truthsayer

I misunderstood. Thought they had transponders these days. Stopwatch, no chance!

Yes

Then the product is bad and it's a managed decline until the existing ageing audience is no more, or there are no more venues or riders let. YouTube is the best way to reach a mass audience, but they have a lot of choice in the world. Audiences no longer view their entertainment in the same way. Going out to watch an event live when they can watch it online is an option for many people. Not everyone, but for certain people consuming content is different to how it used to be.

Want to reach a big audience? Livestream on YouTube is the answer.

I quite like it, but I do think Discovery overuse the shot.

I don't have any inside information, but I would expect putting on a speedway meeting costs more than £4k, a lot more than £4k. And you shouldn't be running a business just to break even, those investing in it should be able to take a wage and make a profit (and have some contingency for rain offs). I cannot see speedway being paid to be on TV, if anything I can see the sport having to pay for the production in future years. I doubt it is much, if anything, anymore. Travel for 14 riders, even without coming from other countries, is likely £2k a night. Medical cover will be at least £500 (probably a good bit more) and insurance won't be cheap for a motorsport event. Stadium hire, I have no idea, but must be at least £2k a night before the lights are even turned on. I have no idea how speedway clubs remain even remotely solvent based on their expenses and income.

This is missing a lot of the significant overheads which add to the expense: travel costs, stadium rent, medical cover, printing, insurance, utilities... to name but a few.

I definitely think there are no 'special' meetings these days. Without sounding like an old biffer, I grew up watching 1980s National League speedway. Most weeks there was a rider you wanted to see and a few times a year there would be a really big meeting, with some big stars you'd never usually see at your local track. Now it feels like it is the same riders week after week, and there's no special nights. Speedway has many problems, most of which are grassroots issues and not about the 'survival of the Premiership' but one issue I think they have is the inability of a promoter to develop and promote their own product. The cartel means they all have to serve up the same tripe as each other. I'd love promoters to be able to put on their own shows. Based in a holiday resort... forget league racing and serve up entertainment for the tourists. Only got limited access to your venue... run the events that work in your area. I've always said speedway's a bizarre example of a team sport (it's seven individuals who roughly wear the some colours, and when you add up how much they score you get a winning 'team') but I also accept there is an audience for it. But stuff like touring teams, legend teams, Harlem Globetrotters etc. are all part of the show. Speedway could learn so much from other sports, like the pro and development tours in darts, the pantomime of wrestling and the progression structures (and club racing scenes) of other motorsports, but giving promoters the freedom to do (or at least experiment) what works in their market could at least give British speedway an opportunity to survive. It won't survive on the bland and outdated bilge that is league racing. To quote Kelvin Tatum 'No doubt about that'

I wonder what percentage of the general public know what speedway is!

That's exactly where the sport needs to be if it is to be viable as a spectator product. The biggest issue we have just now is that there are just not enough local riders of a suitable level to fill a league with teams, which is why there is this current dependancy on riders commuting from mainland Europe. I grew up watching the National League of the 1980s. It was a decent semi-professional level and although times have changed, if 'team' speedway is to be viable that's the kind of level you need to be looking at.

The idea has a lot of validity, but it doesn't address the core problems, which are a lack of venues and a lack of facilities for new riders to come through (and the resulting lack of locally based riders). Long term, it doesn't really strengthen the sport. It just takes three struggling leagues and makes one big one that's a bit more viable. FWIW I think it's a good idea, but without a grassroots/amateur structure below it all you are doing is dragging things on for a few years, when that structure will face the same issues.

For me, this just emphasises that speedway really is not a team sport, rather an individual one masquerading as a team sport. It's true of almost every sport that the most successful teams have the biggest wage bills but the 'team' element of speedway is tiny when compared to football and Formula One (which is a true team sport). The points limit is weird, but on the other hand it's the only way to make speedway remotely competitive as a team sport.

This is one of the biggest barriers to moving forward IMO. To move forward the sport needs to get rid of the outdated concept of team speedway being the operating model. And by doing that you alienate the few diehard fans still putting money into the sport. There's also no riding talent sitting out there to create a 'new' spectator product, so it makes it very difficult to reinvent the sport as a team game - hence the current rearranging the deckchairs. In his excellent post, 'HGould' suggests there are 5-6 'profitable' clubs based on large 'benefactors or large Sponsors or a combination of those'. This does not mean the club is profitable, it just means it is being kept afloat. It's not viable going forward and I'd suggest the number of actual profitable clubs (where the business can pay investors a return and/or reinvest in the business) is zero.

Why would the Ekstraliga be even remotely interested in this?

Business owners are also told what days they can run on, and are at the mercy of their landlords, the weather and their fellow franchise owners. Add in rising utility costs and you have a completely unsustainable business. Most sports have reinvented themselves in some way or another over the decades. Speedway, however, tries to serve up the same old product without any positive evolution.

Is anyone really under the illusion that you can run a speedway team as a profitable business? The sport is bankrupt because the product is rubbish: overheads are too high and income too low. The operating model is largely out of the control of the 'promoters' and so there is very little which can be done to turn the business around. Promoters come in to 'save the club' or because they are enthusiasts who like the idea of running a sports club.

I'm not sure they are blind, it's more like they are in survival mode. But the stakeholders are too invested in it. What do they do? There are too many stakeholders, all struggling to stay afloat. They can't rescue the ship when they're struggling to stay alive themselves. So they just try to run it as 'less bad' as they can. It needs a blank sheet, a whole new start. It also needs to be amateur, or at best semi-professional. It needs a product developed for the competitor, not (just) the spectator. They're all too invested in it as it is. So it is a managed decline.

This weekend, almost certainly yes. But behind cricket and horse racing, and in terms of general interest still behind football. In the football season, a BSB round will be behind all the premiership and championship games and international sports like F1 when it comes to TV audience. Fans attending in person doesn't really matter in a lot of ways, it's all about the overall audience. Touring Cars are also typically more popular than superbikes. Rugby is also ahead in the popularity stakes too, as well as cycling. My point is that it is no conspiracy. Foggy was all over the press when he won a TV show watched by 9 million people. That's 9 million people buying your newspaper or clicking on your website. Foggy did get some mainstream coverage when winning world superbikes, but at peak the audience at Brands Hatch was a claimed 120,000. That's a lot less than 9,000,000. I'm not saying its right, but it is what it is. Speedway either has to pay to be featured in the mainstream media, or else it needs to have a big enough audience to be (commercially) worth their while to cover. Media cover the things they think are popular, because that's what pays the bills. WSL is a bit in the middle though. There is an appetite for women's football, as shown by the world cup viewing figures and the popularity of some of the personalities in the game.

It's not snobbery, it's just numbers. The 'MSM' (as you call it) is all about getting the maximum number of eyeballs on their article, because that's what makes money. It's not about what they like. Fatalities create clickbait headlines, which get numbers, hence TT death articles are published. BSB is well supported, but on a typical sporting weekend I would doubt it would get in the top 20 of sporting events by attendance/viewership, probably not even the top 40. It's shallow but if speedway had enough fans to justify publishing articles then speedway articles would be published in your 'MSM'. The media is full of lowbrow activities, who get their share of voice purely because it makes commercial sense for that to be the case, or because they've paid to be there.

Loss almost certainly, but a leader for what?

Truth is there are loads of people who could do a better job than WBD, including WBD themselves, but it all comes down to money. When you look at the set-up at Cardiff, for example, it's hard to see how that event can't lose money. Likewise all that TV production all costs a lot of money. They're doing it on the cheap, but probably doing as good any company would do with the resources available.

Agree, BSI/IMG put on a better show - but clearly it wasn't viable or else they would have kept the contract.

Who do you propose to do a better job?

Very true that. I've always banged on about how I think speedway is principally an individual sport masquerading as a team event and I think this proves why it still can work as a team sport. Exeter was a unique circuit (which is good). The home riders knew the secrets and the away riders were, as you say, beaten before they got there. But the home fans loved the big wins. I think that's why speedway appeals to some spectators as a team sport. They love seeing their team rack up a massive win, regardless of the quality of racing. I don't get it really, but in the days when we had a bigger pool of riders and they were more loyal to teams, big home wins (at all tracks) were the norm and was part of the appeal for the fans.

I wasn't aware of that but there is history in making tamperproof engines. I wouldn't let that experience rule out such a system in the future.