arthur cross

I remain very sceptical that this scheme will stand up to a full season of being tested by injuries and fixture clashes, never mind anything happening like the massive scores of Steve Boxall and Jon Armstrong in the first half of the 2006 Premier League season of A-B-C-graded reserves ... for example, according to this thread, Liam Carr has opted out of the draft but will he then be allowed into the scheme as a short-term signing in place of an injured rider from among today's 20 draft names ? At least it shouldn't be too difficult to avoid away fixture-clashes between Wednesday-home-track King's Lynn and Sunday-home-track Newcastle who have an Elite League reserve pairing also signed up for the same Premier League 1-to-7. But one selection looks like a logistical nightmare ... when Thursday-home-track Swindon made their first pick, were they aware that Steve Worrall had already signed for Friday-home-track Edinburgh ? !! Taken to its most awkward extreme, Steve could end up with the sequence of King's Lynn v Swindon on a Wednesday, then Swindon's home meeting the next night, and then the annual double-bill of Monarchs-Devils meetings at Edinburgh on the Friday and Plymouth on the Saturday !!

The business of running a sports team tends to have a wider variety of "worst case scenarios" (eg, a run of injuries or rain-offs for a speedway team) than most other businesses ... hence folk who've been successful in other types of businesses that are less volatile are repeatedly caught out when they apply similar decision-making to a sports team only to find out they should have factored in that wider variety of problems when judging how profitable the team will be.

To anyone championing the graded-reserves system for youngsters in Poland and Sweden as the blueprint for it also working over here ... Have you stopped to consider that in both those countries, most of their leagues operate on a regular season of around 14 to 18 meetings with each individual league operating on a "once a week, therefore once at home a fortnight" fixture-list ... hence there's comfortably enough time each week for youngsters to ride in those countries' higher divisions as graded youngsters gaining valuable experience while also taking part in lower divisions where they can be fully competitive, especially in Sweden where the Elit League is almost totally a Tuesday-league and the Allsvenskan (their version of our Premier) is almost totally a Thursday-league. However, for various reasons, British speedway has persisted whenever possible with operating its leagues on a "twice a week, once at home, once away" fixture-list so that tracks become well-known for which day of the week is their "home night" ... indeed, plenty of the posters on this thread have said how much they welcome the return to a balanced schedule of 36-meetings instead of the unbalanced 28-meetings because that will clearly mean fewer gaps in their liking for a home meeting on their team's night every week. Trouble is, this desire for "home every week" speedway in both our top 2 divisions is going to cause many more fixture clashes for British graded youngsters than would be the case for their equivalents in Poland or Sweden ... even if a youngster ends up with a tidy trio of clubs with different home nights (eg Wolves on a Monday, Isle of Wight on a Tuesday and Sheffield on a Thursday), it's going to be a minefield for any fixture scheduler to avoid clashes for away meetings (eg, Eastbourne v Wolves, Workington v Sheffield and Stoke v Isle of Wight all on the same Saturday !!). It's another reason why I reckon this project of "2 graded young Brits" per Elite team is far too ambitious ... but, as I've said before on this thread, it could work if it was scaled down to "1 graded young Brit" per Elite team with the other reserve place still based on general averages and open to any nationality (although clearly that would require the 32.50 point limit for 5 riders to become something like 36.50-for-6).

Andrew Tully will be 27 next May ... surely that's stretching "young" a bit too far !! What's the point in grading Josh Auty into a half-baked schedule of rides as a graded reserve when he's just finished a full season in the same league on a traditional reserve's schedule with a 4.90 average ? !! ... that wouldn't be "fast-tracking" his career, it'd be "putting the brakes on" !! Ashley Birks and Kyle Howarth aren't in quite as clear-cut a situation as I've just mentioned for Auty ... but they've both already shown at Swindon this year they can cope with the traditional reserve's schedule in the Elite League ... in fact, Howarth's Elite average (4.28) is further ahead of Birks (3.06) than the margin by which Birks leads Howarth in the Premier League !! And quite why plenty of folk on this forum are conjuring up lists of just the "top-20" or "10-A & 10-B" candidates for these reserve gradings is completely beyond me ... it'll only take a few weeks into the new season for a normal amount of injuries to keep at least 4 of the original 20 out of action so surely any lists need to be at least the "top-24" or bigger to allow for casualties ... otherwise, there'll be guest reserves galore as the best A-graders and B-graders ride for 3 or 4 teams in the same week to cover for the casualties elsewhere. As I've mentioned on the general BSPA-AGM thread, I reckon this "graded young Brit" policy could work if it was only covering one of the reserve places in each team with the other reserve still being decided by averages (and open to any nationality) ... but this attempt to fill all 20 reserve places with this project is ridiculously over-ambitious, especially as I suspect at least a couple of the National League candidates would love to accept the offer but will reluctantly have to say "no thanks" due to issues like any job they have outside speedway (yes, they'll be very busy for the 7-months of the speedway season but that still might not be enough to cover chucking away a year-round job elsewhere). Combining screamer's list and my observations above, you could establish a pool of 14 "graded young Brits" to fill 10 reserve places and cover for casualties with the following ... 12 certain candidates: Kerr, Garrity, Newman, Blackbird, C-Wright, Ellis, Lambert, Starke, Morris, Jacobs, Branford, Nielsen ... then it depends whether you're grading Howarth and Birks as the borderline examples of whether they'll be helped by this project or, alternatively, adding any 2 out of Reade, Knight. Bates and Halsey to complete the pool of 14 This isn't at all a direct criticism of screamer's list ... far more, it's a logical explanation of how over-ambitious this whole project looks because I've shown how screamer's 20 names can nearly be all used up just in making sure there are enough "graded young Brits" to cover one reserve slot in every team given a normal rate of casualties during the season. Even if the spares among Reade, Knight, Bates and Halsey also start the pool for the second reserve slot, you're still having to go much further down the National League averages to fill that pool ... the next 10 relatively young riders on NL averages are ... James Sarjeant 7.38 Ben Morley 7.13 Steve Worrall 7.09 Tom Young 7.04 Oliver Greenwood 6.89 Ben Hopwood 6.89 Liam Carr 6.87 Lewis Rose 6.76 Tom Perry 6.30 Max Clegg 6.27 Don't forget these riders will also be needed to fill several 3-point reserve places in Premier League line-ups ... I fear we risk burning out some of these youngsters if we're expecting them to cope with roughly a 90-meeting season across 3 leagues so early in their careers.

If you bothered to read my posts properly, you'll see I've acknowledged more than once the comments of other critics of this "graded young Brits" project, so clearly I'm not the "only one that has thought it through" ... nor would I ever try to adopt such an attitude ... in fact, I'll gladly debate constructively with anyone who's "thought it through" and then decided they like this project because that's what this forum is designed for. Equally, I've never gone as far as saying I "must be right because I say so" ... I've simply outlined many different ways in which the scale of this project seems to me to be so seriously flawed. I also notice you haven't come up with the list of 20 genuine candidates for these places (preferably mid-20's to allow for injuries) ... instead, the best you could do was the line I've quoted above ... not very good at debating, are you ?

Because after carefully trouble-shooting this scheme, I've shown in several posts on this thread (along with quite a few other sceptics) how difficult (if not impossible) by mid-season it's going to be drumming up 20 young Brits to fill all the reserves places without doing all of the following ... 1. grading young Brits already in the Elite League like Kyle Howarth and Ashley Birks whose development will then actually be slowed down by now having a softer race schedule than they've already coped with while achieving a proper average at this level 2. grading not-so-young Brits already in the Elite League like Josh Auty and Richard Lawson who are on the borderline of getting a top-5 place in 2014 ... again, such a grading will given them a softer race schedule than they've already coped with 3. trusting that every potential National League candidate for one of these places is going to be able to commit to the full 36-meeting Elite League season ... this isn't just a question of being able to afford to ride all these meetings as it's also a question of how much this will affect these riders' jobs outside speedway ... I suspect at least a couple of the possible candidates will reluctantly say "no thanks" because the commitment's too great regardless of their ambitions to improve. 4. using riders who've already had multiple chances to hold down reserve places in the Premier League and haven't done so ... what's the point of them proving they certainly can't cope with the same task at an even higher level than the one at which they've already struggled ? !! 5. using riders who've maybe only had one or two chances so far at holding down a reserve place in the Premier League but looked so well short of that standard that no other Premier League teams are seriously considering given them another go and most importantly of all, given that speedway riders get injured ... 6. realizing you need either a pool of around 26 such riders instead of the basic 20 to keep each team fully supplied once crashes start to take their toll ... or accept it'll soon boil down to the remaining fit riders from the original 20 getting guest bookings galore which will make another mockery of the league as the best of these reserves regularly end up riding for 3 or 4 teams in the same week. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, once you logically study how this project's likely to pan out over a whole season, it might be workable having the "graded young Brit" as one of the reserves while keeping the traditional format of averages and any nationality for the other reserve ... then, there's a fair chance of there being enough young Brits of a worthwhile-enough potential to keep the total of 10 graded reserve places ticking along. But this project requiring 20 graded young Brits is ridiculously over-ambitious due to all the difficulties I've explained above. I look forward to E I Addio (or anyone else) coming up with a list of 20 riders (preferably mid-20's to allow for injuries) who'll genuinely be able (rather than simply eligible) to take part in this project ... it's easy for the BSPA to design this project over their conference table, far harder for them to actually run it for a whole season without it disintegrating.

Hardly nit-picking or inventing snags ... simply pointing blindingly obvious reasons why this 2 graded reserves project is almost bound to collapse Well that's nice ... neither he nor you will have to pick up the pieces when it goes wrong ... I admire Tai Woffinden for winning this year's world title having been written off by many pundits before the season started but that doesn't make him any sort of expert on the viability of a project like this. That sort of "like it or lump it" attitude (in any walk of life, not just speedway) usually has only one outcome ... it makes up the mind of those who are thinking about lumping it and so they definitely do that ... speedway's been brilliant at this stupidity for years !! Very easy for you to say that when you're neither a promoter trying to balance the books nor a rider trying at least to cover his costs but preferably make a living.

If the concept had been one British youngster per team as a graded reserve while still allowing room for middle-order riders and the other reserve to swop places during the season as usual on their averages, then I could agree with the concept as there would be just about enough talented-enough British youngsters to give the project a chance of succeeding. But making it 2 British youngsters per team as graded reserves means I can't remotely see how this project will stand up in practice over a whole Elite League season, especially one expanded to 36 meetings instead of the recent 28. There were plenty of discussions on here last night about who would make the cut for the top-20 National League riders given the BSPA's own post-AGM press release yesterday evening ... Steve's view that the qualification is a bit wider doesn't actually make much difference to who's eligible. Having had a look at the end-of-2013 greensheets for both the Elite & Premier Leagues, I'd reckon the only 2 extra riders (not already in the Elite League) that Steve's qualification would play in are Kyle Newman and Jason Garrity. Kyle Howarth and Ashley Birks would be the most borderline cases of riders already in the Elite League who could be graded if the qualification is stretched a little bit further ... Howarth's a bit younger but it's messy when you look at their averages because Birks is higher in the PL but Howarth is higher in the EL !! (Birks 3.06 & 7.30 / Howarth 4.24 & 6.86). After that, among the Brits already in the Elite League, I doubt we can really count the likes of Josh Auty or Richard Lawson as "young" any more while Richie Worrall's 5.78 is surely too high for him to be graded. So instead of last night's attempts to list the top-20 National League riders needed to fill all the Elite Leagure reserve spaces, maybe we should be settling for needing the top-16 or top-18 of those lists last night ... even then, that still means using quite a few riders who've already proved they're barely good enough (at best) to be a Premier League reserve. Yet now we're expecting them to add a 36-meeting Elite League season into the level of commitment to the sport they feel they can make (or afford) ... the notion from some of the most optimistic folk on here that most of these youngsters will benefit mechanically from any new TV-money is ridiculously laughable as they'll be way behind the basic bills in the queue for what happens to such money (if indeed, it happens at all). Meanwhile, we're expecting Elite League spectators to all chant the mantra "so what if plenty of them are nowhere near good enough, they're plucky young Brits so we don't mind paying Elite League prices to watch them" ... again, ridiculously laughable. I want speedway to be as constructive as possible in trying to dig itself out of its current troubles .... but 2 young Brits per team as graded reserves in the Elite League is utter madness and I'll be amazed if it doesn't disintegrate as a project by midway through the 2014 season. By the way, given the struggles several Elite clubs have had in recent seasons to balance their books for a 28-meeting season despite having the previous level of Sky money coming in, how the hell are those clubs going to cope with a 36-meeting season even if they're saving wages/expenses with these graded reserves ? !! ... don't forget, their 4 extra home meetings are mostly going to be against the teams from whom they least fancied a 2nd-visit in the 28-meeting format because that unbalanced fixture-list was tilted whenever possible in favour of giving each team its full quota of local derbies ... hence moving up to 36 meetings means a whole load of financially unattractive extra action against distant opposition !!

It didn't work properly in the 2006 Premier League when it had a better chance of succeeding given the smaller gap between the graded reserves and the top riders in that league. Plenty of the riders who'll be needed to fill these reserve gradings have already proved they're barely "up to it" as reserves in the Premier League. Trouble is, they won't be any better either ... and in quite a few cases, hard though it may be for you to believe, they will be worse. Please can I have something of what you've been drinking or smoking this weekend if you think this policy will make any difference to future GB teams ... there are already enough opportunities for any young Brit with enough talent to climb up into an Elite League top-5 as proved in the last couple of years by Richie Worrall. In fact, Richie probably wouldn't have ridden in enough National League meetings in 2010 to qualify for a 2011 Elite League reserve-grading if this system had been in place at the time ... instead, his first full Premier season in 2011 along with a few Elite appearances gave him a much more natural progression towards a regular Elite team place in 2012 & '13. I wouldn't be surprised if at least 4 of the initial 20 graded-reserves next March have quit their Elite League place by the end of the season citing "burnt out" as the reason because 36 meetings mixing with the superstars is going to be far greater a mental challenge than they'll expect.

At a financially well-run club, that's a very likely way in which any 2014 TV-money would be directed. However, at least half the 2014 Elite League clubs will be desperately in need of some TV-money to keep up-to-date with their basic bills ... good luck to their NL reserves getting any TV-money directed their way !!

Using the end-of-2013 greensheet averages (and for the sake of this quick example, transferring Peterborough's top-5 straight over to Leicester), here's how the "top-5 / 32-point-Elite-limit" rule looks ... Belle Vue ... Zagar, Cook, Wolbert, Zetterstrom, Nieminen ... 30.68 giving 1.32 to play with Birmingham ... Smolinski, King, Doyle, Harris, Barker ... 35.61 (keeping Auty as a Brit reduces the total to 32.95 if replacing Smolinski or 33.21 if replacing Doyle so that's still around a point too heavy) Coventry ... Sundstrom, Nicholls, Zengota, Allen, Szczepaniak ... 30.61 giving 1.39 to play with Eastbourne ... B-Pedersen, Woodward, L-Dryml, Nilsson, Gustafsson ... 30.51 giving 1.49 to play with King's Lynn ... Iversen, Korneliussen, Schlein, R-Worrall, L-Bjerre ... 32.99, hence 0.99 heavy Lakeside ... P-Karlsson, Watt, Ulamek, Bridger, Swiderski ... 34.67 (keeping Lawson as a Brit reduces the total to 32.87 if replacing Ulamek or 33.25 if replacing Swiderski so that's still around a point too heavy) Leicester (using Peterborough's figures) ... K-Bjerre, Buczkowski, Kylmakorpi, Hougaard, Fisher ... 34.80, hence 2.80 heavy Poole ... Ward, Hancock, Janowski, Jonasson, Tungate ... 35.07, hence 3.07 heavy Swindon ... Andersen, Kildemand, Batchelor, Kennett, Morris ... 37.09 (Howarth 4.28 and Birks 3.06 reduce the total to 30.28 or 30.32 depending on whether Kildemand or Batchelor is replaced along with Morris definitely being replaced) Wolverhampton ... Woffinden, F-Lindgren, Skornicki, Wells, Miskowiak ... 34.74 (assuming F-Lindgren doesn't return, that makes it 25.80, leaving 6.20 for his replacement)

How naive are you ? !! There's been no official mention of "reduced admission" ... even you're wondering whether it'll be administered fairly ... and most importantly of all, it's hugely debatable whether "fast tracking" any rider into the Elite League will actually work. Remember Tai Woffinden worked his way to the ultimate honour of World Champion by riding at least one full season in each of the Conference League (as it then was) and the Premier League before concentrating over here on the Elite League. Meanwhile Lewis Bridger didn't bother with the Premier League because he jumped straight into the Elite League full-time as a 16-year-old. At least Bridger had enough natural talent to get away with justifying bypassing the Premier League at that age ... now we're asking a bunch of riders with nowhere near as much natural talent to step into a regular Elite League team place when plenty of them have yet to hold a Premier League place for a full season. Utterly, utterly ridiculous ... a scheme that has absolutely no hope of lasting for the whole of the 2014 Elite League.

In answer to "castrolargh", yes we want incresed chances for Brits at reserve but the justifiable negativity this evening is because this is going to mean offering too many chances to Brits who've already shown they can barely cut it in the Premier League !! I've no reason to doubt how Phil The Ace has arrived at his 10 A-graders and 10 B-graders but doesn't that prove how daft this system's going to be. At least half those B-graders have never yet looked like hanging on to a Premier League reserve berth for any length of time ... now we're expecting them to put on some sort of show in the Elite League and develop their careers without having their confidence obliterated by trying to compete at a level way beyond their current ability (and in plenty of cases, way beyond the level they can ever hope to reach during their career). As I mentioned earlier, allowing for injuries you really need a pool of about 26 graded riders unless you let just those top 20 have umpteen guest bookings ... I dread to think who would be Phil The Ace's standby riders given some of the names he had to dredge up for that B-list.

Premier League 2006 ... 3 levels of graded reserves A-B-C with each rider retaining his grade for the whole season and each team was limited to picking an A-&-C pairing or a double-B pairing ... it was announced after the 2005 BSPA AGM as a 2-year scheme for that league with the only re-assessment of grades (or forcing up into the main team) supposed to happen in the 2006-07 close season. However, as you rightly say, Mildenhall's Jon Armstrong and Rye House's Steve Boxall each scored shedloads in every meeting and simultaneously had their A-grades stripped in either June or July with the whole system quietly forgotten about the following year instead of getting its originally planned 2nd season ... from what I remember, Boxall was averaging over 9 so had to go straight from A-grade reserve to number-1 !! Even by the BSPA's usual dysfunctional standards this is a staggering decision to revive a failed Premier League reserve-grading system just 8 seasons later in the Elite League where the gap between the top riders and the bulk of the reserve-graders is going to be far wider than it was in that 2006 Premier League. Jon Cook says the "top 20 young Brits" will be graded and allocated Elite League reserve places while the BSPA statement says "National League riders at No.6 and No,7" ... in practice, that probably means dishing out 10 A-grades and then regarding all the other National League riders as B-grades but only allocating 10 of them to start with. But if the gradings are strictly limited to National League riders, are there actually 20 young Brits from this year's National League who'll be able to commit themselves to a mostly week-night schedule of 36 Elite League meetings while still fitting any National League or Premier League commitments around their jobs outside speedway that are vital towards funding their involvement in the sport ? !! ... actually, given an inevitable rate of injuries, you're either going to need a pool of about 26 graded reserves (so that you're likely to have at least 20 of them fit once the season's in full swing) or it'll boil down to about the best 6-or-7 A-graders and best 6-or-7 B-graders scooping up guest bookings galore as the crashes take their toll. Stand by as well for guests and rider replacements galore in the Premier League (despite it being the best level for National League riders to steadily step up the ladder) because they'll still need to use the best National League prospects in the lower half of their line-ups but will now have a full-time double risk of losing those riders to injuries while riding for another club. Overall, a lovely idea sitting round an AGM table on a chilly day in November ... spectacularly unworkable once the season's a few weeks old. By the way, I love the BSPA's emphasis on Tai Woffinden working his way up from National League to World Champion as an example of how this daft idea can work ... they've conveniently overlooked that Tai's steady progress included his Premier League spell at Rye House rather than a fast-track into the Elite League ... in fact, Tai's first ever Premier meeting (at Sheffield, either on or a few days after his 16th birthday) saw him score 0 points from several rides and probably gave him one of his best-ever lessons in working his way up the ladder rather than being fast-tracked. One final thought ... which A-grader or B-grader is going to be dumped just a few meetings into the new season to make way for Robert Lambert ? !! ... because he's bound to be in demand for one of these Elite League team places but doesn't turn 16 until early-April so is too young to take part in the early weeks of the Elite League campaign !!

Rye House going into the Elite League sounds a curious idea until you get a map out. If both Leicester & Ipswich are moving up to a cost-cutting Elite League (and unless Eastbourne drop down), then Rye House staying in the Premier League could make any of Scunthorpe, Sheffield or Somerset their local rivals at that level !! ... probably it's just Scunthorpe but they're all about 150-to-170 miles away. Yet the entire Elite League except Belle Vue would provide nearer opposition !! Rye House would have nearer Premier rivals if clubs like the Isle of Wight, Mildenhall & Dudley are part of a general National League shift into a cost-cutting Premier League but such a shift would also put Kent alongside Rye House which would be strange given their close links. Maybe given Rye's location and circumstances, it's a smaller gamble than anywhere else about whether the higher costs of running a watered-down Elite League team can be safely covered by much more income from away fans.

Don't forget that unless the weather's perfect all year, you also have to budget for the costs of a few rain-offs during the season ... as a rough guide, in a season of 20 home meetings the minimum you can expect is one early rain-off (eg, mid-morning) that shouldn't cost much at all, one rain-off before you've let the crowd in (eg, a couple of hours to go) from which you could save some of your costs and one last-minute rain-off that costs a hell of a lot ... once you get at least 5 rain-offs during a season, not only is your budget in tatters but there's the extra problem of then having to run meetings in damp conditions that produce lower crowds simply to fit everything in before any cut-off dates. The general money in the Sky deal that's just ended (as opposed to the extra on-the-night bonuses to the teams appearing in the live meetings) was probably worth about £5,000 per home meeting to each club ... it's unlikely that amount would've been enough to cover the gap between Premier wages/expenses and Elite wages/expenses (more likely, covering about 70% of that gap). Several winters ago in the Speedway Star (but without quoting specific amounts of money), Sheffield's Neil Machin did a lengthy piece explaining how he budgeted for a Premier League season by summing-up various percentages of total costs and total income for each aspect of running the team ... from what I remember, he aimed for a guideline of his wage-bill for the riders taking up no more than 55% of the total costs. With a few good local heat-sponsors, Premier League clubs should be able to tick along with an average crowd of around 750 ... under the just-ended Sky-deal, Elite League clubs should have been able to do likewise with an average crowd just over 1,000 (so it's no wonder Eastbourne lost shedloads having admitted they've been averaging 770 !!).

Difficult to come up with an accurate figure for the average costs of running a team in the Elite League or the Premier League because every club will have different advantages and disadvantages (eg, only a few clubs benefit from food/drink sales, similarly only a few clubs benefit from deals with their stadium landlords or medical cover for a rebate if a meeting's rained off at the last minute). But as a rough guide, to run a pair of meetings in the Premier League (one home and one away) costs between £8,000 & £11,000 while in the Elite League it's between &14,000 & £20,000

Any of you trying to work out the costs for staging a meeting shouldn't forget you'll need around £1,000 just for the following 3 items - medical cover with 1 ambulance, insurance cover and the referee's fee. If you want a 2nd ambulance to reduce the risk of lengthy delays after a nasty crash, add on another £200 per meeting.

It's clearly very awkward if what's been billed by Glasgow along the lines of a joint Grievesy Farewell & Fence Fundraiser isn't now going to take place ... but I'd reckon any disgrace should land only on the Glasgow promotion. As far as I'm aware, it's only ever been Glasgow's local decision to treat that track's final action of 2013 as some degree of farewell meeting for James Grieves because the BSPA would've been very unlikely to officlally sanction such a farewell. That's because Grievesy has already had an officlal 20-year-testimonial (wasn't that held at Glasgow in October 2010 ?) as well as an official 10-year-testimonial earlier in his career. BSPA-sanctioned Farewell Meetings normally occur only for a rider whose distinguished career is ended by injury within sight of reaching the 20-year mark ... Jason Lyons is an obvious recent example after his serious crash in 2011 was followed by an official Farewell Meeting in 2012 on the Thursday night before the British Grand Prix. It's just desperately unfortunate that Glasgow's current problems have cut across any plans for rounding-off the career of someone like James Grieves who's given remarkable service to speedway (including some invaluable and sensible help behind-the-scenes as well as his performances on the track).

i've no problem with the BSPA paying Terry Russell a fee to broker the original deal with Sky around 15 years ago (former boxing promoter Jarvis Astaire did the same-style brokering for greyhound racing with Sky at that time) ... no problem either with someone having an exclusive deal to be the BSPA's negotiator at each renewal stage But has any "exclusive arrangement" between the BSPA and Terry Russell over getting a tv-deal ever had its own time-limit, after which it would be due up for its own renewal or re-tendering ? ... or is it effectively a permanent arrangement that won't end until both sides agree to it ? In this sort of matter, roughly 15 years is an enormous length of time for the same "exclusive arrangement" to still be in place !!

The number of tracks operating in each sport really isn't a big factor in what I've been trying to explain ... instead, by answering the enquiries from Parsloes & Ray, I've been explaining aspects where greyhound racing is way ahead of speedway, namely in its ability to bring in money from its tv-coverage in betting-shops and its better user-friendly approach to newcomers. The general changes in our leisure spending has been a huge challenge for the dogs tracks as well as for speedway clubs ... that's why so many dog tracks and speedway clubs have closed just like many pubs, social clubs, cinemas, bingo halls, etc have shut as well. It's also worth noting that in the heydays you've mentioned, there were a lot more greyhound tracks but many of them hosted just a couple of meetings each week that were normally 8-race cards or 10-races at the most, partly because grass tracks were still a normal surface (others were sanded-bends but grass-straights) and they couldn't cope with more frequent use ... today, all the dog tracks are fully sand-based which enables 12 or 13 races to be the usual nightly programme and why several venues like Romford can cope with staging between 60 and 80 races a week, an unthinkable number in those heydays. Most of the dog tracks that have survived are looking after themselves financially far better than most of the surviving speedway clubs ... very few of the dog tracks are being propped up by long-standing family owners or generous local sponsors whereas that's how probably the majority of speedway tracks are just about staying afloat ... instead, the dog tracks have developed a balance that involves daytime or midweek-evening income from betting shops alongside Friday/Saturday night income from local spectators ... I'd sum it up by saying speedway's sunk even further financially than the greyhounds and if you were using profitability instead of mere survival as your measure for who's bigger, the dogs would be way ahead. This thread was started within the debate of whether speedway has any chance of being staged at whatever new sporting venue emerges on the site of the current Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium where one of this country's most famous speedway clubs, the Wimbledon Dons, used to race. Judging by the comments of the We Want Wimbledon greyhound campaigners leading up to last month's gathering at Merton Council, they've made allowances for the number of squash courts in the current site's fitness club to still feature in their preferred plans for a shiny new dog track ... but they made no mention of speedway whatsoever despite the long but increasingly distant history of the Wimbledon Dons. Also (as Parsloes mentioned), there are still 3 dog tracks in Greater London at Wimbledon, Romford and Crayford ... you have to go within touching distance of the M25, never mind any London boundary, to find speedway's nearest track to the capital at Lakeside and while Rye House is only a few miles beyond the M25, dog racing can say exactly the same about Harlow.

Given the title of this thread, Parsloes, Ray and myself are all probably going a bit off-topic here except that much of the theory behind Romford's pricing policy and revenue streams could be applied to Wimbledon (they certainly would be if Paschal Taggart builds a new Wimbledon dog track on the existing site). But to answer Ray's latest enquiry ... Romford just put the one category of admission charges (including racecard) that I quoted earlier on their website ... the key thing is they're charging just £7 for the initial admission and then letting their customers choose how much they want to gamble or eat/drink as the night develops depending on each customer's budget. (The racecard is simply a page for each race summarizing the last few appearances of each runner ... there's rarely any reading material beyond that basic form guide so it would be the equivalent of a 50p or £1 speedway scorecard rather than a £2 or £3 programme). In marketing terms, they're not charging as much for the "primary spend" (getting into the venue) because they're better able to profit from the "secondary spend" once you're inside that venue (in their case, the betting, food & drink). And that's usually speedway's massive problem when it tries lower admission charges (or does a free meeting like Lakeside's night a few years ago) because apart from programmes and any sort of raffle draw, any increase in "secondary spending" from the bigger cut-price crowd is probably going to the stadium landlord's profits rather than helping the speedway club. The betting-tote at Romford creams off just under 30% of the total amount bet on each race before the dividends for winning bets are calculated ... so if it's a 12-race card and you bet £2 per race and you have an average night success-wise, the tote will keep about £7 of your money (roughly 30% of your £24 total stakes) and give you back the rest as your various winnings as the night goes along ... of course, depending on your luck/judgment, you might win enough to cover your admission charge or you might lose all £24 you've bet. But assuming you have an average night with your bets, it's cost you £14 (£7 admission and £7 lost on your bets) to get into a busy entertainment venue, be given a basic guide to what's going on and then enjoy the buzz of having a bet every 15-minutes or so ... for a newcomer spending £14, is that a better introduction than spending roughly the same amount to see a few exciting heats of speedway within a 15-heat match ? Maybe the best way of illustrating how well the dog tracks capture "secondary spend" compared to speedway is what's known throughout greyhound racing as "6-pack vouchers" for their crowd ... Romford's current example is that if you book ahead as a group of at least 6 people, you each pay £6/Friday or £9/Saturday on top of the basic £7-admission and then you each get vouchers for a basic snack bar meal, your first two drinks and your first £1 on the tote. What you're paying for those vouchers is good value in its own right (especially on Fridays) but from the track's point of view, any newcomers soon learn their way round the stadium while using those vouchers, ready to spend more money on drinks or bets once they've used the vouchers. In that respect, dog racing is way ahead of speedway in helping its newcomers to get involved.

It's only that busy thanks to the money Romford (and many other greyhound tracks) receive from BAGS (the Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service that supplies live greyhound racing into betting shops). Romford has 3 BAGS slots - Saturday lunchtime, Monday nights and Thursday afternoons - it certainly wouldn't stage the daytime action without getting several thousand pounds of BAGS-money per meeting and it's debatable whether it would run Monday nights without the BAGS-money. Overall, it probably receives well over £1million a year in BAGS-money (just over £6,000 three times a week would total a million quid per year and, as far as I know, the BAGS-money per meeting is slightly above that figure) ... compare that sort of money for one track with the entire Elite League being guaranteed a total of only £900,000 per year to share between its 10 clubs from the Sky-deal that's just ended ... there are currently 17 dog tracks on the BAGS schedule covering between 41 and 47 meetings per week with only 8 other dogs tracks (including Wimbledon but see a few paragraphs further down) operating within the official Greyhound Board of Great Britain rules but without a BAGS-income. If you're wondering how dog racing generates that much money from betting shops for its tracks, it works out that each shop up and down the country is paying about £1 for each dog meeting it's showing ... most of the meetings have between 11 and 14 races so that's well under 10p per shop per dog race ... hence, tiny amounts of money from each of 8,000 betting shops become hefty payouts for 17 dogs tracks !! (Newcastle bring in even more BAGS-money because they've 4 slots a week - Tuesday nights, Wednesday lunchtimes, Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons - in fact, their last Saturday afternoon race for the betting shops is at 6.16 and then at 7.39, it's the start of their Saturday evenings for their local punters as well as the Racing Post's greyhound tv-channel.) The vast majority of BAGS races are relatively low-grade affairs involving runners supplied by each track's contracted trainers ... Romford's Wednesday nights and Saturday nights are of the same standard but attract enough of a crowd (especially Saturdays) to be profitable while their main meeting each week is the Friday-night "open" meeting (in other words, open to all trainers anywhere in the country). Clearly, any dog track looks to make plenty of money from its crowd betting on the races or enjoying its bars and restaurants so the admission price for most greyhound fans isn't as big a chunk of their total spending as it would be for most speedway fans ... but the sobering thought for speedway fans is that the BAGS-money also helps to keep down the admission price for the local punters so Romford lets them in free of charge for the daytime-cards, £4 on Monday/Wednesday nights, £7 on Friday/Saturday nights ... it means families can afford to go along even if only one of the parents is seriously into the betting on the races. - - - - - - - - - Meanwhile Ray Stadia wondered how the greater number of meetings at Romford compared to Wimbledon reflected the standards of those two tracks ... several years ago, Wimbledon did have at least one BAGS meeting a week but as it's one of the tracks owned by the Greyhound Racing Association, the GRA chose to re-allocate any of Wimbledon's BAGS-action elsewhere among its venues (Belle Vue and the Birmingham duo of Hall Green and Perry Barr as well as the now-closed Oxford) ... the GRA's reasoning was that it was too costly to open up Wimbledon's much bigger stadium for BAGS-meetings attended by only a handful of spectators when the overheads would be much cheaper at their other tracks for the same BAGS-money coming in. Generally in greyhound racing in the last decade (as with many pubs and restaurants and other leisure businesses), they've had to face up to the changing demands of the public who are now far less likely to go out on Mon/Tue/Wed nights because they're saving their leisure money for the spell that might start on Thursday night but really kicks in between Friday teatime and Sunday mid-evening.

Like you Steve, while some Elite clubs do keep their finances tidy, I seriously doubt the ability of other Elite clubs to keep up with weekly payments of £600 for a tv-showcase when they struggle to keep up with similar-sized payments for things that are much more fundamental to running a speedway meeting than making sure Sky can show some highlights a few days later. Also, I wouldn't trust the BSPA Management Committee to successfully ensure the skint clubs kept up to date with such payments. And actually, given each club's had only 14 home league-meetings this year spread over about 24-weeks of a regular season, your estimate of £600 per week is actually nearer £1,000 out of each home meeting's gate receipts because the production company will expect its money for each programme regardless of how much each individual club features in each specific show ... 24-weeks @ £600 means £14,400 needing to be stumped up from those 14 gate-receipts. So that's a swing of roughly 400 fans from each team's home crowd between receiving Sky-money up-till-now and paying money to retain a Sky-presence next year ... it's previously been estimated on this forum that the Sky-money this year has meant the same as about 340 extra fans per meeting but this project requires using the money from about 60 real fans (via the £1,000 they've handed over at the turnstiles) to keep Elite League speedway on Sky's schedules. Unless the clubs individually or (don't laugh please) the BSPA collectively can drum up sponsors for at least a good chunk of the funding for these highlights, I'd regard staying on Sky this way as a complete vanity-project instead of an important necessity.

Actually, Peterborough's Showground is only a few miles further away from Leicester's track than Wolves's Monmore (and might even be closer in driving time given it's mostly on the rural A47 rather than battling along the M6 or through all the West Midlands traffic lights and roundabouts). Given that Leicester went so long without speedway, it wouldn't surprise me if quite a few folk from that area got used to going to Coventry at least once a month and therefore still make a few visits to Brandon as well as supporting the Lions ... also, not every supporter lives close to their nearest track so both clubs will have a significant group of supporters who live in the towns and villages between the two cities. The other consideration about avoiding neighbours racing on the same night is that it greatly increases the risk of the same bad weather scrubbing out two meetings instead of one (with all the knock-on effects that does to the fixture-list) ... while I'm well aware the whole of the Polish and Swedish leagues have their respective same racedays, the teams in those leagues are spread out over a much wider area of land and therefore far less at risk of one lump of bad weather wrecking several meetings. In theory, if Leicester did join an Elite League designed to be raced on one night only and a particular week's fixtures put all the Midlands neighbours at home, with a decent sat-nav I reckon you'd might just be able to stand trackside for a heat at all of Monmore, Perry Barr, Brandon and Beaumont Leys on the same night (any 3 out of the 4 would be a realistic target) ... you'd struggle to do likewise in Sweden or Poland even if you borrowed a light aircraft in place of your car !!