arthur cross

Surely Coventry would make a justfiable objection to another track less than 25 miles away running on the same night as themselves !!

On this occasion, I don't think any change in audience-figures is at the top of Sky's thinking (although it'll still matter to some degree) ... instead, whether you're a speedway supporter or a speedway promoter, you need to understand that Sky's situation within televised-sport in this country has changed enormously since it included speedway (and several other minority sports like greyhounds, pool and ice hockey) on its schedules during the mid-to-late-1990's. At that stage, it was still the fairly new upstart that had revolutionized British tv-sport by hooking up with the Football Association to push through the breakaway in 1992 of the Premier League clubs from the traditional 4-division format of the Football League ... Sky Sports' head honcho at that time, Vic Wakeling, led an attitude that wanted to be seen to be supporting a variety of sports up and down the land as well as making millions from the subscriptions that were mostly football-driven. But now, in a much greater multi-channel era thanks to everyone having to swtich over to digital-tv whether they subscribe to anything or not, Sky has become the longest-established sports-subscription service and therefore a target for a new wave of upstart sports-broadcasters to aim at. It wasn't too difficult to see off Setanta (a badly organized bunch) while ESPN soon realized they weren't going to defeat Sky over here (regardless of how big ESPN is in the United States) ... in fact, ESPN gladly showed adverts for Sky to help their own UK finances !! But more recently 3 things have happened ... firstly, Sky paid way too many shedloads to guarantee it would be the only British broadcaster with live coverage of every F1 Grand Prix race (and all the practice sessions) ... secondly, BT Sport emerged with by far the toughest challenge yet to Sky's dominance, both in terms of attaching broadband deals into sports-subscriptions and also in the willingness to bid mega-money for Premier League football (and by the looks of it, the upcoming round of Champions League rights). Thirdly, Vic Wakeling retired after about 20 years in charge and his successor Barney Francis (either by choice or being forced into it by the previous 2 changes I've mentioned) appears much more concerned with hanging on to their biggest deals than also continuing the effort to support a wider variety of sports ... hence more use in recent schedules of "golden archive" material from those big deals. Arguably, the only "minority sport" that's harnessed Sky well enough to lift itself into the list of "big deals" is darts. None of what I've just explained is really speedway's fault ... except the stumbling way speedway's been run in this country has left it even more vulnerable than similar sports when faced by these changes to Sky's landscape. If there's one person Terry Russell should make an effort to talk to before he visits Sky in the next few days, it's a chap called Tom Kelly who's in charge of BAGS (the organization of the greyhound racing tracks shown in betting shops) ... this time last year, the dogs on Sky had reached the crossroads speedway's at now but everyone in the greyhound industry (whether it be the tracks, the bookmakers or Sky themselves) will tell you it was Tom Kelly's ideas and negotiating skills that underpinned the compromise-deal that kept the dogs on Sky this year. The greyhounds dropped from about 35-shows on their traditional deal across the whole of 2012 to around 22-shows from March-onwards this year but the indications are that everyone's close to agreeing around 26-shows in 2014 that will include some January and February action this time ... it can't do any harm on this occasion for speedway to find out more about greyhound racing's case study.

Most (if not all) bookmaking companies will tell you that speedway's very low down their list of priorities compared to other sports. The Racing Post usually has just a few preview-paragraphs on the Saturday of each Grand Prix but only properly covers the Elite League with a full-page to cover the season-opening odds each March (individual live meetings sometimes get a mention, usually sarcastically, in that paper's tv-listings). To put that into context with how the Racing Post previews other sports (presumably in response with their betting interest), it carries several paragraphs going into every live Super League rugby league game shown on Sky (ditto for the BBC's Challenge Cup games in that sport), at least 4 paragraphs going into every NFL American Football game shown on Sky, Channel-4 or Eurosport and today it's found room for 8 paragraphs covering the last-16 tennis matches at the men's Stockholm Open and women's Luxembourg Open (and that's pretty typical of the amount of space it gives even the more routine events on the tennis tours) ... I don't remember seeing any preview 10 days ago of the 1st leg of the Elite League Grand Final and there certainly wasn't any preview of the 2nd leg on either Monday or Tuesday this week. Skybet's sponsorship of the Elite League probably amounted to "nobody else wanted to sponsor it so we might as well stick our our bookmaking firm's name on it". Yes, quite a few of us on this forum like having a speedway bet but we're the ones that follow the sport closely and therefore we're betting with what the bookies would regard as "fairly well-informed money" rather than betting with what's known as "mug money" if we're just having a bet for the sake of giving us an interest on whatever sport happens to be on the telly this evening. The odds should still be tipped enough in the bookies' favour for them to make a small overall profit from all our "fairly well-informed money" but they'll expect to make a much better rate of profit from the "mug money". Sports that are better known to the general public will attract much more "mug money" and that's why companies like bet365 willingly sponsor coverage of the various top football divisions of Europe as well as all levels of our domestic football ... as it's a quiet midweek after Tuesday's World Cup football, tonight's main live game was the Conference clash between Macclesfield and Southport but a fair number of "mug money" viewers will have still wanted to have their favourite type of football bet as part of their evening's relaxation and therefore those viewers will have placed bets despite only recognizing a couple of names in either line-up who they've seen in higher divisions in the past. Unfortunately, speedway's always going to struggle attract much "mug money" as its action isn't punter-friendly ... its heats only involve 4 riders at a time, seriously limiting the size of a big payout for a shock winner and the line-up for many heats can change at the last moment due to injuries or reserve-switches. A league match (unlike a Grand Prix) also has the complication of what we admire as team-riding but which might prove infuriating for the punter who's bet on a rider to win a heat and then watches that rider skilfully look after 2nd-place while his partner leads in a 5-1 ... good luck finding a bookie who pays out on the runner-up as a winner in that scenario !!

To sum up a lengthier post I've already made this week in the Sky-2014 thread, it's my understanding from greyhound contacts that a year ago when the dog racing authorities, the bookies and Sky were negotiating the compromised coverage deal Salty mentions, it cropped up in those discussions that speedway would be in the same boat now ... however, Sky's bosses already didn't see how speedway could bring together a similar compromise. Meanwhlle, Salty has just proved what I mentioned in this thread earlier today that it'll be easy for armchair speedway fans to settle for their speedway via Eurosport on plenty of Saturday nights next year at no extra cost to their normal satellite/cable costs ... I've no problem with Salty (or anyone else) admitting that but it highlights the uphill battle to establish enough Elite League online subscriptions. By the way, for those who haven't yet seen Kent's National League venue, Sky's live greyhounds starts at 7.30 on its annual trip to Sittingbourne culminating in the Grand National at 9.04 & the Kent Derby at 9,19

Good to hear how Starkid are using the technology to help them and i appreciate you've been enjoying their work while living several thousand miles away and therefore may not have much background info on the group. However, if you're able to do so, could you answer the following ... 1) How much of the $7 (about £4.50) subscription actually reaches the performers after any online production costs have been covered ? (is a lump sum deducted for those costs or a percentage of each $7 coming in ?) 2) How many performers receive a share of any online profits from these shows ? ... while Starkid almost certainly have a smaller (but cleverly developing) fanbase than the total fanbase of the 10 Elite League clubs, I suspect they also have far fewer people awaiting any profits compared to 10 businesses all dealing with annual turnovers of several hundred thousand pounds !!

I like your enthusiasm for a project like this but I think you need to be a lot more realistic alongside that enthusiasm. Undoubtedly, the technical costs (and size of kit required) are rapidly falling to encourage projects like this and I've no problem about imagining any commentators helping to set up the kit, but I still don't see how you can rely on just one engineer/director for an outside-broadcast live streaming ... if anything's going slightly wrong (and there are plenty of ways it can happen), I wouldn't expect that engineer/director to be able to simultaneously solve the problem and continue directing the coverage (too often, I fear the coverage would have to stop while the problem's fixed). Elite League and Polish League combined into one subscription does sound exciting in theory ... but if you're going to show an HD-feed of "tv-quality" action from Torun on a Sunday, don't be surprised if you suffer plenty of criticism for then showing from Wolverhampton on Monday or King's Lynn on Wednesday what looks rather thrown-together as a production in comparison to that Polish coverage. Clearly, you're very technically-minded yourself and you'll understand the different circumstances surrounding the Torun and Wolves productions, ... but I fear you'll be surprised how many of your customers won't stop for long to consider those differences and instead simply say "well that stuff cobbled together from Monmore looked a bit crap, didn't it?" However many people tell you in any research that they'll subscribe to an online service like this, it's likely well under half will actually go ahead to sign up and pay for it (especially when there are so many other forms of entertainment they can access off their same computer, smartphone, etc, free of charge) ... yes, there are potential viewers and their money out there but it's a heck of a job getting them to part with enough of that money to generate profits for our clubs. And the biggest hurdle of all could be this ... as I'm sure you're aware from your other business interests, it's not just a case of what you're providing, but also a case of competing against anything similar that's being provided nearby ... next year, without any extra cost to their general satellite/cable tv-expenditure, everyone's still able to watch a production similar to Sky's traditional standard at least once a fortnight thanks to Eurosport's GP-coverage plus their World Cup and European Championship meetings ... regrettably for the Elite League's accountants, that'll still be enough of an armchair speedway-fix for plenty of your potential customers without any extra need for them to dig a bank card out of their pocket or wallet.

Logistically, it's certainly possible to carry out Steve's thread-opening plan ... like John Leslie, I've quickly crunched some figures which anyone's welcome to discuss or improve upon ... For the sake of not much extra cost, using a 3rd camera instead of just 2 will make the coverage look much better as that should nearly always give the director the rotation of having one camera that's currently "on air", another camera ready for whenever it needs to be put "on air" and the 3rd camera operator setting up its next duty ... just using 2 cameras heavily increases the risk of disjointed cuts from one camera to the other, especially during fast-moving action. I'd estimate a minimum wage/expenses bill of about £2,000 per meeting ... you'll struggle to attract any talented staff until you're offering at least £150 wages (plus basic expenses) per person and even this simple a live production ideally needs 3 cameras, 2 commentators, 1 engineer, 1 producer and 1 director so that's a minimum of 8 staff before adding in the relative luxury of a pits-interviewer or a 2nd-engineer (thus giving you both a broadcast-engineer and an online-engineer). Once you're charging the public to watch live streaming, it's probably worth investing in backup website/software if at all possible ... don't forget from a PR point of view, if anything goes wrong, your customers are online already because that's how they're receiving your service so it's even quicker and easier than usual for them to slag off your service elsewhere online !! But by far the biggest stumbling block in all of this is working out the right price to charge to acheive the maximum total revenue. At the moment,. it's reckoned each Elite League club has been getting about £90,000 guaranteed Sky money each season (total £900,000 across the 10 teams) ... clearly a broadband subscription service wouldn't be expected to generate a similar amount so let's try a smaller total target of £200,000 in subscription profits. Meanwhile, that wages/expenses bill of £2,000 per meeting needs to be added to any start-up costs, admin costs and publicity budget ... Steve suggests covering 2 or 3 meetings a week so that's about 70-to-80 a season ... that would mean overall total costs of at least £200,000 to provide a season's coverage and therefore you need to sell £400,000 of subscriptions to hit the £200,000 profit target for the clubs to share. Steve suggests £20/month ... based on a 6-month season, that's £120/season ... hence you need to sell 3,333 season-long subscriptions to bring in the £400,000 you need if you're going to send £200,000 back to the clubs. Personally, i doubt there are enough speedway fans willing to add £20/month to their existing spend on television/online services to achieve those figures ... yes (as some on this forum have already said they're doing), there will be a few people cancelling Sky in anticipation of no further speedway (and so they'll be able to switch that expenditure over to this project) but I suspect most speedway fans also like other things they watch on Sky so won't cancel just for the sake of this particular sport ... you might have more chance aiming for around 7,000 subscribers at £10/month to achieve the same profits. To put it into context with other single-sport subscriptions, Racing UK charges just over £20/month but that's for an average of 2 British horse-race meetings every day of the week (plus the main French meeting most Sundays) as well as cut-price admission offers to several race meetings a month for their subscribers. From a little bit of experience a few years ago helping with attempts to stream British ice-hockey online, it was an eye-opener to see how far the customer base shrank when the initial free-of-charge service (for a few games while we experimented with the coverage) was turned into a modest £3-per-game ... even that small a charge wiped 90% off the customer usage !! Maybe "ballinger" on this forum will be able to comment a lot better on the up-to-date financial viability of live streaming given his long-time involvement in both speedway and ice-hockey videos/DVDs. Overall, it's certainly worth exploring whether a system like this could work ... but at least in its early stages, it's going to take a while to generate any worthwhile profits for the clubs ... more importantly, where's the money going to come from to get such a project up-&-running because neither the clubs themselves nor the BSPA appear to have such money available ? !!

Play-offs to decide titles were first developed in various North American sports as well as Aussie Rules football for the simple reason that the much greater distances between teams made it financially daft to have a balanced regular season where everyone played everyone else the same amount of times (especially when long-distance train travel was still the norm rather than domestic air travel). Hence the fans of those sports more easily accepted their titles being settled by play-offs ... it meant just the best teams from opposite ends of the country met each other (at which point the crowds would be big enough to offset the travel costs) while the poorer clubs avoided too many costly trips. There's also no promotion/relegation in any of the major North American sports because they prefer all their teams starting off each season with a theoretical chance of winning the title ... hence play-offs have to be used in as violent a sport as American Football because there are 32 teams in the NFL but no chance of enough players remaining fit to last a 31-game schedule year-after-year (it's currently 16 in the regular season plus either 3 or 4 play-offs to win a Super Bowl). In a country the size of the UK, it's only the rising cost of fuel prices in recent years that's really put any travel pressure on the need for play-offs ... meanwhile, all our major sporting leagues were begun on the rock-solid prinicple of teams facing each other in a balanced schedule so play-offs weren't needed to overcome any problem there ... hence just about any UK play-offs totally rely on being money-spinning affairs. We've now had nearly 30 years of football promotion play-offs with at least two purposes ... firstly, as a useful way of avoiding too many meaningless mid-table matches each April and May ... secondly, they're very lucrative for the sides who reach them. There's a third purpose that still exists in Scotland, Germany and several other countries where the team that's just escaped automatic relegation is forced to join only 3 promotion hopefuls to create a 4-team play-off ... however, that was soon scrapped in England because the authorities reckoned there was too big a risk of a riot whenever relegation was confirmed that way. But the concept of title-deciding play-offs after a balanced regular-season schedule will always divide opinion between those who have a purely sporting view and those who have a business-attitude alongside their sporting interest.

Given the previous info on this thread from Philip Rising and others, the Sky bosses' lack of willingness to talk to anyone from speedway regarding next season suggests they've "given up with speedway full stop" ... probably, they did that some time ago. Sky's attitude to speedway isn't any surprise to anyone in charge of greyhound racing and that's been the case for at least a year !! ... last autumn, the dogs' previous Sky contract was about to end and the only chance they had of remaining on Sky was if they could find a cheaper way of producing the shows. The dogs are still on Sky (although only about 70% as often as before) because a compromise was thrashed out so that the big bookmakers (keen to still make profits on the big dog races) bankrolled the betting-shop broadcasting company (SIS) to improve their normal production standards so that the major greyhound meetings could be simulcast live on Sky and in the betting shops (previously they were Sky exclusives). But when that deal was being arranged, ready to start in March this year (it took long enough for a couple of greyhound meetings in each of January and February to miss their usual Sky coverage), it was openly discussed between Sky and the greyhound authorities about what might happen when speedway reached a similar stage for its Sky coverage at the end of this year .. it was a natural discussion given several of the dog tracks regularly featuring on Sky (Belle Vue, Monmore, Perry Barr and Swindon) also host Elite League speedway. Sky's response to those dog tracks was that they couldn't see any chance of speedway drumming up the kind of compromise like the one they were reaching with SIS and the main bookmakers regarding the dogs. Given that attitude from Sky has clearly existed for about a year, why were speedway promoters last month still only at the stage of vaguely discussing what format next season might take ? ... are the promoters really that stupid when it comes to facing up to where their sport stands within tv-priorities ? !!

Have a good read through the previous pages on this thread and you'll see it isn't just a simple case of the greyhounds "not making money" ... they are comfortably making enough money to cover the basic costs of running the greyhound meetings but the profits from those meetings aren't enough to cover any upkeep of the mothballed main grandstand or make a good enough dent in the owners' multi-million pound debt to the Irish banks from whom they borrowed heavily about a decade ago. That's why Nama (the Irish banks' debt-collecting agency) is increasingly having the dominant say about what happens next at both Wimbledon and Oxford because that agency appears fed up waiting for those multi-millions to be returned.

Of course they don't want silence ... but equally, are Sky's speedway production team really demanding such excitable nonsense that's all too often well out of proportion to the action the viewers are actually seeing ? You don't hear other long-established commentators on Sky going way over the top in describing routine action ... take football's Martin Tyler, rugby union's Miles Harrison or any of their Test match cricket commentators who all pace their work so much better that it enables them to make their calls of the greatest moments all the more memorable (notably, Tyler's cry of "Aguuueeiirro" for Man City's stoppage-time title-clinching goal in May 2012). Surely if it was Sky's general policy for over-the-top commentaries, Tyler would always be going berserk about the last goal in a comfortable 4-0 win, Harrison would usually be going crazy over the final try in an easy 35-3 win and any of Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain or Sir Ian Botham would be screaming out loud every time the batsmen strolled an easy single ... none of those actually happens so why does Nigel Pearson or the speedway production team feel it necessary to adopt a different policy ? !! The best tv-commentators always bear in mind that their voice is complementing the pictures rather than dominating them ... all too often, Pearson's radio background means he's doing a radio-style commentary during a tv-broadcast.

Has already made quite a difference ... the costs Sky incurred in what became 4 separate attempts to stage one of last year's Grand Final legs haven't helped the attitude of their top bosses towards any future coverage of speedway, hence their desire to catch up tonight's postponement as soon as possible given tomorrow's far better weather forecast.

Not sure about how tv-money impacts on Swedish or Polish speedway finances. But most Swedish Elit League clubs regularly attract between 2,000 & 4,000 to their home meetings ... the top Polish clubs regularly attract at least 6,000 fans. Meanwhile Glasgow have admitted this week they couldn't regularly attract the 800-crowds they needed to average to break even in the Premier League ... it's also been estimated on this forum that the guaranteed Sky money for Elite League clubs is the equivalent of about 340 fans attending each home meeting. Given it costs between 1-&-a-half and twice as much to run an Elite team compared to a Premier team, that suggests the current break-even average crowd in our Elite League is probably around 1,000 (eg, 1,340 "fans" to cover all the costs split between 1,000 actually turning up and 340 via Sky money) ... yet plenty of our Elite League clubs find it tough to make ends meet. Still wondering how the Swedish and Polish clubs have a better chance of affording more of the top riders ? !!

Tough enough (as you've explained well) to drum up enough riders to join as isolated an NL team as Glasgow would be ... even tougher (as the Armadale Dale Devils and Newcastle Gems often found out in 2002-03-04) for other NL teams to bring anything resembling their full side when they visit as isolated an NL team as Glasgow would be. That's because the NL sides tend to have more young riders in their team who therefore rely more on their parents/friends to drive them to the tracks ... all too often, keen NL riders due to visit the Dale Devils or Gems struggled to find someone with enough spare time to drive them several hours each way. - - - - - - - - - Dreadful to read how gloomy it looks for Glasgow's future at the moment but this year's promotion have revealed a staggering financial naivety in that Red Alert they sent out yesterday. By their own admittance, they said before the season began they needed to average 800-crowds to break even ... in that case, you have to be confident of attracting at least 1,000 once a month (and 1,200 a couple of times a year) so that you keep above the 800-average when you suffer your lowest crowds through damp weather or visiting teams who bring few fans with them. But, again by their own admittance, only their opening day versus Berwick satisfied their break-even target ... in other words, none of their various meetings against local rivals Edinburgh created any profits to set against those damp afternoons or visits from teams based several hundred miles away ... good luck staying financially afloat when you've budgeted for a crowd-size you can't even hit against your arch-rivals !! I hope there can be a solution for Glasgow's fans ... but I've little sympathy for those in charge who clearly put together a plan and budget that had a tiny chance of succeeding but umpteen ways of falling apart.

Ok, it's daft to waste a lot of time, money and effort on folk like that. But at least they've told you why they're not coming back (most driftaways don't even do that) ... therefore it's surely worth looking for at least a few moments at their reasoning to see if you can learn from their frustrations and avoid those who are still attending becoming future driftaways for the same reason !! You still won't recapture the person who's already gone while having a rant ... but for the sake of a little time, money and effort, that rant can give you a better chance of hanging on to 20 others who've been thinking much the same but who are still attending, ready to be impressed when you tidy up their grievance. It's easy to just dismiss everything about the ranter ... much smarter to separate the reasoning from the individual and then work on just the bit that's worth working on. Generally in business, you learn a hell of a lot more when things go wrong than when things go right ... providing you can survive a problem, you should come back much the stronger for having overcome it.

Fitting into Sky's F1 channel was never an option (& still isn't) for speedway or anything else like superbikes or any American motor sports Sky have shown over the years simply because Bernie Ecclestone wouldn't grant Sky exclusive live UK-coverage to half the season's races unless Sky committed themselves to having a 24/7 channel devoted to F1 ... it's his way of guaranteeing to F1's lavish sponsors that they're always getting their brands shown on tv.

To a large degree you've probably answered your own question by acknowledging the impact of television ... and a major part of that impact (that's now very easy to overlook) is that the boom in tv-viewing began in the mid/late-1950's but video-recorders weren't in general use until the late-1970's so there was about a 20-year spell where you couldn't still go to speedway and catch up on your favourite tv-shows when you got home !! Going back to that era of speedway's biggest crowds, how many of those fans were drawn along more by wanting to be part of what was clearly a big attraction rather than specifically wanting to watch their local motor sport team ? ... once the counter-attraction of more television began to reduce the total number of the crowd and therefore also reduce the "big attraction buzz", the number of "big attraction" seekers coming to speedway would have dwindled at a even quicker rate than any general decline ... you could easily ask the same sort of question about the big drop in attendances at greyhounds or non-league football. But while speedway appears to have simply used tv-money as a financial crutch to lean on, other sports in this country have made far better use of new opportunities linked to television as a way of re-generating themselves. As soon as satellite-tv became a realistic option to install into several thousand betting shops, horse racing and greyhounds wasted little time updating the original 1961 betting-shop legislation so that all those shops could show live tv-racing every day from 1987 onwards (previously the only live racing they could show was what anyone could already see at home on BBC, ITV or Channel-4 ... all the other horse and dog races were limited to audio-commentaries only, often relying on someone in the Extel studio who couldn't see any pictures doing as good a commentary as possible while listening on a crackly phone-line to someone who was actually at the track !!). That proof of satellite-tv's impact within betting shops was one of the factors that encouraged the FA-backed breakaway in 1992 of the old First Division football clubs linking up with Sky to form the Premier League ... the top clubs and Sky were both totally confident about smashing the very cheap bidding process BBC/ITV had previously had with the Football League. Once Sky was up and running, followed by the impact of the internet in the late-90's, plenty of sports have either established ways their viewers can feel involved by having a bet on what they're watching or (especially like darts and 20-20 cricket) found ways of using the crowd at their events to add to the entertainment for the viewers back at home ... hence all the blank placards and marker-pens on the spectator-tables at the darts for the crowd to scribble and hoid up daft messages ... and most cricket counties offer a decent prize (eg, £1,000 or a couple of season-tickets) for any 20-20 spectator successfully catching a six (spectacular on the few occasions it does happen and also gloriously chaotic if anyone forgets they're already eating or drinking when suddenly reaching out for the ball). Meanwhile, all too often, speedway team managers or pit marshals can't even be bothered to make sure a heat-winner does a lap of honour ... unless the meeting's being hurried-up to avoid dodgy weather, there should always be a lap of honour and some of the best ones I've ever seen have been when an away heat-winner winds up the locals on his triumphant way round !! And we're still having the same race-length (4 laps) for all the heats ... why not include one heat each meeting that's only 2 laps (ideal for gating tarts) and (providing fuel tanks are big enough) one heat that's 6 laps (more chance for the slow-starting overtakers) ?

It only risks prejudicing a current case if someone's past convictions are clearly mentioned during a report about that person's current on-going case. In practice, Google-searches and online sites like Wikipedia have made it far easier for any past convictions to be checked out if someone's later accused in another case ... hence it's now clearly impossible to stop a jury-member or a reporter checking out anyone's previous history. However, where the law does still stand firm is that any such previous information can't then be used by those who've found it out during their involvement in the current case ... hence the jury-member can't say to his/her fellow jurors "the accused must have done it because he/she has already done such-&-such a few years ago" and once the current charges have been made, any reporter can't list any previous convictions of the accused while reporting on the current case. In turn, anyone trying to discuss a current case on a forum like this opens the door for the accused's lawyer to claim such a discussion is prejudicing that client's case ... the accused's lawyer will know at what date/time the current charges were made and any forum comments after that date/time risk being challenged as prejudicial ... if the judge agrees with that lawyer's claim, it doesn't matter how small the prejudice might be, it still counts as a "contempt of court" and such an offence is likely to be heavily punished. Many years ago, my father did a fortnight's jury service during which one of the afternoon sessions was delayed just a couple of minutes by another jury-member returning late from some lunchtime shopping ... the judge asked why she was late and she apologised for taking slightly longer than expected to buy a new coat in a nearby department store ... to her shock, she was instantly deemed to be in "contempt of court" for wasting those couple of minutes of everyone else's time ... then she was asked how much the coat had cost because she was fined twice that amount for the contempt offence !! Yes, it must all seem pedantic, even pathetic, for many forum members who simply want to enjoy debating all things speedway with their fellow forumites and don't really care how the rest of the world views their opinions ... but if you're not prepared to respect the wider legal issues wrapped up within taking part in an internet-forum, then you're going to make it very easy for any forum moderator to justify dishing out any bans ... the moment anyone on this forum presses "post" at the end of anything they're adding to this forum, the contents of what they've just written carries the same legal responsibilities as any newspaper report or radio/tv broadcast. Regarding the Jimmy Savile scandals, the law clearly states that a dead person can't be libelled so the moment he died, it became far easier for those suspicious of his behaviour to state their views ... it was no surprise that plenty of his victims stepped forward soon after his death but the unexpected twist has been that all the investigations about Savile's behaviour have also encouraged (much more than expected) victims of other still-alive famous people to press ahead with their accusations. Far from being a "cowardly spineless" situation, the fact a dead person can't be libeled has meant Savile's death has actually helped to flush out several other high-profile names who've either been convicted already (notably Stuart Hall) or whose cases are still on-going. And there are times when the reporting of a particular case can be turned inside-out by how the law affects the various stages of it being reported ... the most bizarre situation at the moment concerns the 15-year-old Sussex schoolgirl who ran off abroad with one of her teachers last year. In the original few days when the pair could have fled anywhere in Europe, the CCTV-pictures of them together on a cross-Channel ferry could be shown without pixellating either of their faces and they could both be named ... clearly that was all ok from a legal standpoint because no charges could be served until they'd been found. But once they were tracked down (the teacher's attempt to get a bar job in the French city of Bordeaux proved his undoing) and brought home on separate planes, the teacher was charged (and later convicted and imprisoned) ... the moment he was charged, the schoolgirl's name could no longer be used in any reports about the story because she was underage ... also, because she was underage, any further usage of those CCTV-pictures aboard the ferry now required her face to be pixelled-out even though most viewers knew what the pixels were hiding because they'd been allowed to see her face (and encouraged to remember it) only a few days earlier !!

Most remarks on most forums are on matters that don't have legal connections, hence those remarks are absolutely fine. But, as I've mentioned earlier. once something develops into a court case (like the charging of Michael Lee this week), most forum members can't be expected to have the legal know-how of what's regarded as "prejudicial" or "not prejudicial" as each stage of the court process develops ... hence, everyone on this forum should just let this case develop and then comment/debate upon it when the verdict's made in a few months' time. What you're regarding (understandably so) as being "widely reported in the media" is actually being "reported in strictly limited fashion by a wide range of the media" ... rest assured, all the media outlets in East Anglia would've gladly published a lot more about this case concerning Michael Lee if they could have done so (a famous name getting charged with such serious offences is guaranteed to sell papers or keep viewers/listeners interested) but they have to wait for the case to develop before they can do so. Because those media outlets are always dealing with a few on-going legal stories at any time, it should be routine for their staff to keep on-side with the various reporting restrictions and thus keep their organizations safe from legal trouble ... even if an individual member of staff makes an error, his/her editor should be able to avoid it being broadcast/published (or at the very least, swiftly limit the damage if it is broadcast/published). But none of us on this forum have an editor automatically checking our contributions before they appear in any of this forum's threads ... and while every forum member will have a different view of what they think is prejudicial or not, the only view that actually counts is the "law of the land" even if you don't agree with it. It all adds up to a far riskier situation for a forum operator than for a newspaper/tv/radio editor.

In reality, most remarks on most forums wouldn't prejudice any case ... but just occasionally, a single remark could prejudice a single case even if the forum-poster making that remark doesn't realize it's going to cause legal trouble. Therefore, whether you like it or not, as far as the law's concerned there's a "zero tolerance" to extra comments beyond what's legally acceptable at each stage of any court case ... the knock-on effect of that is that any lawyer defending someone accused of a crime is always on the look-out in any media for the slightest remark in the hope it could scupper the whole case (especially if that's probably the only way of avoiding a guilty verdict). In today's Michael Lee example, the BBC or any other media are strictly limited to what they can or can't report ... they're able to clearly identify him by his name/age/address/photo and any current job or previous career achievement (especially important here because there are probably plenty of men called Michael Lee in East Anglia but only one who's a previous world speedway champion) ... they're also able to report what he's been charged with and when the next stage of the case will take place. And that's just about all they can report for the time being ... even if a particular reporter knows a lot more information it must be saved for use only when it's permitted to be used, probably only when the case is finally over. It's why newspapers have several pages of background reporting ready to be published as soon as a verdict's delivered ... likewise tv/radio will have several minutes of background material (sometimes even a whole extra programme) recorded well in advance of a big verdict so that it can be broadcast as soon as the verdict's announced ... there are even a few occasions in cases where the verdict's finely balanced that both a "guilty" and a "not guilty" background report will be prepared in the knowledge that only one of them's ever going to be used and the other one's going to be binned. Over the last 25 years, I've been threatened with legal action (along with a few colleagues) by a football manager unhappy with the way his resignation was reported ... I've also threatened legal action against both a speedway promoter and the journalist who quoted that promoter when they inaccurately referred to another rider's background away from speedway. I won't go into lengthy detail on this forum on either of those cases ... the football manager reluctantly dropped his legal threat when we all proved he had said that he'd lost his motivation for the job he'd just quit (the manager wanted to sue us because he feared our reporting of that comment could affect his chances of getting another managerial job in the future) ... the promoter and journalist swiftly amended their quote when they accepted their inaccuracy about the other rider.

While I can understand SCB's (and others') frustration about simply mentioning last year's case on this forum risking a ban when it was "all over the BBC, local papers and news sites in Australia", frankly those who run this forum didn't have much choice but to stamp out any mention of that case for the following reasons ... Any coverage about it which was "all over the BBC" was still very carefully written within the BBC's legal guidelines for the various stages of covering such a case ... in fact, the BBC has a rota of lawyers on duty 24/7 who can be called by anyone working at any level of the BBC (national or local, tv or radio or website) to check out anything that's about to be broadcast/published ... because of the safety net of that duty-lawyer rota, any legal clanger by a BBC journalist will see that journalist suffer heavy in-house sanctions ... any other tv or radio stations have similar legal safety nets. Similarly, all local papers (never mind the national ones) have relatively easy access to legal checking of anything they're about to publish. Because the internet has trampled all over any traditional national boundaries for newspapers/radio/tv it's currently impossible to stop foreign media covering British cases in greater depth than the British media can cover those same cases ... the only way to stop it would be if two countries set up reciprocal deals with one another over media matters in the same way that some countries have agreements to extradite each other's suspected criminals so that they can stand trial in the country where they've allegedly committed the crime. It's why Sky News in the UK always go very big on any dramatic American court case (as they've done repeatedly over the various aspects of the death of Michael Jackson) because they know they're able to report much more background info during those trials without being accused in the USA of affecting those cases. Meanwhile, in the UK, anyone who feels they've been libelled by any media outlet is entitled to sue that outlet as a company or sue the reporter/contributor as an individual (or a combination of both) ... in practice, you sue whichever's likely to be the easiest to be forced to pay up if your legal action wins and there are already plenty of legal examples where online forums have been regarded as part of the general media alongside newspapers, radio or tv because postings on a forum are clearly available for the general public just like anyone in the general public can read a paper, listen to the radio or watch tv. Now put yourself in the shoes of anyone running this forum ... and then ask yourself how you're going to cope with forum members who can't reasonably be expected to have any legal knowledge of their own, certainly don't have access to 24/7 legal guidance like the BBC (or any other reporters) and are probably less likely than the forum-owners themselves to be sued if a legal problem crops up. Given what I've just explained, if the forum owners are in any doubt over their legal safety on any particular speedway story, they have little option but to stamp on anything awkward. The vast majority of the time, I like the way SCB and others on this forum strongly challenge the often daft ways in which this sport seems to be run (a prime example is SCB's recent comparison of ice-hockey games in this country being presented at their arenas much better than many of our speedway meetings). But please when it comes to legal matters, everyone needs to understand they're treading onto much trickier ground compared to most of the matters discussed (or slagged off) on this forum.

When will forum members like yourself finally understand that Sky's biggest problem with the GP's was that they had no chance of altering the "Saturday-evening-every-fortnight" schedule for those meetings. It didn't matter how many big-names were taking part because Sky were often struggling to find space on their 4 channels for live coverage (or even overnight repeats) because that was already one of their busiest times all week for other more expensive rights (Spanish football, Premier League highlights, US golf & tennis) and they knew they had the 5.30pm live Premier League games coming up when the current football season started. If the GP's took place on midweek evenings and Sky could have a say in which night suited them best in each particular week (like they do with their Elite League coverage or other sports like greyhounds and county cricket), then there's a reasonable chance they'd have been keener to stick with their GP coverage because they clearly love showing the big-name riders. The "big-name" situation with the Elite League is a different load of economics completely ... clearly, nowhere near all the Elite League teams can afford to sign a couple of big names each (I suspect barely half the Elite League clubs can realistically afford to do that). But the extra factor that it's easy for British fans to overlook is how low down the list of priorities a British contract has become for many big-name foreign riders (epsecially if English isn't their first language) ... Philip Rising has mentioned on this forum about a chat he had with Martin Vaculik at a recent Grand Prix during which Vaculik made it clear he didn't have a British deal in his future plans ... in fact, Vaculik went as far as admitting he could see little point in adding the haphazard Elite League fixture list into his much tidier weekly schedule of GP's, other individual meetings and his existing club commitments around Europe. So even if Sky (or BT Sport or anyone else) demand "big names" to help secure a new Elite League tv-deal, the clubs have then got to go and sign those big names ... in theory, the tv-executives are looking at a list of all the big names but, in practice, the clubs have got a smaller list of big names that's limited to the ones already established in the Elite League or the ones who can be persuaded to join if the wages are high enough to justify wrecking their tidier schedules elsewhere. But, of course, overpaying for reluctant big names means the clubs are still flinging too much tv-money at their line-ups and not enough tv-money at their infrastructure.

Much more likely ... Nigel Pearson knows 30-plus of his most lucrative nights' work each year are in serious doubt if Sky stop showing British domestic speedway so he's bound to talk up the "top riders, big crowds, close meetings" to try protecting his own bank balance, never mind the Elite League's finances in general. Given Philip Rising has already pointed out on this thread that the main decision-maker at Sky, Barney Francis, is making no effort to reply to any of Terry Russell's contact, I find it staggering that anyone can still think the Elite League is "very close to the door of the last chance saloon" !! It's much more the case that it's waving from outside the window without any sign of anyone paying attention from the inside, partly because the BSPA were still asking their promoters as recently as 3 weeks ago for their thoughts on next season's format ... that's something that should have been arranged, discussed and completed (preferably with various "tv" and "non-tv" formats) midway through this final season of an existing tv-deal that blatantly wasn't guaranteed to be renewed. To give a good example for a sport that share its venues with plenty of speedway clubs, the BAGS contract for showing 3 sessions a day (between 5 and 7 meetings a day) of greyhound meetings in betting-shops is currently on a 5-year deal that began 1-Jan-2011, ends 31-Dec-2015 and is far more likely to be renewed than British speedway's deal with Sky ... there's no doubt BAGS and the greyhound tracks will be busy in the early months of 2015 sorting out their 2016-onwards contract rather than still fumbling around working out what they can offer at the same time as putting up their 2015 Christmas decorations.

Yes, it's potentially still a great product ... but it's far too easily dragged down from those heights by the boneheaded actions of those in charge who appear unable/unwilling to learn from their mistakes (and even worse, repeat the same mistakes over and over again). Too many of those taking important decisions about the sport need to be much more realistic about speedway's finances and also much more realistic about how often bad weather can affect speedway ... then, meetings like the Elite play-offs would be truly profitable when the weather's good instead of being (for at least 2 clubs in recent days) just a vital way of catching-up earlier losses.

All the profits from those shared events are collected together and then at the end-of-season AGM of the BSPA, an Elite League dividend is paid out and a Premier League dividend is paid out. Within each league, each club gets the same amount although any club that still owes things like away-points money to other clubs might have at least part of its shared-event dividend switched towards directly settling those debts. The reason behind an Elite-dividend and a Premier-dividend is that all the clubs share the profits from the British Final but only the Elite clubs share the profits from Elite-related events and only the Premier clubs share the profits from Premier-related events.