Leicester Lions 2026

[Lionsman66]

If I may defer back to the effort that is put in at Leicester , during the off season I stay in contact with Stewart Dickson and he's a very open & honest bloke. He & Jen Crossland but in a crazy amount of work to make Lions what it is . If you honest feedback on stuff , check out the Q&A in the Leicester Lions Speedway fans group. Maybe this can give some insight & but the belly aching on pause

. 

[mikebv]

38 minutes ago, ouch said:

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. 

Glasgow do a very good job in giving out tickets to fans to bring people they know along...

The key being "not just one meeting" and "not just one person"....

Getting a group there can be very much key to encourage them to keep attending when they are required to pay...

Although going from free to £25 could also need some looking at...

[foreverblue]

1 hour ago, mikebv said:

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

citeh!...

Not really a must win as they still qualify for the play offs and even winning didn't guarantee a top 8 finish. 

[Tim G]

4 hours 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’m not sure now that a national marketing campaign would do much good, I think clubs need to market better in the local area to get back lost fans.

My local track is Oxford, now when I buy a ticket I need to input my email address. I have never received any email from them advising me of what meetings are coming up or asking me how my experience was. They must have thousands of email addresses that they could reach out too and have so many potential customers they could contact in one easy way with offers to get them to attend again.

I will say the information they supply on the WhatsApp group is very good though.

[mikebv]

6 hours ago, Tim G said:

I’m not sure now that a national marketing campaign would do much good, I think clubs need to market better in the local area to get back lost fans.

My local track is Oxford, now when I buy a ticket I need to input my email address. I have never received any email from them advising me of what meetings are coming up or asking me how my experience was. They must have thousands of email addresses that they could reach out too and have so many potential customers they could contact in one easy way with offers to get them to attend again.

I will say the information they supply on the WhatsApp group is very good though.

100% advertise locally...

There are Universities/Colleges  who do marketing degrees so you could maybe contact them for their students to do some "real life course work"..

If you decided not to employ a proper agency obviously....

Nationally?

14 teams running one meeting each would gross around circa £400k at roughly twenty quid on average (based on 20,000 fans in total visiting the 14 tracks for their opening night..)...

Maybe all could give up that first nights money and give that circa £400k to a national company to see if they can get some cut through?

(Budgeting for one less match per season)..

They lay huge amounts to riders in relation to fhe tiny size of the sport, yet dont seem to ever use some of this money to market these riders, and their businesses, beyond those who already know who they are. 

Surely it's worth doing "something different" for one season to see if it can make a difference? 

Less riders per team and use the payroll saving for marketing for example? 

Edited yesterday at 06:16 PM by mikebv

[BluPanther]

2 hours ago, Tim G said:

I’m not sure now that a national marketing campaign would do much good, I think clubs need to market better in the local area to get back lost fans.

My local track is Oxford, now when I buy a ticket I need to input my email address. I have never received any email from them advising me of what meetings are coming up or asking me how my experience was. They must have thousands of email addresses that they could reach out too and have so many potential customers they could contact in one easy way with offers to get them to attend again.

I will say the information they supply on the WhatsApp group is very good though.

Unfortunately quite a few of those lost fans are probably dead...

[Phannan]

16 hours 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.

 

Give me Ben barker over Kurtz and Bewley any day 🙄

[IainB]

2 hours ago, mikebv said:

100% advertise locally...

There are Universities/Colleges  who do marketing degrees so you could maybe contact them for their students to do some "real life course work"..

If you decided not to employ a proper agency obviously....

Nationally?

14 teams running one meeting each would gross around circa £400k at roughly twenty quid on average (based on 20,000 fans in total visiting the 14 tracks for their opening night..)...

Maybe all could give up that first nights money and give that circa £400k to a national company to see if they can get some cut through?

(Budgeting for one less match per season)..

They lay huge amounts to riders in relation to fhe tiny size of the sport, yet dont seem to ever use some of this money to market these riders, and their businesses, beyond those who already know who they are. 

Surely it's worth doing "something different" for one season to see if it can make a difference? 

Less riders oer team and use the payroll saving for marketing for example? 

We've all got our bright ideas on this forum but not one single member thought of paying Linda Lusardi to do the cup draw!

[FishersGate]

Just seen a clip of Kyle Howarth saying if it's one big league he would quit. 

I'm sick of riders dismissing the one league concept. I'm not buying it at all that they would be broke all of a sudden due to not doubling up. 

[Fromafar]

8 minutes ago, FishersGate said:

Just seen a clip of Kyle Howarth saying if it's one big league he would quit. 

I'm sick of riders dismissing the one league concept. I'm not buying it at all that they would be broke all of a sudden due to not doubling up. 

Would have to find a job that pays silly money.

[TTT]

Told everyone all winter that riders would quit if one big league were to happen.

CHAMP Clubs can't afford to pay them what PREM Clubs do.

[BluPanther]

13 minutes ago, FishersGate said:

Just seen a clip of Kyle Howarth saying if it's one big league he would quit. 

I'm sick of riders dismissing the one league concept. I'm not buying it at all that they would be broke all of a sudden due to not doubling up. 

[FishersGate]

6 minutes ago, TTT said:

Told everyone all winter that riders would quit if one big league were to happen.

CHAMP Clubs can't afford to pay them what PREM Clubs do.

So let's say Kyle Howarth gets dropped by Leicester this year for poor form and doesn't find another club. Should he quit Glasgow? 

[Tim G]

29 minutes ago, FishersGate said:

Just seen a clip of Kyle Howarth saying if it's one big league he would quit. 

I'm sick of riders dismissing the one league concept. I'm not buying it at all that they would be broke all of a sudden due to not doubling up. 

Tyson Fury keeps saying he’s quitting aswell.

Believe it when I see it.

[TTT]

22 minutes ago, FishersGate said:

So let's say Kyle Howarth gets dropped by Leicester this year for poor form and doesn't find another club. Should he quit Glasgow? 

Riders like Kyle never get dropped.

Edited 1 hour ago by TTT

[FishersGate]

13 minutes ago, TTT said:

Riders like Kyle never get dropped.

That's an assumption. He could easily drop form ..Simon Lambert ain't got a prem club . Should he quit speedway? What about some of the younger riders not good enough for the premiership yet. Should they quit and also and hold the fans and clubs to ransom? Drew Kemp will likely get dropped again at some point, I imagine he earns much less than Kyle in the championship. Quit again? Connor Mountain? I could go on...

 

[Hawk127]

On 1/31/2026 at 2:19 PM, BluPanther said:

Unfortunately quite a few of those lost fans are probably dead...

Or possibly suspended animation. It maybe a bit harsh to suggest dead, comatose or waiting for the men in white coats is a more likely scenario. Having said that most of those in charge seem to have suspended any animation they had and the quick fix is more like a trip to A&E. Stuck in a corridor with little hope of ever being seen let alone a diagnosis as to what is wrong with the sport. Still as those on the top table believe all is well and nothing to see here. The sport in this country is fine.

[IainB]

Continuing the hospital analogy, it's about time that these "bed blocker" riders that are holding the sport to ransom are sent to dignitas if they refuse to stop doubling up and let some of the maternity ward patients have an opportunity (young riders). I'm sure that after a period in the real world on the building sites that many will soon be back realising that they can make it pay after all. Some of them only have a few years left in the sport anyway and are just hoping that the sport lasts long enough to give them a last few easy paydays. 

Edited 42 minutes ago by IainB

[TTT]

32 minutes ago, FishersGate said:

That's an assumption. He could easily drop form ..Simon Lambert ain't got a prem club . Should he quit speedway? What about some of the younger riders not good enough for the premiership yet. Should they quit and also and hold the fans and clubs to ransom? Drew Kemp will likely get dropped again at some point, I imagine he earns much less than Kyle in the championship. Quit again? Connor Mountain? I could go on...

 

I can't recall a time where Howarth has been dropped by a PREM Club.

Simon Lambert may as well quit if I'm being brutally honest, Youngsters who can't cut it in the CHAMP may as well quit too.

Drew Kemp is lucky that Leicester exist because he's done nothing but cost Leicester trophies over the last couple of years and he's got a quitters mentality at PREM level tbh.

[FishersGate]

4 minutes ago, TTT said:

I can't recall a time where Howarth has been dropped by a PREM Club.

Simon Lambert may as well quit if I'm being brutally honest, Youngsters who can't cut it in the CHAMP may as well quit too.

Drew Kemp is lucky that Leicester exist because he's done nothing but cost Leicester trophies over the last couple of years and he's got a quitters mentality at PREM level tbh.

I can't believe you've just said youngsters should quit if they can't cut it in the championship.....Shocking . 

So by your shameful logic if you ain't good enough just quit. There's already a rider shortage you'd just make it worse .