK at the current Div 1 tracks who have them.. If it is a 12 team league with 60 riders then clubs should also get some extra riders signed up using a similar contract to the "Warsaw" one used in Poland.. Meaning instead of guests they can bring in riders open to doing "some matches", subject to averages allowing them to slot in.. The big danger of one league is guestfest after guestfesf, particularly at weekends, when Poland kicks in, and Wednesdays with Denmark impacting Poole... If there is still so little credibility in the competition then the devaluing of it will inevitably hit attendances like it does now.. I think the TV deal is in its last year so maybe no coverage next season other than club streaming and BSN? Which, if correct, won't be a bad thing attendance wise I would think.. Let's be honest, UK Speedway hasn't used TV coverage well over the past two decades has it? With it being one of the very few sports with 1000's of hours coverage that hasn't improved attendances or increased its reach and profile. A embarrassing shambles to be honest given the 100's of two hour "free adverts" it has been given.. The Aces I would think would revert back to Friday or even Saturday, as, even if guestfests, those nights would still bring more in to watch the great racing on offer I would suggest, especially as the sport has now made so many "generic" fans, who attend for the racing rather than the bona fide nature of the event itself.. The price point has to be around £15 to £20 max and maybe each away track gets given 100 free tickets to see if some much needed "tribal atmosphere" could get created? Subsidising Supporters Clubs coaches could also help get the away fans to tracks... Something drastic certainly needs to be done of that there is no doubt, (and should have been done at least a decade ago), so let's hope they come up with the right plan which delivers a competitive league, that also has the required credibility to make the competition itself have a bona fide status, so it's actually worth winning... And, therefore, attending.... One thing is definite. Doing the "same old, same old" Mickey Mouse team structure nonsense, and still having the same amount of "dodgy call offs", won't improve things one iota...

Well done to the Aces, the only team to not use a guest so far .. Let's hope they can continue to see if it can be done all season...

A nice photo on FB of Bomber taking his daughter for a spin on his bike on the way to her prom... Before taking her to it in "the Bentley"!... So maybe he does see a future!!!!😁

It is all a bit Mickey Mouse, UK Speedway, isn't it? 😁 Well worth twenty five quid a pop..🤪

Those happy clappers that are left, happily collude with the promoters that all is well and their team is their team... I am surprised they are not sat there with a pair of underpants on their head, two pencils up their nose and just saying "wibble, wibble, pah, pah" when asked "are you mad".. Blackadder....

If Dean gets there early enough, he might be riding!!!😁...

If it is a right to work in the UK issue then he won't be allowed to..

FFS! 😁 The promoters truly do get the following they deserve... Four lads riding around a track for four laps on a motorbike without any brakes... How can they "duck" it up so much??? 😆.. Who cares who wins such a "clusterf**k" of a sport...? Just get 14 decent riders at each venue if you want to charge £50 per couple...

A great many fans who still follow the sport....

I would suggest more have walked way due to the made up Mickey Mouse rules than actually currently attend... My own anecdotal evidence is five of us used to go regularly, now only one still does, yet we all often get together on a weekend to watch Poland and the GP's.. I wonder how many more have a similar story? Just by doing something to get those dissilusioned fans back onside would more than double attendance's at lots of tracks, as there at that many of them... Add that to a price point that gets "occasional fans" to visit more often, and provide big discounted tickets to away fans, and you may then start to build some atmosphere in the stadiums that befits a team sport... Thus reversing the vicious circle that has been allowed to pervade, unchallenged, for a couple of decades..

UK Speedway.... A slow, inexorable, agonising death... By a thousand, and more, self inflicted cuts... It does seem that almost the majority of threads get taken over by some nonsense or other that a proper professional sport could never countenance... Self policing can be a real issue for some organisations...