RobMcCaffery

Sportowe Fakty regularly run a fan poll to choose which Swedish Elitserien match should be shown on their website. Dackarna are usually the choice, where available. Dackarna track Maciej Janowski, Patryk Dudek, Piotr Pawlicki and Kacper Gomolski plus three Swedes. I think that supports Mike's view on what attracts Polish neutral viewers.......

Yes, Mike is clearly a genuine speedway fan and that makes all the difference with commentating. I did a few sports but it was always a relief to get back to my own sport. I do suspect that if Mike wasn't a fan we'd have lost this service when it slipped off DAB.

What other sports or events are staged at Polish tracks? A couple seem to have football pitches while Wroclaw has an American Football pitch. I think most are single-purpose speedway stadia.

Try reading it properly rather than rudely rejecting it. Sorry if I didn't make it simple enough for you. I tried to point out that they are unlikely to be interested in the UK market. Will that do? I still thank you for clarifying their status. Pity about your follow-up but this is the BSF and you sadly do have to expect such behaviour....

The difference between building from scratch and simply improving the stadium is simple. In one case you are literally having to build from nothing but in the case of Brafield you have a long- established and respected venue with a track already in place and basic stadium facilities. BriSCA hold their European Championship there and while it's a while since I regularly worked there it had facilities that were perfectly adequate for higher stock car crowds with plenty of scope for improvement. It's been around for decades, albeit without speedway since the sixties. There are tracks in the CL and NDL with sparser facilities. As a new Northampton Speedway, yes, despite its fairly isolated location. I doubt whether we'll be seeing a revival of Brafield Badgers, but not a replacement for Coventry and should not be used as an excuse to prevent a Brandon revival. Congratulations to the team carrying on the fight and thank you for your efforts. Both speedway and stock cars desperately need a thriving Brandon.

The place to check is https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live-guide They're doing Wolves on Monday but not Perry Barr. Once the football season started BBC WM's coverage had to take a back seat. At the time they said they hoped to cover play-offs. Bear in mind the speedway coverage is online only and does not appear on the radio station at all, either on FM or DAB. We're lucky to get what we get and I think it's purely on the initiative of the presentation team who of course have to focus on what's going out on the main service, and not just football. Bear in mind they have five football clubs to cover.

There was a time when referee Lew Stripp and Len Silver were not exactly the best of friends. One programme accidentally named him as Lew Stiff. I am certain it was just a typo.....

Thank you. I'm sure they'll both be fascinated by UK opportunities being opened up. Of course they would be looking for any sponsorship to be seen by their Polish audience but I fear that an inferior version of league speedway is unlikely to see them rushing in, cheque books in hand. No it's not a matter of being unfairly cynical but if Polish sponsorship IS being considered as a key aspect of a deal with Eurosport then someone is advising the BSPA very poorly. Still, we will see what we see and as usual in speedway you have to stand back and let them diug their corporate grave - and try not to become totally taken over by morbid fascination. It's about four guys having a race and two teams having a match. Shame about the rest - oh and the monumental egos.....

Surely it shouldn't be a state secret to let the public know? If they are I suggest they change them.

They've always had access to multiple countries since the 80s. Eurosport started out as part of the Eurovision* service so had access to material from national broadcasters all over Europe and their geographical availability reflected this. *Yes there's a lot more to Eurovision than a song contest!

Well Fogo keep their UK activities rather quiet, along with the other Polish sponsors. Not familiar with Cash Broker. Working on your basis that the free advertising on BT has made no effect on gate reveniues then presumably the same has to be said of the match coverage, so why bother at all? Have you considered that gates might be even worse without TV exposure? It's a rather simplistic argument without detailed market research which is an alien concept to British Speedway. As for this persistent understanding of what gets called "watering down", have you considered the disaster we would be really in if we were trying to keep u[p with Polish pay and attract the top stars without Sky money? The sport doesn't run on Monopoply money, you know ;-) I do fear that yet again short term thinking and just chasing the wonga could see us tied into a five year deal when we have no continuity of coverage and the quality can only be guessed at. I simply cannot see speedway getting any airtime during the Olympics or whenever a major event is taking place in Eurosport's major sports like cycling or the various other forms of motorcycle racing. As flagrag acknowledges BT Sport take the sport seriously and firmly include it as a major sport. If only their bid reflected this. Sometimes you have to look at the wider picture. Philip Rising mentions that under Discover Eurosport is likely to be a very different animal. Discovery first took a minority interest in 2012, increasing to a majority stake in 2014 and a full stake in 2015. Well, it's been four years and apart from buying significant rights which need multiple temporary channels to service, I haven't seen much change. It's pretty much the same as when the French (TF1) had control. It really is about time that the BSPA took professional advice on their media rights, rather than just grabbing the biggest cheque. Back in the 80s it was only the cheque from Screen Sport that the BSPA were interested in, and they paid scant attention to the exposure we could have given them. Sadly the slow development of cable at the time and the development of Sky killed the channel before we had the chance to see where we both could go. We were all speedway fans so the intention was certainly there!

So we repeat the error of earning the money then handing it straight over to riders to have glorified practice sessions while their best efforts and bikes are elsewhere? Of course with Eurosport NOT being a premium sports channel it has far more subscribers, mainly those getting it as part of a basic pay-TV package but I suspect BT get higher viewing figures. Many people receive Eurosport without ever bothering to watch it. A five year deal is fine so long as it's a benefit and not blocking better options over the five years. If, somehow the sport were to see an upturn it would be locked-into a bargain deal. Regarding potential sponsors, I take it you're referring to the claim that we may tap into Polish sponsors. Why would Polish brands like Nice, Get Well, Mr Garden, Fogo want to advertise to the UK? Eurosport's inability to maintain a stable schedule, which has been the case for 30 years, plus its lack of channels and contracts like the Olympics to be taken care of in high season it threatens to be a highly disjointed service, although hopefully not lamentable enough to start live coverage at heat 19! There is one aspect of the BT deal that is overlooked. BT take speedway seriously in its channel promotions. One moment you can be watching a top football premiership match, the next it's the next speedway event being mentioned. There were regular promotions for speedway during their Champions League coverage including the final. You see a constant flow of promos for major sports, and speedway's right in there. I wouldn't liike to even try to estimate the cost of having to pay for that publicity.

In a way they are since they merged with Eurosport in the early 90s.

The Poles only stage 7 home league meetings. Do you really want that?

All sport is meaningless, but usually fun. I just enjoy a night out at the speedway, but I suppose others must put themselves and others off just to look clever.

Rest in Peace

7 home league matches in Poland, 8 in Sweden. That's the other side of the Polish "dream" that gets ignored.

Sweden especially suffers from this with many sides tracking the minimum number of Swedes and as many Poles as they can afford, many of whom simply don't deliver. We've already become a practice league for many riders and Sweden is in danger of spending high to achieve the same bleak status.

More importantly, will C More's captions include all changes to race line-ups, especially when rider-replacement was in use? It can't have been easy for Dave to spot some of those changes that were not mentioned on the feed. Nightmare! At least he had the English language interviews to tell him the nominated heat line-ups. It's hard enough commentating 'off-tube' with ALL the information that you need.

Poland's threat to cut their senior riders from five per team to four, while probably a bargaining chip, could have wide repercussions across other leagues. It would leave eight top quality riders facing life outside the Ekstraliga. One aspect could be to intimidate the remaining riders to drop other leagues and the risk of injury, just to focus on their Polish and international duties. Equally it could put 8 riders in the shop window for Sweden or even Britain. It is highly noticeable how poorly certain Ekstraliga stars perform in Sweden, rather like many did in Britain, suggesting their best efforts and equipment were only for Polish or SGP use! I love to watch the likes of Sayfutdinov race but I can't say I really missed them from Sweden this year. The likes of Vetlanda were weaker as a result which gave us a wonderfully competitive Elitserien season. Dackarna's tactic of filling the side with top Poles backfired appallingly.

Didn't the NJL here have 250cc heats?

The rules require that in the event of a stoppage that the primary cause of the stoppage is excluded from the rerun. Of course we're waiting for some ref to argue that there was no PRIMARY cause and let all four back in. The rule is intended to prevent endless restarts if a rider cannot keep on his bike.

Thanks, I was struggling to find results & tables. So, it's the same form of mix, just with emphasis the opposite to our NDL with reserve teams being as dominant as our stand-alones. Anyway, I hope the person who asked the question has the answer now that they need. Just switching back to the NL I think my happiest seasons were when I was working in the NL or at Iwade, especially the latter. I just loved to see the families working so hard to help the son achieve their dream.....and I had the honour of meeting Brian Osborn, who kept Scunthorpe going against all odds in the 70s. He was once asked if he spelled his name with an e, to which his response was "No, I can't afford one". I met a lot of star riders in my time.....but we all have our OWN heroes ;-) (He also rode second halves at Rayleigh which earns him honorary demi-god status. Don't ask me what status Hugh Saunders and Geoff Maloney had ;-) ).

Middleditch team talk: "£50, £100, £150, £200, £250, £300, £350....................." Hawkins team talk: "How much? Bollocks to that".

Per SVEMO website: The Division 1 series consists of 7 teams and is a national amateur series with mixed A teams and reserve teams.