Seriously

[nw42]

51 minutes ago, mikebv said:

Me and my lad on Monday were actually joking at just how many "wear the club shop"..

Plenty were doing so ...

Granted most were fifty something's so were wearing a coat over the top to keep the cold out... 

Which maybe hid just how many were wearing some Aces memorabilia..

The issue the sport has was clearly highlighted on Monday when, on an evening where there was no threat to it not taking place, given the forecast from 24 hours before, not enough Aces and Ipswich fans could be arsed turning up for a POSF...

The whole reason we go through a season of qualifiers is to get this part of the season meaning the competition itself must have so little kudos and credibility, even to some of the sports most regular followers,  that so many simply couldn't see the worth in attending...

The Ipswich fans stated a Monday night as being the problem, however, I am sure if it was the final then they would have attended..

(Maybe Phil was right in putting commercial reasons in front of everything else when he put Sheffield with Belle Vue!?)..

There are only SIX meetings that actually mean anything all year, therefore when one of those six delivers such disinterest, those who run Speedway should really be very worried..

No point having the play offs if they don't generate more money than the tracks lose by fans not bothering to attend qualifiers..

Agreed on the fans wearing the gear, I was stood in the first bit of the stand off the 2nd bend, just behind the half dozen Ipswich fans who had made the trip, (kudos to them), there were plenty around me wearing the club stuff, including a couple of the Witches fans.  I wouldn't wear it at my age, 65, but would've loved some of the gear available now in my younger days.  Back then the only choices were a black, white and red anorak, or a red, white and black anorak, oh and a bobble hat, now there are hoodies, t-shirts, bandanas, all kinds of hats etc.

As someone pointed out, seeing the Poles twirling there scarves following a race victory is great to watch, it's just a whole different sport over there isn't it, something we can only dream of now. I can remember the sights and sounds of the BLRC at Hyde Rd, for me it's the only thing that comes close to what we see in Poland.

  

 

[Sargent10]

10 minutes ago, PersonalResponsibility said:

I agree it's not easy to compete, but that isn't a reason to just not bother either. Worryingly, it comes across as if most involved in the sport share your way of thinking.

You've named 2 clubs that BV have to compete against locally, and yet they seem to do a pretty good job. They're one of the biggest/most successful clubs in Britain. If they can manage that with 2 huge football clubs on their doorstep, what's stopping others? Who's competing locally with Kings Lynn, for example? Glasgow are another who have done very well, and another with 2 huge football clubs sharing the city.

I assume it's also very difficult and costly to get a ticket to watch any of the clubs mentioned above? Surely that's something we could at least try and exploit? People want to watch live sport, they want entertainment, so why not give them a fast-paced motorsport, plenty of entertainment and all for X% of what it would cost to watch a football match? As I said in my first post though, it's not VFM to watch speedway at 99% of places in this country, so people won't bother.

Belle Vue are doing okay like Glasgow but let’s say 45 years ago when they were in the hey day of speedway, football was still attracting massive attendance numbers, what was the draw? It was cheap to watch, it was cheap too ride (if you wanted) it was fairly regular most weekends you’d be at home and probably somewhere away, fairly local indeed and because of that it was tribal so if you were in a group of friends and went to watch it was the craic giving opposite team some stick and usually good fun and friends followed it (like Poland now), fast forward to today, premier league, Monday or Thursday nights, work, school etc after school clubs, more expensive than imho it should be (but let’s park that) and hardly any local derby and kids just not interested in the sport unfortunately unless they are actually riding themselves, and there are less and less of them because of the cost 

[secsy1]

When Belle Vue moved to the National Speedway Stadium many incentives to buy a season ticket were on offer.

Year on year since then no incentives whatsoever, only a continual purge on the aging fans purse strings.

Every club that offers season tickets should show how much the fans are appreciated by giving them a shirt/scarf.

Why is everyone moaning about how so few fans wear team merchandise, when the reality is they cannot afford them.

It was unjustifiable to raise the price for Mondays meeting and really what has club merchandise got to do with it?

[bellevueace]

5 hours ago, mikebv said:

Me and my lad on Monday were actually joking at just how many "wear the club shop"..

Plenty were doing so ...

Granted most were fifty something's so were wearing a coat over the top to keep the cold out... 

Which maybe hid just how many were wearing some Aces memorabilia..

The issue the sport has was clearly highlighted on Monday when, on an evening where there was no threat to it not taking place, given the forecast from 24 hours before, not enough Aces and Ipswich fans could be arsed turning up for a POSF...

The whole reason we go through a season of qualifiers is to get this part of the season meaning the competition itself must have so little kudos and credibility, even to some of the sports most regular followers,  that so many simply couldn't see the worth in attending...

The Ipswich fans stated a Monday night as being the problem, however, I am sure if it was the final then they would have attended..

(Maybe Phil was right in putting commercial reasons in front of everything else when he put Sheffield with Belle Vue!?)..

There are only SIX meetings that actually mean anything all year, therefore when one of those six delivers such disinterest, those who run Speedway should really be very worried..

No point having the play offs if they don't generate more money than the tracks lose by fans not bothering to attend qualifiers..

I know people who were going to attend then found the price increase and stayed at home to watch on tv, i wonder how many others did? It appears the increase in price actually cost them money.

[cowboy cookie returns?]

4 hours ago, bellevueace said:

I know people who were going to attend then found the price increase and stayed at home to watch on tv, i wonder how many others did? It appears the increase in price actually cost them money.

Pure greed from Lemon. Something about him I can’t stand.

[DaveWayne]

I'm intrigued to know what people think they should be paying to watch professional sportsmen, including some of the best in the world ?

As well as watching speedway, I am a regular at stock car racing and football. My football team are in League 1 (3rd tier), and the match day ticket price is £30. Stock car racing, depending on the formulas racing as there are different levels, varies generally from £20-25. When it is a bigger meeting, such as the British Championship or the European the the prices is closer to £30, and this weekend is the World Championship with advance tickets at £42 and on the day price of £48.

In comparison to this, I don't think that £25 is too high a price for top league speedway, and would expect an increase for the play off semis and final.

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

1 hour ago, DaveWayne said:

I'm intrigued to know what people think they should be paying to watch professional sportsmen, including some of the best in the world ?

As well as watching speedway, I am a regular at stock car racing and football. My football team are in League 1 (3rd tier), and the match day ticket price is £30. Stock car racing, depending on the formulas racing as there are different levels, varies generally from £20-25. When it is a bigger meeting, such as the British Championship or the European the the prices is closer to £30, and this weekend is the World Championship with advance tickets at £42 and on the day price of £48.

In comparison to this, I don't think that £25 is too high a price for top league speedway, and would expect an increase for the play off semis and final.

Don’t they say Something is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it and clearly not enough people think the product is worth what they are being asked to pay 

[heathen52]

9 hours ago, DaveWayne said:

I'm intrigued to know what people think they should be paying to watch professional sportsmen, including some of the best in the world ?

As well as watching speedway, I am a regular at stock car racing and football. My football team are in League 1 (3rd tier), and the match day ticket price is £30. Stock car racing, depending on the formulas racing as there are different levels, varies generally from £20-25. When it is a bigger meeting, such as the British Championship or the European the the prices is closer to £30, and this weekend is the World Championship with advance tickets at £42 and on the day price of £48.

In comparison to this, I don't think that £25 is too high a price for top league speedway, and would expect an increase for the play off semis and final.

How much actual racing do you see for that ?, Speedway works out at about £1.50 per minutes racing, I know from the rare occasions i have been to stocks that races last a lot longer so roughly how much per minutes racing?, I am going to take a wild guess and say something like 25p per minutes racing which is way way less than the cost of Speedway.

[PersonalResponsibility]

9 hours ago, DaveWayne said:

I'm intrigued to know what people think they should be paying to watch professional sportsmen, including some of the best in the world ?

As well as watching speedway, I am a regular at stock car racing and football. My football team are in League 1 (3rd tier), and the match day ticket price is £30. Stock car racing, depending on the formulas racing as there are different levels, varies generally from £20-25. When it is a bigger meeting, such as the British Championship or the European the the prices is closer to £30, and this weekend is the World Championship with advance tickets at £42 and on the day price of £48.

In comparison to this, I don't think that £25 is too high a price for top league speedway, and would expect an increase for the play off semis and final.

Football is more expensive, but there are a lot more football fans and subsequently more demand in the first place. Even then, I'd argue £30 is on the high side for L1 and I've seen others saying the same. The Stock Car World Championship is an annual event, I don't think you can realistically compare that with a run of the mill league meeting.

I personally think the £20-25 range you've listed for standard stock car meetings would be a fair price for Premiership speedway. Closer to £20 for normal league meetings and then bump it up a little when the POs come around. 

As has been said above though, the price is what people are willing to pay for it. Look at the GP section of this forum, it's full of people decrying the price of tickets for the GP at Belle Vue and yet there was 5,500 people there. Yes, it's only an annual event the same as the Stock Car World Final, but the cheapest ticket was £69 for one meeting and people still paid it.

[Sir Sidney]

10 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

Don’t they say Something is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it and clearly not enough people think the product is worth what they are being asked to pay 

I suspect most of the people who would not worry about the current cost of speedway entry prices have no idea it exists, because British Speedway makes very little attempt to attract them. 

[GeneralMelchett]

Wasn't at Foxhall last night - did they keep their usual prices?

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

25 minutes ago, GeneralMelchett said:

Wasn't at Foxhall last night - did they keep their usual prices?

Yes £24 kids £1

Edited 3 hours ago by THE DEAN MACHINE

[therefused]

43 minutes ago, GeneralMelchett said:

Wasn't at Foxhall last night - did they keep their usual prices?

will they keep the same price for the final?

[Siggytastic]

Tickets are on sale now priced at the usual £24

[therefused]

55 minutes ago, Siggytastic said:

Tickets are on sale now priced at the usual £24

fairplay to the Ipswich promotion. 

[SPEEDY69]

Can't really compare to stock cars because those drivers actually pay to enter meetings, which changes the balance of income/expenditure for the promoters.

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

As I said I would I took notice of the amount of team clothing worn by fans last night, we parked the car right near turnstiles and the que ‘s were fairly big, I would say probably 3% had Ipswich branding and about 2% of that was clothing from the 1990s-2000s, quite a few of the old Wulfsport jackets, not many modern team shirts on show, it was cold and people had jackets on so that could of factored in to it, also I know it’s the case in most British speedway but Ipswich crowd seems to be 50+ age bracket and I don’t think I’ve seen so many dogs at a speedway meeting (except in the bar at hull  years back)😉

Edited 1 hour ago by THE DEAN MACHINE

[YeOldPitGate]

5 hours ago, PersonalResponsibility said:

Football is more expensive, but there are a lot more football fans and subsequently more demand in the first place. Even then, I'd argue £30 is on the high side for L1 and I've seen others saying the same. The Stock Car World Championship is an annual event, I don't think you can realistically compare that with a run of the mill league meeting.

I personally think the £20-25 range you've listed for standard stock car meetings would be a fair price for Premiership speedway. Closer to £20 for normal league meetings and then bump it up a little when the POs come around. 

As has been said above though, the price is what people are willing to pay for it. Look at the GP section of this forum, it's full of people decrying the price of tickets for the GP at Belle Vue and yet there was 5,500 people there. Yes, it's only an annual event the same as the Stock Car World Final, but the cheapest ticket was £69 for one meeting and people still paid it.

All fair point but the 5,500 at Belle Vue is another sign of how far we have fallen granted at a push you could maybe get 20-25k at a British GP if such a venue existed it just doesn't seem that long ago when crowds of high 40's were at Bradford and Cardiff early days.

[DaveWayne]

6 hours ago, heathen52 said:

How much actual racing do you see for that ?, Speedway works out at about £1.50 per minutes racing, I know from the rare occasions i have been to stocks that races last a lot longer so roughly how much per minutes racing?, I am going to take a wild guess and say something like 25p per minutes racing which is way way less than the cost of Speedway.

Depends on the meeting format. Usually 10-15 races at 5-6 minutes each, so 60-90 minutes in total. So yes, probably 25-40p per minute.

[DaveWayne]

50 minutes ago, SPEEDY69 said:

Can't really compare to stock cars because those drivers actually pay to enter meetings, which changes the balance of income/expenditure for the promoters.

Not entirely true. The lesser formulas that don't attract much of a crowd pay to race, but the bigger formulas don't. They also receive prize money for placings, some formulas get 'start money', and also the F1s get free admissions for 3 mechanics.