truthsayer

An interesting list. Of course in person attendance is not the only metric. Sports like darts, snooker, athletics, MMA etc are way, way, way more valuable and have massively bigger attendances when looking at TV and social media. In terms of participation, motocross, angling, pool, martial arts and golf are all way bigger than speedway. This is another important metric to consider, as participants are a major part of the sport's economy. Speedway's reliance on paying spectators at trackside is another reason why the business model fails.

Glasgow are the benchmark business in terms of the product they offer, perhaps down to having solid businesspeople at the helm. It's still hard to imagine they make money and the product is still very bobble hat. I never intended to come across as saying this sort of stuff is bad, but in the grand scheme of things it's not the silver bullet. Glasgow is the benchmark because so many things they do are better than the others, I'd argue Belle Vue is a similar case. It's about knowing your audience and putting together a proposition for them. Glasgow appear to be good at this but there's not much flex to be creative in your offering in speedway. It would be great to see promotions able to offer something more tailored to their own audience. Isle of Wight being an example of where a product built for tourists, who don't care about team racing, could give them an offering very different to the one at, say Poole, Belle Vue or Glasgow.

Has it really been destroyed by those in privileged positions or just kept alive by fans with a bit of money? It is a different world now and it's hard to plan for the future when just getting through today is hard enough, it's a problem many people face on a daily basis. It is a different world now. Pubs, cinemas, high street shops, nightclubs, signwriters, coal miners, airlines, motorcycle manufacturers... the list of businesses, industries and professions to have died, or way past their halcyon days are many. Team speedway was of it's time, when fans were happy standing on terraces, smoking a woodbine, chanting appreciation songs and blowing airhorns. Today's speedway is trying to be all that and is run by people who remember all that. It's yesterday's sport and stuff like league structures, race formats and team makeups are just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Speedway did prepare for the future. It's called the Grand Prix but it doesn't appeal to the purist. League speedway is dead in three years, but its thanks to those in the 'privileged positions' that it wasn't dead three years ago. I was amazed it wasn't another Covid casualty...

My local football team has the kids on at half time, kicking around with the mascot and doing silly stuff. It's fun for everyone and a great part of community engagement. But it's not the product. Without the 10,000 fans coming to watch the football there is no business. That's the product. This forum is full of fans with ideas and, in isolation, they are not bad ideas but the speedway product is so fundamentally damaged that points limits, race formats or, indeed, giving out sweets to kids, are not the answers. I have no idea what the answer is, but if speedway didn't exist and I just had a brainwave for a new sport which involved motorbike riders hurtling around a dirt track, this wouldn't be what I would come up with.

Not saying its a bad thing per se, but this isn't going to save the sport. Speedway ceased being a family sport IMO when attitudes to drink driving changed. My experiences of speedway growing up was that it was a great family night out. There were a bunch of us there, there wasn't anything else we'd be doing and dad would sink six pints (at least) with his mates before driving us home. We put a lot into the speedway economy but times change and even he wouldn't think of drink driving these days. Anyway, does giving out sweets really work at Belle Vue? Is Belle Vue really even a viable business? Speedway's problems run so deep the only solution is to start again. My sincere hope is that they can separate the sport from the business of league racing. League racing is in trouble in part because the sport has been neglected. I'd hope that we can at least preserve a few tracks and a training structure to help keep the sport alive when league racing has died.

Is handing out sweets and having someone dressed up like an extra from Paw Patrol really going to bring speedway into the 21st century? It's just the old ideas being regurgitated. So basically get three of the people whose old school thinking has helped us get into the state we're in. The sport needs a dictator, who will run the sport with a view to making profit and without the rose tinted glasses. Sadly I don't think it can be run at a profit, which is why it will die a death in the next few years.

I know, and this is why I am saying it's absurd. Second tier league speedway should absolutely not employ a model where it has to pay to fly a middle order rider in from Denmark. It is completely unsustainable.

It sums up everything that's wrong about British speedway. A second tier club having to import a rider on a sub-five point average is ludicrous. No offence to the guy, but the costs attached to bringing these guys over is absurd. It's no wonder the sport is in the mess it's in.

A photocopied bit of A4 is better than the the sport deserves. SS is just propaganda. Decent enough in the pre-internet age but hardly asking the difficult questions to make it stand out from other information sources. Businesses need to be their own media these days. Speedway hasn't understood (or embraced) that and it's just one of the many problems on the list of things that need to be fixed if the sport has any chance of surviving in anything like it's previous form.

It kinda just is British speedway really. Old fashioned, naff and only enjoyed by a dwindling audience of a certain age.

While this is all true, it also goes back to a lack of foresight from the sport's administrators. Riders call the shots because there's such a chronic lack of them, making it a seller's market. While pointing fingers and dealing in blame isn't particularly helpful, we do need to recognise that the lack of talent coming through means there's little competition for places and prices for riders go up. The sport is in such a dire place that only short term thinking is an option for both riders and promotions.

Natalie Quirk and Nigel Pearson were two excellent journalists who put the hours in and were able to explain the sport to their audience. Experts are not there to lead the show but to support the professional presenters, which is why the Americans call them 'color' commentators. The loss of Nat and Nigel alone has led to a massive downturn in the quality to the TV product IMO. There's no excuse for Tatum though. Taking aside the annoying stock phrases, he just seems to phone it in. It's as if he does no research. No insight into form or anything. Commentators should be researching and have a pack of data on that rider's results. If they don't know, they get there early and talk to them in the pits. After all those years, there really is no excuse for such amateurish on screen talent. There's a lot that could be done with speedway as a TV product, but if you don't fix that it will always be a bit rubbish.

Tatum and that stupid screwdriver. It's insulting the intelligence of the viewers... Clearly TNT didn't go to town with the coverage. It was pretty mediocre by British Eurosport's standards and, if anything, regressed on TNT, which is a more premium channel. The talent wasn't brought out and neither was the budget. Tatum is an awful lead commentator and often he was sole commentator. Yes he was thrust into the position after Nigel Pearson's death but he's a (former) professional sportsperson who understands its a results game. Speedway can be boring, we all know that, but the opportunities would have been there for interesting links and three minute features to really bring the sport to life. Not once can I remember seeing any little behind the scenes features: what does a rider do to prepare, follow them for a week, feature an engine tuner building a bike at the workshop... No money was invested in the production and the sport had to stand on its raw product which, frankly, is not good enough for modern tastes.

All things being equal there's logic to this, but losing teams means less employment opportunities anyway and skews the numbers. Trades become redundant and business models change, and so it is here. British speedway's reliance on ready made labour without developing its own talent is just one of the reasons for its inevitable demise as a professional sport. While I don't disagree with the premise of this post, the truth is the that its all just kicking the can down the road for another season at best. Stakeholders have to accept that costs need to be reduced and that means riders based from outside of the UK need to be used more sparingly.

That short term hit would be a major reason not to standardise equipment. There's nothing to suggest the 'product' wouldn't be as good, if not better on lower powered and more durable engines, but the cost of bringing this equipment in and policing it would be high. Add in the objections from those whose equipment would be made obsolete, and whose businesses would suffer, and it feels like something that's just too big right now. But most forms of motorsport have gone through a similar process at some stage and if British speedway survives this would inevitably have to be part of the 'new' sport.

I agree, except a bad product is a bad product and no amount of marketing will convince people otherwise. I do think there really has to be a realisation that the product is junk and there needs to be a reset. There needs to be a vision for 2030 but really there won't be anything more than surviving into next year. TBH, I get why people criticise promotions but I also get why they are how they are. They're fans and want to keep the sport alive. They have to do what they have to do to keep their own clubs alive, and that's not investing in talent that might come good in 2030 or stadium redevelopments that will take three years (and more money than they have).

Fair play to him, he’s going to have to put his best foot forward and do the hard yards. I’ve got to say he’ll be working overtime and coming on strong. Indeed!

'TV money' - LOL

It's good you mentioned this as it's probably not something they would have considered....

Let's be clear, there will be no TV network paying British Speedway for the rights to show the sport. At best, someone will cover production costs and show it for free, or there may be an opportunity for the promoters to pay for the privilege of having the sport shown, which may be a price worth paying in order to bring in sponsors and to give some credibility for the sport. TBH, if TV is important then the sport needs to adapt and create a 'made-for-TV' format, rather than expecting TV to fit around the sport's legacy. This is what has happened with Grand Prix and will need to happen if domestic speedway is to gain coverage.

And this is largely the sport's problem, and in some way a problem the country faces. A local journeyman in his late 20s is a lot cheaper than 'bang average rider from abroad' who needs to 'commute' and have a second structure in the UK (not to mention a wage to secure a visa and/or make it viable). We've spent decades importing labour for instant gratification rather than investing in our future. Replace the word 'speedway rider' with 'plumber' and you have the same issue. The sport can't now afford these riders. If the idea is to continue as a professional team sport, then it needs cheaper personnel and this is the problem as these personnel don't exist.

That's not giving an example, that's just giving an opinion. I was more looking for you to say 'Rider X was a promising youngster but he ended up quitting because he got too big and wasn't competitive' I'm genuinely not convinced that introducing a combined weight limit would bring more riders in. I'm open to you convincing me otherwise, but this sport has a lot of problems and this (if it even is one) belongs far down the list of problems. More venues, lower costs, greater awareness... these are all things to be tackled before bringing weight limits in.

Are there actually any examples you can give to back this statement up?

Nice as many of these ideas are, we're still just kicking the can down the road. Without a grassroots plan to develop more riders and secure more venues, there is no team speedway. There are already nowhere near enough riders, and that's utilising many expensive imports. There needs to be a separation of the sport and the competition. Clubs are (rightly) just trying to do enough to get them to the end of next week. I don't see anyone doing any wider development of the sport. I just can't see a future for speedway as a team sport, or as a professional sport, but I would hope that the base sport can survive and find an appropriate level for the early 21st century.

There is no butter left on the shelves...