Humphrey Appleby

Why complicate things so much? Just allow however many off scratch, if 6 or 8 points down. It worked perfectly well for years.

Even one tactical sub is better than the nonsense of double points. For one thing, a tactical sub can be used when it needs to be used, not having to wait until the 'right rider' is programmed which may be too late to be effective. And of course it doesn't muck up the scorecharts either. I think it was pretty rare to use more than a couple of tactical subs in one meeting anyway, although it does restrict a team manager's replacement options if there's an injury during a meeting. The one thing that should have been done, is only allow tactical subs when 8 or more points down (i.e. two 5-1s). I think 6 points gives too much of an advantage to a trailing side - tactical options should be allowed in more one-sided situations.

It's not - it's a glorified pairs competition. It wasn't a proper World Cup last time they used that format, and I suspect if I dig out a Speedway Star from circa 2000 it'll be praising the return to a 'proper' team competition. A euphemism for a cost cutting exercise.

Its interesting reading the various Backtrack inspired publications, just how many promotions lived hand-to-mouth even during the so-called golden era and how many lost their shirts. Id guess the promotions that have been in business for many years are the ones ** at least not losing money.

I think the main problem was that the 'novelty events' became devalued when the top riders started to be allowed to miss them, and especially when the lineups started to be whoever could be bothered to turn-up (which frankly is also the problem with the British Championship and Riders' Championship). Even more than for league meetings, you need to have some star names involved. I've never been a huge fan of the 3TT format, but the occasional 4TT, pairs and individual meeting added some variety. I think that today you'd need to link such meetings into a wider competition to add context, but they could be used to fill some gaps now there's fixed race nights.

I suppose the CMA is an abstracted statistic, unlike a batting, bowling average or bowling strike rate. A batting average in particular, fairly accurately reflects a batsman's contribution each time they go to the crease, with the exception that not outs tend to make lower order batsmen look better than they actually are. Batting strike rates are a bit abstract though, and it doesn't really make much sense why it's based on 100 rather than say 6 balls. In a T20 match, a batsman will be lucky to face 100 balls and to me a per-over strike rate would be more relevant. But unlike in cricket, riders don't take the same number of rides in each match, so a CMA can only be abstracted. I think it would make more sense to have a per-ride average (i.e. out of 3), but then you'd have to have a 10.50 team building limit, and you'd inevitably still get some saying you need 45 points to draw a meeting.. sigh...

Why do you think young people aren't interested in mathematics and statistics? I can honestly say that the mathematical aspects of the sport were part of the original attraction for me. What's discouraging people is the archaic image of the sport, whether it's actually a correct perception or not.

In most occupations, either party can terminate a contract with typically 1-3 months notice (sometimes longer). Why should sport be any different? And whilst in football, contracts are generally expected to be honoured by the club in full (although sometimes players are loaned or sold to other clubs on similar terms to reduce the wage bill), it seems speedway riders (other than those on work permits) can be dropped with little or no compensation regardless of the contract length. So very much in favour of the employer, although it also has to be acknowledged they're living pretty much hand-to-mouth as well.

Any system using averages is going to be flawed, however its implemented. However, it's probably still the best and fairest method for measuring the relative contribution of riders, and by extension regulating team strengths. But the way the points limit is currently implemented is too punitive, provides no incentives for teams to use young riders and build rather than buy teams, nor offer much in the way of team continuity from year-to-year. It is possible to adapt the points limit to facilitate this, but when you see some of the misunderstandings about how things work now, I fear it would be a difficult sell.

In reality, combined team averages will tend to drop slightly below 42 for various reasons. Some races will only finish with 2 riders (or even one) and points will not be awarded for those, and starting exclusions still count as a ride but a reserve replacement might be made. And of course guests skew things as the rides of the guest don't count towards either their average or the average of the absent rider, and as I remember, any rides of a No. 8 also don't count.

Having an indoor GP 'rained off' (Gelsenkirchen), another abandoned because of lack of a functional start mechanism (Warsaw), and yet another moved with a day's notice to another city because the original venue was insufficiently prepared (Riga), is totally inexcusable and simply down to very poor organisation. That's before we get to other abandonments due to state of the track (e.g. Gothenburg), and the poor experience in some other venues because of lack of suitability (e.g. Tampere). They may be argued to be unfortunate circumstances, but after 20 years of organisational experience, I think the excuses are wearing a bit thin. Can't recall any F1 GPs being cancelled because the track wasn't properly prepared or the wrong kind of tarmac used, nor GPs being moved to another city with a day's notice. There was the Indianapolis GP fiasco a few years back, and a Bahrain GP was cancelled because of civil unrest, but I can't think what else has been messed up in that sport. It's not a matter of whether I enjoy the GPs or not. They can sometimes be quite good, although I dont get much opportunity to watch them these days as despite Philippes claims that the SGP is shown all around the world, Ive only seen it shown in a couple of the 100+ countries Ive been to. Its just that I don't think BSI does that brilliant a job, nor do I agree with private promoters taking out what limited money there is in the sport. The latter is the fault of the FIM not BSI, but I think it should be questioned whether the SGP is bringing benefits to the wider sport, or is just there to enrich US shareholders.

I'd say BSI made a reasonable start to revamping the World Championship by getting a GP at the Millennium Stadium and returning to a couple of other former 'prestige' venues, although to be honest I think it was a slam dunk. The World Championship had been (deliberately?) run down by FIM by holding World Finals and then GPs in mostly obscure venues, even though crowds at the bigger World Finals in latter years had held up reasonably well. The BSI 'innovation' was more getting television and to some extent sponsorship on the back of that, but again, it was during an era of satellite and cable television growth desperate for cheap content. And the television and sponsorship deals weren't really spectacular by the standards of some minor sports. As for the entertainment - well I'd rather they spent the money on a decent track, and I could quite frankly take or leave the likes of Edwin Starr and a boy playing an accordion. However, I think BSI seriously took their eye off the ball at some point, which culminated in several fiascos that were largely down to poor planning and organisation. That led to various changes of personnel that Philippe has claimed were planned anyway, but ultimately have led to less obvious problems since. And what BSI has done badly throughout the years, is taking responsibility for ensuring that individual GPs are not only properly organised, but promoted as well. How many times have we heard 'lessons will be learned' despite the fact BSI have been running these things for close to 20 years now? A series promoter to me, should have responsibility for setting standards and ensuring those are met at every GP - if they can insist upon it for their own personnel coming to GPs, then it shouldn't be a big leap to ensure the fan experience is good too. The fact that only a couple of GPs have had any longevity is testament to the lack of building decent relationships with local promoters. And then you have the subsequent slating of former GP promoters through the resident BSI proxy, which seems unprofessional to my mind and unlikely to rebuild any bridges in future. So could anyone else do better? Maybe, maybe not - the bar is not very high in speedway. But of course, the FIM signing 20+ year agreements doesn't leave any opportunity for others to come along and improve things. Something like F1 that requires multi-billion dollar investments will need the security of long-term deals, but speedway isn't anywhere in that league and 5-10 year agreements would be more than reasonable for the level that the sport is at. Well you can, because the World Final was only one Saturday (or Friday) not 12 every year. And even if you include the qualifying rounds, it was really only 3 or 4. The British leagues were already on their way to ruin before the SGP came along, but the SGP was certainly the nail in the coffin.

You need to do your research. BSI Speedway is owned by IMG(UK) via another UK-registered holding company. IMG(UK) is a UK subsidiary of its US-based parent, WME-IMG Entertainment which is a talent management agency formed from a merger of various other companies. The work of BSI Speedway is carried out by the staff of the parent organisation, presumably mostly IMG(UK) which is not really very suspicious. OneSport are just another bunch of chancers out to make a quick buck from the sport, and ones that seem to like bigging themselves up by slating others.

Im no great fan of BSI or the way the rights have been sold, but it wouldnt at all surprise me if this article was inspired by a certain rival promoting company. Except BSI is a UK registered company, albeit US owned.

Didnt he promote at Peterborough and Skegness amongst others, although not sure if he was the primary promoter.

Unfortunately both articles are somewhat stating the 'bleeding obvious' and I think many on here could also articulate similar problem statements. A lot of wishful thinking such as we get bigger sponsors, yet ignoring the fact that the sport hasn't really managed that in the past 20 years. Just not the reading ideas for the way forward, what's being done about it, and who should be involved.

From my perspective, I'd have said the 1989 and 1990 BL competitions had a high standard, with some former heat leaders finding themselves down at reserve.

Far for me to defend Tsunami, but he does know something about speedway promotion, and I really don't know why people get so worked up about promoters taking a cheap package tour to Tenerife to have their Conference & AGM. It's probably works out cheaper than holding a meeting somewhere in the UK, and having everyone held captive usually also focuses minds. No-one is going to pretend the sport isn't in anything but a desperate situation nowadays, but it's become so undercapitalised that I can't believe it's much more than a loss-making labour of love for most promoters. I think even the best marketing person in the world would have difficulty digging speedway out of its current hole, even if you could get all the promoters to agree on the way forwards. And let's be frank, most fans on here can't agree on anything either.

It's comparing Apples and Pears. The BL was comprised of 18-20 teams for much of its existence, whereas there are just 8 in the Polish Ekstraliga.

Maybe the riders take a wider line around the track these days - so top speeds are higher, but riders are having to travel further.

Yes. There seems to be no shortage of takers for all manner of Mickey Mouse championships, yet apparently no one is interested in staging the SWC. Maybe some, including the FIM need to lower their financial expectations.

Undoubtedly an intelligent and deep-thinking promoter, but would ultimately have fallen out with too many people. Running a multi-stakeholder sport needs diplomacy more than dictatorship, and you need to get people to buy into your ideas whether they're fools or not. Of course, it's also hard to think the sport could be any worse off.

Isn't BSI responsible for these events?

And that's the thing - the FIM allow one of their premier competitions to be devalued by turning it into a glorified best pairs, yet allow the creation of all sorts of mickey mouse events. BSI should be told very firmly that 4TT format needs to stay, even if it means re-organising some rounds. For example, you could run the two Semi-Finals as a double-header, and then the Last Chance and Final together. That way you'd potentially get 8 sets of fans at one meeting, whilst always being assured of the host nation(s) being involved. Or if it's a competitive issue, go back to the old league 'type' system. Going back to a pairs format doesn't show much imagination and would be a retrograde step.

The problem with the 7-pair, 21-heat format is your team is only riding once every 3-4 heats. With the SWC, your team is represented in every heat, which is perhaps why the 4TT format riding in pairs was dropped (plus the fact that two teams meeting in one heat can potentially collude). But my main objection is that a pair or even 3 riders doesn't not really constitute a 'team', or benefit the countries with strength in depth as it should. The SWC/WTC has usually been the most interesting competition down the years, even if it doesn't get the interest it should.