Is Speedway still a "working class" spectator sport?

[ouch]

10 hours ago, IainB said:

... if I want to go and watch a T20 Cricket match at my local ground on FRIDAY the 30th of May at 18:30, look at the ticket options available to me:

https://www.tixr.com/groups/leicestershire-ccc/events/leicestershire-foxes-v-derbyshire-falcons-123326

A group ticket of 5 for £18 each... the way Cricket sees it, a group of (working class) mates coming for a night out and a few beers, they've seen it on Tv, it's colourful, musical, the crowd are involved with prizes and stuff being given away there's dancing girls. They've also seen speedway and see a load of pensioners sat in camping chairs filling their home made programmes in watching a tractor go endlessly round a track and its on a school night. The way a Speedway promoter sees it, 5 strangers grouping up outside the turnstile to get some money off... and while this attitude remains crowds will continue to dwindle. 

... I remember a few years back at Leicester they wouldn't even let a couple of mentally handicapped people in at a concessionary rate!

I still think £28 for 2 adults to sit in the grandstand at Belle Vue with an unlimited number of 11’s or under in tow and 12-17’s at just £6 each offers good value. 

The Colts take half a second longer per lap so it’s hardly noticeable yet not only do newbies not attend, the local speedway fans that visit Belle Vue  week after week and know full well it’s happening choose not to attend as they don’t want to. 

[Sir Sidney]

9 hours ago, IainB said:

Sir Sidney Snob of Snobbyshire 😜😂

I've pulled up my drawbridge and asked the guards to patrol the moat 

[Sir Sidney]

9 hours ago, IainB said:

It's how us great unwashed eat Sir Sidney, in fact the kids would prefer a maccies rather than a bar meal. 

I agree. 

British Speedway just needs to decide what it is trying to be and who it is trying to attract, and then create and implement a plan to achieve that ( in fact, I'd almost guarantee that people with the skills to do so exist within the fan base and on this forum and would willingly help out). 

Now, as we know, the risk is that it alienates it's existing fan base in trying to attract and keep a new fan base - but those of us who have been watching since the 60s, 70s and 80s are drifting away or dying in any event. 

[mikebv]

47 minutes ago, ouch said:

I still think £28 for 2 adults to sit in the grandstand at Belle Vue with an unlimited number of 11’s or under in tow and 12-17’s at just £6 each offers good value. 

The Colts take half a second longer per lap so it’s hardly noticeable yet not only do newbies not attend, the local speedway fans that visit Belle Vue  week after week and know full well it’s happening choose not to attend as they don’t want to. 

If the Colts were "the only ticket in town" then their crowds would be up around 1000, and maybe more, I would suggest ..

It is indeed good family value but, for many, that is on top of already paying out for watching the Aces, either the week prior or the week after...

As for newbies? The "World Famous Belle Vue Aces" would hardly get a recognition nod door to door in Gorton, Longsight, Levenshulme, and City Centre Manchester, therefore not much chance of the Colts being known in areas "on the doorstep"...

You only need to see the response when fans get asked to pay just six quid more to watch a double header after the main event featuring their NDL team to see how little regard and interest so many with a team in tier 1 and 2 have in "junior speedway"..

As I said, maybe if that was the only speedway they had, many would attend...?

[Wembleyfan]

Not wanting to harp back to "The Good Old Days" too much, but responding to the question , is it still a working class sport? My answer is No. Not because of price, although it's a valid argument,  but one reason is a disconnect between the fans and the riders. Riders were, mostly, semi-professional and had day jobs, mostly working class jobs, or at least jobs that people could associate with. The very top riders were full time professionals, the Maugers, the Briggs, of this world, but even people like Peter Collins had a day job in his early career while riding speedway.

[SPEEDY69]

Yes it is still a 'working class', same as football always has been.  Have you tried eating out these days, £20 for a burger and chips - what about live gigs/theatre, approx. £90 a ticket.

[arnieg]

It is totally unrealistic to expect bigger attendances for NDL matches. The equivalent competitions in Denmark, Sweden often pull in double figure crowds and Poland isn't much better.

 

Other sports have very little fan interest in reserve and youth teams. Why should speedway be so different?

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

1 hour ago, Wembleyfan said:

Not wanting to harp back to "The Good Old Days" too much, but responding to the question , is it still a working class sport? My answer is No. Not because of price, although it's a valid argument,  but one reason is a disconnect between the fans and the riders. Riders were, mostly, semi-professional and had day jobs, mostly working class jobs, or at least jobs that people could associate with. The very top riders were full time professionals, the Maugers, the Briggs, of this world, but even people like Peter Collins had a day job in his early career while riding speedway.

This is the point I am getting at, we have to see them as one of us or we don’t form a connection and without that connection you don’t get a following and it goes for teams too, we have to feel they are our club otherwise our loyalty is fractured, football and even polish speedway understand the concept but British speedway doesn’t, my Mrs is a season ticket holder at stoke city FC because it’s her home city and she has a bond with that city, she doesn’t follow any other teams or even watch any other tv games or even follow England when they play and I’m not sure she even likes the game of football but she loves stoke city, it’s the bond without it you don’t have a following 

Edited 12 hours ago by THE DEAN MACHINE

[DJC]

9 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

This is the point I am getting at, we have to see them as one of us or we don’t form a connection and without that connection you don’t get a following and it goes for teams too, we have to feel they are our club otherwise our loyalty is fractured 

Completely agree.

At Newport almost the full 7 would be in the bar for at least an hour after the meeting, usually joined by some away riders for a drink and chat with the fans of both sides. Somerset also did this quite well with interviews and stuff after the meeting. 

The few years after Newport closed we went to Swindon a lot and there was barely one rider in the bar after the meeting. That's when the disconnect started for me. Riders are out of the pits before paying public are allowed in like they used too. All the 'pro athlete' stuff doesn't mean anything without fans and fan interaction

[SJA]

20 hours ago, JamesHarris said:

I've created this topic as I'm quite interested to know peoples views. If we go back 60 years to the creation of the British League, Speedway could be defined as a true working class spectator sport. Along with Greyhound racing are we seeing the general decline of the sport as people have different interests in the 2020's? I am fortunate enough to be able to access Polish TV channels and even the crowds there look a lot less now compared to ten years ago and if I'm honest I find the racing a bit boring. I've not been to Speedway for a few years but I assume it's £18 minimum to get it?

No its a retired sport. Look at the average age of people attending meeting.

[Daniel Smith]

Didn't someone work out that the admission difference in inflation from the 80s to today is about 2000%??

I can't remember the prices for the top league in 1988 but inflation calculator says around £9.11 vs £25 today.

Was it a £10 in 1988??

[mikebv]

1 minute ago, Daniel Smith said:

Didn't someone work out that the admission difference in inflation from the 80s to today is about 2000%??

I can't remember the prices for the top league in 1988 but inflation calculator says around £9.11 vs £25 today.

Was it a £10 in 1988??

I came back to the sport when the Aces went to Kirky Lane in 88, and remember paying either £6.50 or £7 to get in...

It went up to £8 within a couple of years! A huge inflation busting % from the initial cost I paid..

This for me was the start of the "big" decline in attendances as, year after year, as disillusioned fans stopped going, the promoters, (instead of doing some research as to why their crowds were dropping), started to offset the drop in income by more inflation busting annual increases...

The result being the vicious cycle of less fans turning up, more increases, less fans turning up, more increases, less fans turning up, etc etc etc..

Even today, no research is done as to why fans (many of whom still passionately follow the sport), don't attend..

Many clubs have more followers on their Facebook pages than visit the track each meeting, (their own fans, not generic fans of other clubs who "join in")..

With some having several thousand than actually turn up to watch..

Social Media is a perfect mechanic to gain some feedback and then take action to rectify the issues and move forwards..

It will never get used...

 

[The White Knight]

5 hours ago, Wembleyfan said:

Not wanting to harp back to "The Good Old Days" too much, but responding to the question , is it still a working class sport? My answer is No. Not because of price, although it's a valid argument,  but one reason is a disconnect between the fans and the riders. Riders were, mostly, semi-professional and had day jobs, mostly working class jobs, or at least jobs that people could associate with. The very top riders were full time professionals, the Maugers, the Briggs, of this world, but even people like Peter Collins had a day job in his early career while riding speedway.

Why not? 🤬

They were a bl**dy sight better than now. 🤬

[mikebv]

1 hour ago, The White Knight said:

Why not? 🤬

They were a bl**dy sight better than now. 🤬

A completely different outlook then, from now...

Big crowds provided "working men" with additional income, who, often several evenings a week, earned, on each evening, more then they earned in a whole week of doing their "day job"...

Only the very top riders had the sponsorship and salary band to make Speedway their profession...

Nowaday much smaller crowds (maybe a tenth of 40 years ago?), are funding even juniors as full time professionals for at least 6 months of a year, (and for some all year!)...

With the ultimate irony being of course that promoters expect their riders to spend tens of thousands on kit, so they pay them even more tens of thousands in salaries...

And then collectively get together and devise an operating model that pretty much devalues hugely every single competition they "desperately" all want to win!!!

Unsustainable madness and a true race to the bottom, as has been seen over the past 30 years or so, with absolutely nothing changing....

(Other than we had a green helmet cover for a while, which, very surprisingly for me, didn't bring tens of thousands of fans flocking back)....

Edited 7 hours ago by mikebv

[Hawk127]

Not defending the promoters entirely (yes they do have a few faults) but with the apathy amongst the speedway supporters for wanting nothing other than a league meeting and shunning individual events as well as the NDL, what else can a promoter realistically put on as a meeting that will grab the imagination of new punters.
Years back you had the second half where newbies got a chance to pit their skills against established riders and in a good few cases you could follow the progress of a rider as they developed from a second half rider to reserve to main team and then into the top league starting at reserve and hopefully moving on in the sport.
All riders need track time to hone their skills but that comes at a cost to the promoters most of whom rent the stadia. Just take a look at Poland and see the various opportunities for all classes of rider. Yes Poland has far more practice tracks than we have in the UK but the Polish supporters don’t just turn up for a league meeting.

Years back I can remember meetings being packed with families out on Saturday night to watch the likes of Rayleigh, Canterbury, Coventry etc and what you now see in terms of Polish supporter and mixed age groups, you did once have that over here.

The business model in the UK no longer lends itself to full time top tier racing particularly given the restrictions of movement on riders and equipment since Britain left the EU and with the ease that riders can cross borders in Europe to race, why would they bother with the UK unless they are getting a good wedge for the effort and that pushes prices up for everyone. 

The sport needs to look at its lot and decide what works financially and stop pretending it is something that it isn’t . With the increasing decline in tracks and the lack of talent coming through the ranks it is only a matter of time before you are down to a handful of tracks left operating and a few more amateur clubs operating on an open licence with individual race meeting events possibly share these events with th3 likes of short track racing and side cars.