Humphrey Appleby

Because sports leagues stand-and-fall by the competitive and financial health of the majority of the teams, not the ones that can buy their way to success. There will always be those teams with a bigger budget - whether because they have a bigger fanbase and more sponsors, or simply because they're got a rich owner using the team as a plaything - and that either forces the teams to spend above their means, or they become uncompetitive and lose fans and sponsors as a result. Just because some leagues are apparently able to do this, does not mean it's a sensible model or one that should be aspired to. You could implement a wage cap, but that only really works if you're able to do some expensive auditing which speedway can't really afford. And no doubt a lot of speedway still works cash-in-hand which is pretty difficult to audit. So averages are not the worst method, although they have been misused as a punitive tool rather than one that's used to prevent teams becoming overly strong. There should be encouragement to develop riders over a period time without having to lose them, which could be done with a more intelligent use of a variable points limit and fixed nominal averages for developing riders.

If a rider has been excluded from a heat then technically they have raced. As far as I'm aware, no points are awarded for 17th or 18th place, so presumably an rider withdrawing before the heats would be replaced by a reserve who likely finish in the top 16 and be awarded points accordingly. Similarly, riders getting injured during the Heats 1-20 would be awarded points according to where they were classified.

How is it different to (say) an F1 driver getting injured and the reserve driver coming in and scoring points instead? The paying public should get to see 16 riders out on the track, and the reserves also need some incentive to turn up and try if they have the opportunity to ride. It's unfortunate when riders get injured, but it's the nature of the sport. In the worst case scenario, what if 3 or 4 riders got injured during a GP and you ended up with heats with only a couple of riders, or even worse no riders...?

Why would it be unfair? If a rider gets injured after their first, second, third and fourth heats it will likely push them down the classification anyway. Why should it be different for the Semi-Finals and Finals if you're unable to complete the meeting? The top 8 should have first option to race in the semi-finals, but if they're unable to take their place or are excluded (2 minutes or tapes), then the slot should go to the next rider in-line. Same for the Final for that matter.

Riders placed 9th downwards should be considered reserves for the Semi-Final. Whether to replace injuries or exclusions (where replacements are allowed).

Thought that rule was deleted some years ago, but I haven't checked recently. Seemed a bit pointless as you're unlikely to be at the races if you need to be push started.

Averages including bonus points are a better reflection of individual rider ability, but shouldn't be used for team building.

But it's all relative. If you only awarded points for finishing ahead of an opposition rider, and structured pay rates accordingly, bonus points wouldn't be necessary. The absurdity of bonus points is illustrated by the fact that in a 45-45 draw, one team could be paying out for 60 points whilst the other is only paying out for 45. In general, bonus points inflate CMAs by about 5 points on average, but weighed more heavily on teams that more commonly team rode (although that seems to be a thing of the past nowadays). So they should really be removed from team building calculations.

I think points should only be scored for finishing ahead of an opposition rider. There shouldn't be any reward for finishing 3rd and 4th and would avoid the inflationary problem of bonus points.

Surely people know this is speedway, and in the speedway all the promises in the world invariably add up to absolutely nothing...

They also did a great job of renovating the stadium as well, which had fallen into quite a state of disrepair. In many respects it's better than what it was like before the closure.

What very sad news.

I think it's only Sid and Orion that are left...

It's obviously sad news for both Swindon fans (cough!) and speedway in general. Unfortunately though, the outcome was totally predictable when you saw who was involved, and astonishing how anyone ever bought into the nonsense that's been spun over the last few years. Sadly, the political makeup of the council (and surrounding councils) probably precludes much support for finding let along granting approval for a new stadium. That's one thing that saved Oxford Stadium from being built on.

Yes, it's tragic although entirely predictable sadly.

I honestly think that even if speedway had been the best run sport in the world, it would still have been in decline. All sorts of land and environmental pressures, its demographic, the rise of home entertainment, the rise of the Great Football God and competition from other sports...

Playoff systems are relatively uncommon in Europe, but have been a feature of Latin American football for decades where they seem to be accepted. Going back in time, I believe Germany also had a playoff system in the pre-Bundesliga era when teams played in regional leagues. Why it never happened in England is an interesting question, but possibly because the FA Cup was a major competition that provided the culmination to the season at one time. However, football fans would accept whatever they're used to, just the same as the fans in any sport. Fans would no doubt grumble initially, but over time would no doubt come to accept the system in the same way that the Superbowl, World Series, AFL/NRL Grand Finals are seen as important events. The top two (three from Division 2) teams are automatically promoted. 3rd to 6th (4th to 7th in Division 2) playoff for the remaining promotion spot.

Playoffs long pre-date the American sports, and were not hugely used even there until the expansion of the various major leagues from the 1960s onwards. Baseball hardly used them beyond the World Series being a 'playoff' between rival leagues until expansion and the need for divisional structures and unbalanced schedules made this a necessity. American football plays so few games that there wasn't much choice once the NFL (and later AFL) expanded beyond a handful of teams. I think the Stanley Cup was again a 'playoff' between the champions of what were considered major leagues at any given moment (and these changed from time-to-time). In the meantime, I think the County Cricket Championship effectively had playoffs back in the 19th Century, Australian Rules certainly has always featured them, Rugby League had them years ago too. Rugby Union - at least in England - didn't even have leagues until the 1980s, as they were considered too radical for the old farts running the sport at the time!

Football is now more the exception rather than the rule for not having playoffs to decide its champions, although it does have promotion playoffs and of course had relegation test matches in the early days! Although I prefer that the team with the most points wins the championship, even the points system has been contrived in recent years so nothing is sacrosanct. If race offs (I refuse to call them playoffs in speedway) are considered desirable though, you could give some advantage to the higher placed teams by giving them some sort of points lead and/or home advantage. You could also have a double elimination system which gives the higher placed teams more advantage.

Not many. 4-rider teams will give you 12 heats where everyone meets each other once with the same pairings. You could then mix-up the pairs, but that would require at least another 6 heats (for a total of 18) and there wouldn't be a balanced format. Alternatively, you could add a couple of reserve pairings to each team, which would add another 3 heats (for a total of 15), but they'd only have 2 rides each and you'll have 3 all reserve races which is not ideal. Or you could mix-up the pairings with the reserves (so there are now 3 pairings per team), but then you'll need to add 9 heats (for a total of 21) which would give Nos 1-4, 6 programmed rides and Nos 5 & 6 only 2 programmed rides. It's awkward which is why I think only the Danish Open League has ever used a 3TT format, and that was only for a season as I recall. That used 6-rider teams with 2 reserves (who had 2 rides each) over an 18-heat format. The last 3 heats were some sort of nominated races based on team ranking order after Heat 15, so the nominated riders from the top two scoring teams rode in the final heat. I'm not sure how you'd explain all this to a television audience...

The only way that a salary cap could ever work is if the BSPL centrally contracts and hires out the riders to teams. Other (mainstream) sports can afford expensive auditors to go and check conformance, but speedway hasn't got the money for them and no doubt much of the sport still runs on cash-in-hand anyway.

3TTs are awkward as (assuming four riders per race) there will always be one team not riding in any given heat, and difficult to come-up with a balanced format where every rider meets at least once. The 'classic' 18-heat 3TT format used in Britain is pretty awful as team members are stuck in the same pairs and don't meet a pair of riders from each of the other teams. And as you point out, also difficult to arrange fixtures unless there are 3, 6, 7 or 9 teams in the league.

I'd argue that the NL was ultimately a disaster for speedway, and as I recall suffered from just as much instability as the BL. Yes, it allowed maybe couple of the teams that dropped down to survive and even prosper (Ipswich and Sheffield), but others also fell by the wayside as the NL filled with professional riders. The NL refusal to allow its riders to be used by the BL also limited progression and forced BL teams into using even more guests. In any two-tier system, the bottom tier has to support rather than compete against the top tier, as it's the existence of the top tier that ultimately keeps costs down for the lower tier. I think few would disagree that the merger of BL and NL, and the creation a couple years later of the 'one big league' wasn't well done, but had the BL collapsed than it would have just have transferred its problems to the NL. I think speedway crowds were generally dwindling throughout the Eighties, although some BL teams still got (by today's standards) quite healthy crowds just as some NL teams struggled. We're now back to the situation though, where the powers-that-be have totally got the split between the PL and CL wrong in terms of costings.

6-rider teams are really the minimum viable number for a 15-heat match, although they have been run in the past.

That's the problem - only one home meeting in every four, and effectively a third of the revenue compared to now. 4TTs fixtures are also difficult to organise in a balanced way unless there's 4, 5, 7, 8 or 16 teams in the league. Even then, you'll probably find that some teams will have less home meetings than others.