Humphrey Appleby

Why did Hackney and Wimbledon close then?

I think it's primarily that rents are lower/non-existent. I think most clubs are leased land by their local communities at a peppercorn rent, and the stadiums are generally fairly basic (although tidy in the Scandinavian way). There's therefore less need to run a lot of meetings to amortise the cost, which in turn makes it more practical to cover wages from sponsorship. I'm not sure how much is made in gate money as the last time I went to a Swedish Elite League meeting, it was somewhat cheaper than an equivalent meeting in Britain. For some lower league meeting I went to, I don't remember paying anything to get in, although 'get in' was a slightly moot point for a track situated in a forest.

Do they? I'd think they're simply desperate to get some events in the stadium, given that the venue was losing money hand over fist last time I looked. Whilst I doubt Wembley would be suitable (far less affordable) for speedway, has anyone actually ever enquired what their attitude would be? I'd imagine it would be much more open to alternative events these days, given the need to recoup the vast cost of building the new stadium and the fact that modern business practice frowns upon lost revenue opportunities.

Yes, but it's also clear that Cardiff must be attracting a significant number of non-regular fans. The question is would a London GP attract more non-regular fans, and I suspect the answer would be yes. However, that would have to be offset against probably higher costs and maybe less of a largesse from the local authority as London hardly needs to pay to attract visitors.

Yes, but if London replaced Cardiff it might be a different story. I agree there's no particular compelling reason to go elsewhere in the current climate, but neither is Cardiff irreplaceable. The problem with Cardiff is that attendance has been pretty static for a number of years now. A GP in London might be sufficiently more attractive or accessible to the casual fans who don't go now, although countering that would be that the weather might adversely affect matters. What did happen to the proposed GP in Monaco? Wasn't Prince Albert feted at Cardiff one year with a view to having an event in the Principality?

Except the Danish GP was in the big stadium with a roof, as is the Swedish GP and yet both those countries have two GPs. I'd fully agree that a second British GP would likely dilute the Cardiff event, but of course it's mostly about where money can be wrung out of the local authorities and the England (as opposed to devolved authorities) is much more reticent about throwing money into these sorts of things.

Not convinced it couldn't be replicated in the Olympic Park. And yet there's not a Polish GP round exceeding the attendance at Cardiff, even when they've been held in stadia with sufficient capacity. It's obvious the number of Polish GPs was about milking their local governments for sponsorship, at least until the Poles got wise to it and set-up their own GP series. I'd think the chances of a GP at Wembley are zero. The stadium is not the right shape for speedway and I doubt the FA would accept a track laid over the (less than) hallowed turf. The Olympic Stadium would be the most obvious option.

Not sure why you're comparing Wembley to Cardiff, when if the SGP ever decided to go to London it would most likely be to the Olympic Stadium. I also suspect you'd be similarly bigging up East London if it ever happened. The Millennium Stadium is an good venue for a GP, but Cardiff is grossly overpriced for a provincial city and certainly no easier to reach than London for most of the country.

I run a national motor sports championship myself, albeit one at a much lower level, with fewer rounds and less travel, so I do have some grasp of the work involved. Equally, I do it in addition to my full-time job, and 7 or 8 days work every two weeks is still less than what most working people do, albeit that I'm sure being race director involves a lot of unsocial and long hours whilst on the job. Many people would love to have a job like that, so you'll have to forgive me if I take the suggestion that it's a tough life with a bit of pinch of salt. Are they going to advertising for a new race director and if so can anyone apply...?

Or being held in the Munich Olympic Stadium the year before, compared to Riga this year?

Taking the SGP to the biggest cities then... Even I had to look up where Horsens was, and I've got a pretty good grasp of Scandinavian geography...

He's not doing it every 2 weeks for most of the year he's doing it for 12 rounds (maybe 13 rounds if you count the SWC) which is less than half a year. He'd have undoubtedly done far more traveling as a rider, and indeed I did more travelling than that for my job for 16 years. I would love to have a job where I could work for a few days every two weeks for half a year. Of course, Olsson may have his reasons for wanting to do something else, but let's not pretend it's a hard life.

Could he not fly back to Sweden?

Ah, the old 'leaving to spend more time with the family' line...

The multidisciplinary nature of motorsport seems to complicate how monies are received and distributed. The FIM may undoubtedly argue they spend money for the benefit of the ACU as their other members, but how much of that actually finds its way to speedway? With football, it's clear that some monies from the World Cup go to the FA who generally spend it on development and grassroots football.

Would be too much of risky investment nowadays with FIM Europe sanctioning competing series.

Yes, but BSI is owned by IMG's UK subsidiary who lost millions on other ill-fated ventures in the past few years. It looked like the board was sacked. It's reasonable to have long-term deals where substantial investments in capital and venues need to be made, and where there are long cycles between events such as for World Cups etc. It's quite another to do it for mickey mouse sports that are reusing existing venues year-after-year, buying television production facilities off-the-shelf, and where it's really only the track preparation that requires any significant investment. A 10-year deal would be more than fair in speedway, yet the FIM is locked into something like a 21-year deal with BSI which is crazy when there's potentially other promoters out there. Maybe the OneSport clowns wouldn't be any better, but there should at least be the opportunity for others to enter the market.

BSI is a commercial company who aren't going to voluntarily pay more for the rights than they have to, although they look to have got a pretty good deal. It's the FIM who haven't leveraged or redistributed the cash, and locked themselves into a ridiculously long-term deal with BSI. Yes, the BSPA would undoubtedly have wasted any money they'd have got from the SGP, but then so have IMG on golf courses and Olympic Stadium projects (and weren't they also involved in the Ricoh Arena fiasco at some point?).

Legally the World Cup rights belong to FIFA the organisation, but FIFA is a membership association of national federations including the English FA. So the answer is that whilst FIFA can sell or market the World Cup, it should be doing so for the wider benefit of its membership. And despite all the corruption, FIFA does distributed profits out to its members and participating teams which is not what happens with the FIM as far as can be determined.

The structure of circuit racing is somewhat different to speedway though. There aren't national leagues racing every week and I'd imagine the top riders make most if not all of their earnings through MotoGP or Superbikes. Those competitions are not disrupting other competitions where riders earns their livings. There are parallels in other sports where top level competitions take competitors away from their domestic employers (in particular cricket), but those employers then benefit from the revenue generated at the top level.

It could be argued they hold the speedway world championships in trust for the national promoting bodies who ultimately develop and employ the competitors. It could also be argued the FIM has a responsibility to ensure their stakeholders benefit from any commercial arrangements with respect to these championships, and to leverage as much income as possible for redistribution amongst said stakeholders. Has speedway as a sport benefited from the FIM signing 21-year deals on their behalf, and where the incumbent commercial rights holders pays just 15% of its revenue for the privilege of using other peoples' riders?

The issue is that the monies are apparently not distributed to the national speedway authorities, and how much the world championships were the FIM's to sell.

Not a thing as far as can be determined - but too late to be complaining about it now. The rights were given away years ago without a whimper from the national leagues.

Except Alexander Fleming invented penicillin in England, which I think sums up why the Union is important. I'm not sure literature would entirely be worse without the florid romanticism of Walter Scott, who seems to be single-handedly responsible for what Scots believe is Scottishness, despite it not being grounded in much fact. And Rabbie Burns in between writing bloody awful poetry was a bit of a rotter...

It still be part of Great Britain, as Great Britain is one of the British Isles.