Birmingham v Belle Vue Monday 2nd June live on TV

[mikebv]

38 minutes ago, marko said:

The thing is some fans can’t separate their own bias towards the sport, I doubt anyone catching that on tv without much knowledge of speedway would be impressed let alone searching for their nearest track.

Newcomers don’t want to go somewhere where they are likely to get covered in dust and the racing is all the riders riding the inside following each other.

As for Tobys comments about wanting it dry and slick, I find that very shortsighted, the riders might like it like that but that sort of racing doesn’t draw crowds, how are they going to continue being paid to race when fewer and fewer are going to watch?

The biggest issue facing the sport...

The promoters know that winning at home keeps a crowd level which is enough to, at worst, keep costs within budgeted losses..

And those fans who stiill take the results and competitions seriously, (who are usually the "die hards"), want to see their team win, (regardless of who 'ad hoc' represents them).. 

The "other fans" however, are the ones who can watch a meeting and just want to be entertained and for them the result is very much secondary. (Win or lose it makes very little difference to them due to the size of the prize)..

The "other fans" though nowadays form a much larger percentage of the crowd than ever before, given the drop off of fans who are emotionally attached to a team, therefore their money is key given the "die hards" don't ever seem to grow, but do seem to reduce in numbers...

Getting these less regular fans of the sport attending more regularly is fundamental to the success of the vast majority of tracks..

These people know you exist, but to get their money more often, you need to entertain them...

Getting the balance right between those vital home wins, and that vital entertainment level, is a very difficult task to achieve for most of the tracks..

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:45 AM by mikebv

[GeneralMelchett]

32 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Getting these less regular fans of the sport attending more regularly is fundamental to the success of the vast majority of tracks..

These people know you exist, but to get their money more often, you need to entertain them...

Getting the balance right between those vital home wins, and that vital entertainment level, is a very difficult task to achieve for most of the tracks..

 

The very first meeting i ever attended (incidentally was at Arena-Essex where Marko and I both used to attend as fans in fact we met a few times) it was a 39-38 win last hear decider. As a 12 year old it kept my interest as the scoreline was close and the result of the meeting was in doubt. When I decided to by the DVD of the meeting many years later (purely for nostalgia) it came across quite badly on video - not much passing mistakes usually leading to passing rather than great racing. I still maintain that speedway doesn't usually come over that well on TV as often the production is so poorly done. At least helmet cam seems to have been binned this season.

There is that balance between rip roaring racing where there is passing or close racing in each race - however as we have seen at the NSS that can sometimes lead to a hefty home win if it's the home riders doing all the passing. As a neutral watching on TV I don't find that all so entertaining but it sure will keep the home fans happy.

Last night I quite enjoyed the match as there were / was passing manouvres in a fair few races (usually involving Dan Bewley) and the scoreline being close throughout kept my interest in the meeting.

Each to their own as they say but i rather watch the Monday match from Birmingham over say BV thrashing Oxford at the NSS 65-25 every time even if Brady and Bewley was passing all and sundry each race.

You have to remember / assume that the die hards are already at the match so its the others / nuetrals watching on TV you have to convert and how you do that is well anyones guess as we all seek different things from sports.

I was of a similar view on the Champions League final at 3-0 to PSG it was evident despite their great football the match was over as a contest and I switched off.

Edited Wednesday at 11:17 AM by GeneralMelchett

[SPEEDY69]

48 minutes ago, GeneralMelchett said:

The very first meeting i ever attended (incidentally was at Arena-Essex where Marko and I both used to attend as fans in fact we met a few times) it was a 39-38 win last hear decider. As a 12 year old it kept my interest as the scoreline was close and the result of the meeting was in doubt. When I decided to by the DVD of the meeting many years later (purely for nostalgia) it came across quite badly on video - not much passing mistakes usually leading to passing rather than great racing. I still maintain that speedway doesn't usually come over that well on TV as often the production is so poorly done. At least helmet cam seems to have been binned this season.

There is that balance between rip roaring racing where there is passing or close racing in each race - however as we have seen at the NSS that can sometimes lead to a hefty home win if it's the home riders doing all the passing. As a neutral watching on TV I don't find that all so entertaining but it sure will keep the home fans happy.

Last night I quite enjoyed the match as there were / was passing manouvres in a fair few races (usually involving Dan Bewley) and the scoreline being close throughout kept my interest in the meeting.

Each to their own as they say but i rather watch the Monday match from Birmingham over say BV thrashing Oxford at the NSS 65-25 every time even if Brady and Bewley was passing all and sundry each race.

You have to remember / assume that the die hards are already at the match so its the others / nuetrals watching on TV you have to convert and how you do that is well anyones guess as we all seek different things from sports.

I was of a similar view on the Champions League final at 3-0 to PSG it was evident despite their great football the match was over as a contest and I switched off.

Completely agree with you here - the jeopardy of the result keeps my interest. 

[JoeW436]

3 hours ago, GeneralMelchett said:

The very first meeting i ever attended (incidentally was at Arena-Essex where Marko and I both used to attend as fans in fact we met a few times) it was a 39-38 win last hear decider. As a 12 year old it kept my interest as the scoreline was close and the result of the meeting was in doubt. When I decided to by the DVD of the meeting many years later (purely for nostalgia) it came across quite badly on video - not much passing mistakes usually leading to passing rather than great racing. I still maintain that speedway doesn't usually come over that well on TV as often the production is so poorly done. At least helmet cam seems to have been binned this season.

There is that balance between rip roaring racing where there is passing or close racing in each race - however as we have seen at the NSS that can sometimes lead to a hefty home win if it's the home riders doing all the passing. As a neutral watching on TV I don't find that all so entertaining but it sure will keep the home fans happy.

Last night I quite enjoyed the match as there were / was passing manouvres in a fair few races (usually involving Dan Bewley) and the scoreline being close throughout kept my interest in the meeting.

Each to their own as they say but i rather watch the Monday match from Birmingham over say BV thrashing Oxford at the NSS 65-25 every time even if Brady and Bewley was passing all and sundry each race.

You have to remember / assume that the die hards are already at the match so its the others / nuetrals watching on TV you have to convert and how you do that is well anyones guess as we all seek different things from sports.

I was of a similar view on the Champions League final at 3-0 to PSG it was evident despite their great football the match was over as a contest and I switched off.

At the Showground I always wanted a close meeting rather than a one sided affair, of course I liked to see Peterborough to win but a thrashing never really did anything for me. 

[GeneralMelchett]

10 minutes ago, JoeW436 said:

At the Showground I always wanted a close meeting rather than a one sided affair, of course I liked to see Peterborough to win but a thrashing never really did anything for me. 

As an Arena fan I always found the close matches much more exciting and to be fair we had a lot of those  - the 1992 season was great we won the lot in Div 2 but some of the meetings were fairly routine and dull winning by 30 points or more.

[*JJ]

8 hours ago, szkocjasid said:

If that's true, seems a strange decision to give him the r/r outing in heat 1?

 

Which is what I thought at the time; it should have been Zagar, perhaps. And, as usual, Musielak came last ...

[BTFC LION]

12 hours ago, *JJ said:

Yes there is.

There is no water tanker that i am aware we can use, there is a sprayer that is used all day, but it will never soak the track enough.