WHAT KEEPS A BRITISH SPEEDWAY TEAM ALIVE IN 2025!

What’s Up Speedway Fans,

We are back after two weeks of absensce with a brand new video!

In todays video I will be taking a closer look at what it takes to keep a British speedway club open in 2025.I look particularly at the Plymouth Gladiators in the Cab Direct Championship, but the information is very similar to the National Development League and the Rowe Oil Premiership.

This video came to fruition after chatting to a number of team members from Plymouth speedway, including club promoter, Mark Phillips.

Not many people know that Plymouth speedway has played a crucial part in the development of many world level superstars, including 2025 Speedway GP riders Brady Kurtz and Jack Holder. Both of which finished first and second at this years Speedway Grand Prix of Warsaw.

Former three time SGP champion Jason Crump also came out of retirement after a decade to ride for the Devonshire side.

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I’ll see you guys, in the next one!

what’s up Speedway fans after nearly 2 weeks of absence we are back with another video in today’s video I’m going to be taking a closer look at just how much money and effort it takes to keep a Speedway Club open here in the UK i’ve been speaking to a number of people involved at Plymouth Speedway and hopefully after watching this you’ll have a second thought before posting such negative comments on their social media posts before we get into it make sure you click that subscribe button and the thumbs up button as well just so I know that you want me to keep making these types of video both are 100% free and help me and the channel out more than I can possibly explain make sure you stick around to the end of the video because some of the numbers I’m going to reveal to you today may surprise you anyway let’s get into it when it comes to speedway and grass track the southwest of England has been a staple of the sport for generations with many of the country’s most successful riders coming from Devshire and Cornwall over the last decade speedway and grass track in the southwest has sadly been in decline however there is one man trying to stop the sport going into complete extinction down in this particular area of the country former Speedway and Grass Trek rider Mark Phillips took over Plymouth in 2016 with the plan of keeping Speedway alive in the area with such a rich history in the sport mark even sold a property in 2016 to fund the Devonshire Speedway Dream this was the same year that the club helped develop some of the best riders of the 2025 World Championships with Brady Kurtz and Jack Holder both riding to the club at the beginning of their British careers in 2017 the club would drop down to the third tier of British Speedway where they would stay for three seasons it wasn’t until the sporting restrictions were lifted in 2021 following the CO9 pandemic that Plymouth would move back into the second division of British Speedway and field their first professional team for half a decade and they weren’t messing around either it was announced post pandemic that the Plymouth Gladiators outfit would be spearheaded by none other than former Grand Prix superstar Biana Pettison and triple world champion Jason Crump it must have been a huge shock for the locals to hear that one of the biggest riders in the history of the sport was coming out of retirement after nine years to ride in the second division of British Speedway and although Jason wasn’t the rider that he was 10 years prior to his appointment it could be argued that the Aussie signing was the most marketable factor this level of Speedway has ever had having a sporting legend like Jason Crump in attendance especially as a rider would draw huge numbers of curious fans intrigued to see what the sporting icon had left in the tank at 45 years old these are just a few things that fans are quick to forget it’s inadverted commas tinpot clubs like Plymouth Speedway that have not only helped develop some of the best riders in the world but they have also shown an element of passion that has drawn legends out of retirement which ultimately benefited every other team in the division it’s no secret that the Devonshire Club has never really hit the numbers that Mark and the team dreamed of but that was never going to stop them from trying something that they’re still doing to this day between 2016 and 2025 Marcus sold a house and four building plots to keep Plymouth Speedway in existence it’s estimated that the amount of personal finances that the promotional outfit have invested into the club is somewhere in excess of £350,000 also in 2025 Plymouth lost their main sponsor and their tire sponsor revenue which is estimated to be around £20,000 a season combined but regardless they’re not giving up now any Plymouth haters out there will be saying “Well that’s just Plymouth and their fault for incorrectly running a business.” But would it surprise you to know that these sorts of numbers are much more common in Speedway than you’d think i’ve been told by a few people over the last couple of years that the amount of clubs breaking even across all three leagues of British Speedway you could count on one hand even if you’d lost a couple of fingers i couldn’t tell you which of the clubs are the ones that are profiting and which are the ones that are struggling because truthfully I don’t know but the reason I’m talking about this information isn’t to exhibit that as a business Speedway isn’t succeeding what’s important is how Speedway is still in operation if most of the clubs in the country are operating at a loss then how do we still have Speedway well the truth is that people like Mark Phillips and other Speedway consortiums around the country are keeping the sport going i’ll give you an example say a club like Plymouth is forecast to lose £40,000 a season a group of people behind the club will have a meeting about the potential loss and have to come to a mutual agreement between all of them that they’re happy to lose this amount of money between them if a club has four to eight people behind it in that meeting they would have to agree whether they are happy to lose 5 to10,000 each that season to keep Speedway alive i know terrifying right the point I’m trying to make in this video is that it’s exceptionally rare to find a Speedway club in the UK that is doing well financially so the financial rewards are either unmotivating or non-existent the amount of stress and man-hour required to keep this sport in operation is completely unfathomable to the average fan not only do you have to think about managers riders referees medics etc You also have to find a passionate team of volunteers who are both reliable and competent enough to help out the club every single week but why do I believe it’s so important for the fan base to know these sorts of statistics well I wanted to check it if it was okay to talk about the sort of numbers related to keeping a speedway club alive so I was put in touch with Mark Phillips himself i asked him about the rain off last weekend where he told me that running off a meeting for a club last minute is an absolute calamity if a meeting is called off late you have absolutely no income at all from the Turnstarss but you still have to pay for the medics the referee the travel money for 14 riders both home and away the rent and the upkeep of the machinery something that is estimated to be around $4,000 after telling me about the numbers involved to keep Plymouth Speedway in operation I asked him “Has there ever been a time that you’ve looked at the amount of hours and money you put into the club read all the terribly unkind and nasty comments on social media and contemplated walking away from it?” The Plymouth boss gave me a definitive one-word answer yes what’s frightening is that you watching this as a Speedway fan could potentially be the straw that breaks the camel’s back by cracking your knuckles and typing hurtful uneducated unkind and unhelpful comments on social media you are only doing one thing detracting the enthusiasm away from the people keeping this sport alive if you love Speedway and wanted to change for the better you do have a couple of options direct message your concerns and complaints to the club directly this would hide all the negativity from potential sponsors looking at coming in and investing money into the sport you could just choose not to post anything unkind or unhelpful or even better sign out of Facebook and offer your time to volunteer at your local club one thing that has always remained wonderful about Speedway in the UK is the amount of incredible volunteers who surrender their time for the sport every single week some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met have been Speedway volunteers but the one final message from me is simple please try and keep the hatred and hurtfulness to a minimum the people who are sacrificing their money and time to keep the sport alive see your comments and it could be your comment which is the last straw the difference between the Speedway Club remaining open or the Speedway Club closing that’s all we got time for today but we’re going to do another video tomorrow building up to the double header in Manchester this weekend i hope to see as many of you as I can up in Manchester but until then I’ll see you guys in the next one