Sheffield speedway boss appeals for fans to turn out after gates drop during recent heatwave
Recent meeting during heatwave ran at ‘significant loss’
Sheffield Speedway bosses are urging the city to get behind them, after concerns over losses at recent meetings.
Damien Bates, the promoter at Sheffield Tigers, who ride on Thursdays at Owlerton Stadium, near Penistone Road, is concerned over attendances at the last two home race nights, with the most recent, against Kings Lynn last Thursday, run at what the club described as a ‘significant loss’.
Mr Bates took over the sole running of the club for this season, having previously shared it with a co-promoter, Peter Mole.
The low gates for the last two race nights came after big attendances for the first two of the season, and the club is also offering free children’s tickets to encourage more families to come at watch, but is struggling to shift them.
In a column in the club’s programme, he wrote: “I do want to say thank you to everyone who has backed us here at Sheffield Speedway so far in 2026.
“As I outlined in the first programme of the year, only fully committing to everything on our own in January, me and my family weren’t sure how this would all pan out.
“Whilst not as much as we would usually bring in, we’ve been very fortunate to be backed by some generous sponsors this season.
“With the packages we created, we’ve been very lucky to have so many people come on board and join us this season – and it was a pleasure to host them as ‘VIPs’ on Bank Holiday Monday against Belle Vue in the OEC Executive Boxes.”
He said the club was still receiving enquiries about sponsorship packages and there were plenty of ways people can still get involved between now and the end of the season
He added: “As I’ve always said since we took over the club over a decade ago, at Sheffield we are also very, very lucky to have a loyal band of supporters.
“We appreciate the lengths you go to to support the team and support the club and it was clear ‘spreading the word’, as we had asked you to, did the trick in those first few meetings.
“The crowd for the opener against Belle Vue was excellent, and the following cup meeting against Leicester was a similar figure as well.
“However, since our home league meetings got up and running, the numbers have been well below the required figure and each meeting has been run at a significant loss.
“We’ve sat scratching our heads; is it the price of fuel that is now putting people off coming on top of everything else? Last time against Leicester, was it the heat that kept people away?
“We’ve offered to give up to 10,000 free kids tickets away this season to try and encourage the next generation of supporters to come through the turnstiles and get hooked – we’ve reached out to places and asked people to apply and as of tonight, we have only given around 300 out.
“Now don’t get me wrong, our busy lives away from speedway means we are unable to be as active as some clubs are and yes we hope to do get several thousand of these distributed in different ways in the coming weeks.
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“But when you’ve received good publicity that you’re giving out free tickets and people still don’t come forward, it does make you wonder doesn’t it?
“At the end of the day, whilst year after year we keep funding this club to keep speedway in Sheffield on track, it’s quite simple, we need more people through the turnstiles on a regular basis.”
Sheffield have two upcoming away fixtures at Ipswich (Thursday, July 16, 7.30pm) and then Northampton (Monday, July 20, 7.30pm) before hosting reigning champions Ipswich in the next action at Owlerton on Thursday, July 23 (7.30pm).
Mascot Packages and Tyre Sponsorships are available for the fixture. For more information, e-mail: [email protected]