Leicester Lions 2026

[TTT]

16 minutes ago, gjcone44 said:

how much do you wanna bet crowds are bigger the better the opposition, which kills your argument. the negativity on here is very justified.

It's not justified at all in this case but then again you're a very Anti-British Speedway member of this forum tbh.

Put out a poor 1-7 from the start and the glory hunting fans won't turn up at all.

Spend the money by putting out a good 1-7 and the glory hunters will bail out as soon as the going gets tough.

That's on the fickle fans.

[TTT]

Moan about budget 1-7's that lose constantly which leads to an outcry for team changes.

Moan when a 1-7 doesn't have an Out an Out No.1 due to a Club balancing the books.

Moan when an expensive 1-7 gets put together in regards to the costs involved.

 

Proof is in the pudding that moaners will moan regardless.

British Speedway Owners can't win unless they're are signing riders like Bartosz Zmarzlik on £20 per point contracts.

[mikebv]

1 hour ago, gjcone44 said:

how much do you wanna bet crowds are bigger the better the opposition, which kills your argument. the negativity on here is very justified.

Hence whenver I go to watch United away, given so many more fans are in attendance than usual at those grounds that don't sell out..

Eg The Etihad ..

We sing..

"Come to see United. You've only come to see United"...

In Speedway terms, upon the likes of BV visiting all the current 2nd tier teams, (if there was one league), the crowd levels for their visit would be significantly higher than normal I would suggest.... 

The novelty would wear off, and probably quickly, but that initial visit would definitely see a decent amount more in attendance..

[gjcone44]

50 minutes ago, TTT said:

Moan about budget 1-7's that lose constantly which leads to an outcry for team changes.

Moan when a 1-7 doesn't have an Out an Out No.1 due to a Club balancing the books.

Moan when an expensive 1-7 gets put together in regards to the costs involved.

 

Proof is in the pudding that moaners will moan regardless.

British Speedway Owners can't win unless they're are signing riders like Bartosz Zmarzlik on £20 per point contracts.

they could of done with you on the titanic trying to cheer everyone up as they got on their life boats. 😁

[ouch]

2 hours ago, gjcone44 said:

how much do you wanna bet crowds are bigger the better the opposition, which kills your argument. the negativity on here is very justified.

Agree. Better riders bring better crowds and I’m looking forward to seeing them in UK leagues whilst I can. 

[SteveLyric2]

2 hours ago, ouch said:

Agree. Better riders bring better crowds and I’m looking forward to seeing them in UK leagues whilst I can. 

Local(ish) derby's are just as likely to attract bigger crowds.

[Tim G]

2 hours ago, ouch said:

Agree. Better riders bring better crowds and I’m looking forward to seeing them in UK leagues whilst I can. 

Not always, went to Oxford v Belle Vue last season and the crowd was awful. Next match was against Plymouth and the crowd was much bigger.

 

[ouch]

47 minutes ago, Tim G said:

Not always, went to Oxford v Belle Vue last season and the crowd was awful. Next match was against Plymouth and the crowd was much bigger.

 

Two meetings in a week and one of them being shown on BSN. I reckon more saw The Aces meeting just not necessarily at the track.

[Tim G]

31 minutes ago, ouch said:

Two meetings in a week and one of them being shown on BSN. I reckon more saw The Aces meeting just not necessarily at the track.

Six days apart which was the norm at Oxford due to the running in both the premiership and championship.

I doubt very much the meeting being shown on BSN would have made up the difference in attendance between the two meetings.

The so called big names don’t really draw people in anymore, I expect if you asked people in Manchester who Brady Kurtz is nearly everybody wouldn’t have a clue.

Belle Vue have two of the best riders in the world but when looking at the empty seats on the tv matches they are hardly drawing the punters in.

 

[ouch]

7 hours ago, Tim G said:

Belle Vue have two of the best riders in the world but when looking at the empty seats on the tv matches they are hardly drawing the punters in.

 

QED

[mikebv]

7 hours ago, Tim G said:

Six days apart which was the norm at Oxford due to the running in both the premiership and championship.

I doubt very much the meeting being shown on BSN would have made up the difference in attendance between the two meetings.

The so called big names don’t really draw people in anymore, I expect if you asked people in Manchester who Brady Kurtz is nearly everybody wouldn’t have a clue.

Belle Vue have two of the best riders in the world but when looking at the empty seats on the tv matches they are hardly drawing the punters in.

 

Plenty of empty seats when not on TV, too...

"Big Names" are only that to the less than 0.1% of the polulation who follow the sport...

They mean nothing to the 99.9+% of the population who don't....

What an opportunity for growth though if you could make admission affordable for more people, allied to a properly joined up national marketing campaign to try and make many, many millions of people aware that they have a Speedway track within a 45 minute drive of their home...

Edited 5 hours ago by mikebv

[foreverblue]

14 hours ago, mikebv said:

Hence whenver I go to watch United away, given so many more fans are in attendance than usual at those grounds that don't sell out..

Eg The Etihad ..

We sing..

"Come to see United. You've only come to see United"...

In Speedway terms, upon the likes of BV visiting all the current 2nd tier teams, (if there was one league), the crowd levels for their visit would be significantly higher than normal I would suggest.... 

The novelty would wear off, and probably quickly, but that initial visit would definitely see a decent amount more in attendance..

Dont the home fans sing you have only come to see City? It is certainly the case that tickets for matches at more readily available for smaller games so the opposition is a big factor especially when it comes to cup competitions where the tickets are not included in the cost of a season ticket. I would also suggest that my team Poole would generate a bigger crowd than normal if it was one league.

[ouch]

1 hour ago, mikebv said:

Plenty of empty seats when not on TV, too...

"Big Names" are only that to the less than 0.1% of the polulation who follow the sport...

They mean nothing to the 99.9+% of the population who don't....

What an opportunity for growth though if you could make admission affordable for more people, allied to a properly joined up national marketing campaign to try and make many, many millions of people aware that they have a Speedway track within a 45 minute drive of their home...

I disagree that less than 0.1% of fans who follow the sport are drawn to the big names. We’ve had Ipswich fans stating many times how crowds increased when Jason & Emil came on board.

Maybe we could do some kind of test where we run on a Sunday without the big names. If they charged less admission then it can only be a great success - can’t it?

We could all do our own national marketing campaign at no cost to the sport. Just ask 50 family, friends, colleagues etc to come along. There’s no better salesperson available than us speedway nuts. A million extra fans, brilliant. 

[bellevueace]

18 hours ago, TTT said:

To be fair, The fan mentality was like that before inflation, COVID etc.

Unfortunately Speedway fans don't have the mentality as Football fans for example who are also from a working class background.

No matter the results, They'll be their every week supporting the Club through the good times and bad ones.

British Speedway fans bail out when their Club hits a rough patch and then it forces the hand of Clubs to go public with statements.

Ive never understood the comparison with football, as you say fans turn out season after season even for clubs who are only making up the numbers and really have no chance of ever getting any success clubs like Fulham, Bournemouth, Burnley have next to no chance of getting top four let alone winning leagues fa cups, Palace only won their first trophy last season, no manipulation of team strengths to try to have all teams equal, but fans of the lower reaches clubs are there in numbers home and away, speedway lost that tribalism a long time ago.

[mikebv]

51 minutes ago, foreverblue said:

Dont the home fans sing you have only come to see City? It is certainly the case that tickets for matches at more readily available for smaller games so the opposition is a big factor especially when it comes to cup competitions where the tickets are not included in the cost of a season ticket. I would also suggest that my team Poole would generate a bigger crowd than normal if it was one league.

They had over 20,000 empty seats on Wednesday in their CL game so probably not...

[bellevueace]

2 minutes ago, mikebv said:

They had over 20,000 empty seats on Wednesday in their CL game so probably not...

Even i was surprised at the amount of empty seats on Wednesday at the emptyhad

[foreverblue]

2 minutes ago, mikebv said:

They had over 20,000 empty seats on Wednesday in their CL game so probably not...

That was my point regarding cup games or less meaningful matches. 

[mikebv]

46 minutes ago, ouch said:

I disagree that less than 0.1% of fans who follow the sport are drawn to the big names. We’ve had Ipswich fans stating many times how crowds increased when Jason & Emil came on board.

Maybe we could do some kind of test where we run on a Sunday without the big names. If they charged less admission then it can only be a great success - can’t it?

We could all do our own national marketing campaign at no cost to the sport. Just ask 50 family, friends, colleagues etc to come along. There’s no better salesperson available than us speedway nuts. A million extra fans, brilliant. 

I would say that less than 0.1% of the population (80,000?) know who the GP riders are..

And of that 80,000 around just circa 20,000 actually visit the 14 tracks regularly.. 

And as for fans bringing others along? 

Do businesses who I use expect me to bring in customers to them? Or do they advertise themselves nationally so people know they exist? 

[mikebv]

7 minutes ago, foreverblue said:

That was my point regarding cup games or less meaningful matches. 

The CL game was a "must win" to get into the seeded top eight...

citeh!...

[ouch]

1 hour ago, mikebv said:

I would say that less than 0.1% of the population (80,000?) know who the GP riders are..

And of that 80,000 around just circa 20,000 actually visit the 14 tracks regularly.. 

And as for fans bringing others along? 

Do businesses who I use expect me to bring in customers to them? Or do they advertise themselves nationally so people know they exist? 

There is more than enough people know about speedway to fill tracks to capacity every meeting. They choose not to attend because they don’t like speedway. I don’t visit away tracks now because I don’t like it. You can do all the conventional advertising methods you want and it will achieve very little in the long term.  We need to focus on why people don’t like speedway and not about telling them it exists. Belle Vue have several slots on local news but the 250k-500k who watch it don’t come along once they know about it. This fact is true of ALL the marketing methods we have used. The only thing I see working is some modern day social media guru working their magic to create the fomo effect. I have now idea how this actually works, unfortunately. 

I disagree about your view on getting friends onboard. Refer a friend and recommendations are a massive part of businesses push for custom. Monzo, Octopus energy, Sky plus many restaurant chains do it and with sites like Trustpoilt and Tripadvisor looking at customers reviews to help bring people in, we will have to agree to disagree on this point.