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Everything posted by Humphrey Appleby
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Speedway Riders - Employment Status?
Humphrey Appleby replied to Little Thumper's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
Bosman only applied to international transfers, which has never been relevant in speedway. Football had to abolish the retain-and-transfer system domestically because players circumvented the rules by using foreign clubs as intermediaries, but no transfer or loan fees have ever been payable when speedway riders sign for a team abroad. -
Speedway Riders - Employment Status?
Humphrey Appleby replied to Little Thumper's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
The system has survived because realistically no promoter in recent years has dared to prevent a rider signing a contract with another team. And I think there's also a dispute resolution process if that actually happened. The only real consequence is there's a merry-go-round of nominal loan fees paid by one promoter to another, with the occasional transfer fee being demanded (and I think riders even get a percentage of that). The system seems rather pointless nowadays, but it doesn't prevent riders from earning a living. -
Speedway Riders - Employment Status?
Humphrey Appleby replied to Little Thumper's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
The difference is that's a contract and work permit riders have to be paid a minimum wage. Merely being on the asset list of a promotion doesn't mean a rider is contracted, far less paid anything, yet in theory their parent promotion can still decide who they ride for. -
Speedway Riders - Employment Status?
Humphrey Appleby replied to Little Thumper's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
No-one has yet legally challenged the asset system in speedway, which is why it still exists. However, it's hard to imagine its survival if anyone ever did, although in practice I don't think asset holders really dare to make it difficult to sign for another team for that reason. I actually think tracks genuinely developing riders - by which I mean run training schools and development teams etc.. should be compensated in some way, but it should only extend to riders for a limited period and not indefinitely. -
Polish Ekstraliga Is Flexing Its Muscles
Humphrey Appleby replied to PolskiZuzel's topic in International World of Speedway
Which just to confuse things, doesn't involve 'junior' footballers at all... -
Polish Ekstraliga Is Flexing Its Muscles
Humphrey Appleby replied to PolskiZuzel's topic in International World of Speedway
One reason is the fixture list. Britain was really the only country with professional speedway, so tracks needed to run a home meeting roughly every week to pay the riders and to amortise the stadium costs etc.. This obviously meant that every track couldn't ride on the same night. Race nights were somewhat decided by seniority - new tracks coming into a particular league were generally allocated a particular night (or they inherited a race night if they purchased an existing track licence). In more recent years there was more flexibility to choose a race night, but they had to concede that when riding against other tracks with the same race night. So let's say there were two Friday night tracks, the team with least seniority would have to ride against the more senior team at home on a different day, and give up their Friday meeting when riding away to the more senior team. Saturday night tracks generally did better than midweek tracks for crowds, but it very much depends on local circumstances. Tracks in more urban areas seem to be able to run midweek with less effect on crowds than those in more rural areas. I personally preferred Friday racing, but it became increasingly problematic to travel to meetings because of the growing traffic issues. I think Sunday racing has also been confined to lower league racing in Britain. Quite aside from the restrictions on professional Sunday sport until the 1970s(?), Sunday was the day for grasstrack and continental longtrack racing. -
Speedway Star Article : 'lindback Adds Up'
Humphrey Appleby replied to g13webb's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
If you're referring to a certain journalist, I think some of his assertions have been questionable in the past. -
It's not the world of sport which can't operate on the same competitive business principles as the real world. Even the Americans understand that, which is why the NFL (arguably the most successful of the major sports there) is run on what would be perceived as socialist principles anywhere else. The premier competitions of virtually all the major global sports whether football, cricket, rugby or whatever are run by the governing bodies of those sports, and the financial benefits accrue to them. They may partner with other organisations to help organise and promote the events, but the generated profits come back to the sport and are usually redistributed to the member federations and their clubs. The one big exception is F1 which is run by Bernie Ecclestone's company, but he was historically involved in the sport and pays huge amounts to both the FIA and the F1 teams for the promotional rights. By contrast, the premier speedway competitions are run by 2 or 3 private companies that otherwise have nothing to do with speedway. They pay fixed amounts to the FIM and FIM Europe for the promotional rights, but out of that comes the prize money, and the rest disappears internally within those organisations. The promotional companies keep the rest of the money which is lost to the sport. And what risks are these companies actually taking? They contract local promoters to stage most of the GPs, who pay them for the privilege of staging them and incur all the financial risk in the event insufficient fans turn up or its rained off. Those local promoters also get no share in the television and sponsorship money which is kept by the series organisers. So really the only risks are those GPs held in big stadia that are directly promoted, but whilst the Cardiff GP would have been something of a risk 15 years ago, it's well established now. And as for 'doing the work' and Philippe's assertions that I know nothing about event management, I don't think BSI or OneSport are especially professional outfits, whilst the other one which I forget the name of, hasn't even managed to stage an event as far as I know. There have been far too many fiascos down the years, and even at the ones that go ahead, it's apparent that little effort goes into improving the local organisation or promotion at most of the events. Except they haven't. The local promoter in Warsaw was the PZM who copped the flak as they were legally responsible for putting on the event. Nobody is holding up the BSPA as a example of how things should be done, but they're running a different business. BSI and OneSport only have to run a handful of events each year, cherry picking the riders and best dates, and not even having to pay the going rate for top riders. The BSPA members are running grassroots tracks putting on an extensive weekly programme of meetings employing 150 or more professional riders, not to mention the development leagues. There's clearly little vision within the BSPA, far less capitalisation available, but BSI and OneSport do nothing that an international body of promoters couldn't do if they were willing to cooperate. Bring in an experienced commercial manager and contract an experienced promotional and events management company, and then go from there. It's not rocket science, although would need a change of attitude from the various speedway leagues to stop fighting with each other and have a bit of vision with respect to their own collective benefit.
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British Speedway As A Brand....
Humphrey Appleby replied to CookieIpswich's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
Quite simply because they always rode on Tuesday and Sundays, and rode far fewer meetings anyway because their cost structures are different to those in Britain. The most successful British tracks were Saturday tracks (e.g. Coventry) who were badly affected by the fixture disruption. Britain handled the SGP situation badly, but it also had an inherent structure that wasn't easy to change. And of course, the top riders were still happy to ride in Britain whilst the money was there - only later suddenly finding that there were 'too many meetings on the wrong days' etc.. etc.. And I'm not convinced that Poland and Sweden aren't ruined either. Their leagues are nothing like as successful as there were. -
Depends who the sponsorship and television money is going to. If much of it is being taken out of the system by private promotional companies, then it's hardly benefitting the tracks. Television exposure - well the assumption is that it's good, but has it actually brought more fans through the turnstiles? The television companies may be paying fees to televise, and sponsors may be interested because they're getting on television, but again, who does that money go to? BTW - I don't have any great problem with an international pairs competition. I just think it should either be between proper national pairs or alternatively proper club pairs. I also think these sorts of competitions should be promoted by an international association of professional speedway tracks for their benefit.
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It's not as good as when there were upwards of 18 different countries entering from Quarter-Finals onwards. GB's period of dominance was largely before my time.
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I think it's the best and most interesting international competition. That's why it's a shame to see that it's become a pale shadow of its former self. Which is benefitting who?
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Teterow 2016
Humphrey Appleby replied to uk_martin's topic in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
Yes, but why did Guestrow go with SEC to start with? -
Teterow 2016
Humphrey Appleby replied to uk_martin's topic in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
The obvious answer is Guestrow is not willing to put up the necessary dosh, whereas Teterow is. -
Teterow 2016
Humphrey Appleby replied to uk_martin's topic in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
No doubt BSI will work with the local organisers to improve things next year etc.. etc.. -
New Scb Chief Officer Announced.
Humphrey Appleby replied to SteveLyric2's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
What kind of money were they offering? -
Over the years it's gone from a 12 to 8 team tournament, moved from being a tournament to rounds held in the same 3 or 4 countries, gone from 5 rider teams down to 4 (although reserve was subsequently added back), and then having the host team seeded to Final. In other words, it's pretty much back to being the old WTC. This is quite aside from the smaller countries hardly bothering to enter anymore.
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I get the impression that BSI would like to see the back of the SWC. It's been progressively scaled back from the original ambitions, and one wonders whether it's really very profitable for them.
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Maybe many tracks don't run on Saturday because of the competition from all the other events, with the attendant consequences on their crowds and longer term viability. If it's okay for British tracks to run midweek, then why aren't the Pairs and other European rounds run in midweek (and public holidays)? What tends to be forgotten is these European competitions were largely created to give meaningful fixtures in countries that don't really have organised competition structures, whereas there were already full league programmes in Britain. Furthermore, the creation of the SEC GP and Pairs were about the influence of one private promoter over another and some sort of power struggle within the FIM. It shouldn't be indulged. Although I have my criticisms of BSI, it's nothing sort of scandalous that governing bodies should be setting up effectively parallel competitions and selling the rights to different promoters. Regardless of how good or bad the SEC is or isn't, there should be no place for two GP series in Europe. Having said that, if BSI are not exercising their rights to promote a Pairs competition, I don't see that it's unreasonable those rights are taken away if someone else is prepared to run it.
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I don't have any great dedication to British leagues, but a decision has to be made whether riders are allowed to go off and ride in privately promoted competitions at the expense of their main source of employment. It's all very well saying it's valuable experience (which it may or may not be), but when domestic circuits can no longer make a go of it because fans can no longer be bothered to watch makeshift teams, then success at an international level will be irrelevant because there will nowhere for British riders to ride anymore. The British leagues leave a lot to be desired, but they do offer more meetings than any other country and are one of just 3 or 4 places where 150 or so riders can earn something approaching a living. These various OneSport promoted events are all very well, but are a handful of meetings here-and-there for a handful of riders, with only a very few top riders apparently making reasonable money. What you also have to ask is whether success on the international stage brings an iota of extra revenue into local tracks? Are sponsors and crowds queuing up to get into local tracks because there's a British World Champion? I think the answer is most likely no, whereas it's certainly not pulling in the crowds when British teams are constantly missing riders so that a Polish company can enrich itself.