RobMcCaffery
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Everything posted by RobMcCaffery
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Yes, and I've seen Premier League Pass on the Operation Robocop add-on on Kodi. Superb HD coverage of every premiership game and £100 cheaper than an Android box.
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Kodi is free as are the add-ons that allow reception of these channels. £100 is a complete rip-off. What mustn't be lost sight of is that much of the programming available via Kodi is also available via a straightforward web browsers on Windows. Kodi was originally developed as a media browser for X-Box, I believe. What also has to be understood and accepted is that many of the links provided are erratic, often do not work at all and frequently go offline abruptly. A few add-ons give access to NSport+ in Poland but again they are more usually not working than they are. While picture quality can sometimes be very good, even if you are receiving an HD channel the pictures won't actually be HD. By the time they've been processed and fed to the net the picture quality often deteriorates significantly. Overall, this undermines the business model of pay-TV and the extortionate prices charged to put sports agents and their clients in a life of luxury. Sadly though it also undermines the ability of sports like speedway to get life-saving subsidy.
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That was a rarity. No wonder it's now gone.
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I've checked the Google Play Store and can't find such an app. It must be well-hidden. There are ways to watch BT Sport, or indeed any other pay-TV sports channel online, of equally dubious origin and legality (on the part of the sender, not the viewer) and there are apps that say they can do that, but not by the name quoted. Sky and BT are not allowed to show 3pm Saturday kick-offs but all premiership games are shown overseas and there are various ways to access such channels. If the poster has found such an app it's very unlikely to show full HD. Anyway, back to the speedway.
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Somerset And The Confederate Flag
RobMcCaffery replied to drvortexz's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
It's not about a 'pc brigade', it's about using a brain to realise that the confederate flag is a universally-recognised sign of racism and it was stupid and irrelevant tom use it on a British speedway race-jacket - in Oxford in 1972, White City in 1976 and Somerset now. It's a matter of sensitivity and intelligence. Thankfully the Somerset promotion have it but it's no surprise that members of the BSF can only see fit to ridicule and crawl behind the 'pc' defence. Pathetic. -
Likewise might Premier Sports be interested in resuming their taking of the feed in the UK and Ireland?
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I certainly don't remember even seeing your post let alone criticising it. In any case this is about principles, not your pride.
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Zenmate is free. I bet they get Poles complaining about having to pay out for extra subscriptions........
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The 2016 Speedway Best Pairs Cup
RobMcCaffery replied to PolskiZuzel's topic in International World of Speedway
I think we have to accept that ukmartin is totally blinkered and obsessive when it comes to Polish speedway matters. If we just accept all is perfect perhaps we can return to a sane discussion of matters on track, or at least the surviving tracks rather than the juvenile "My choice of speedway's better than yours"? Whatever OneSport are doing, I think we can be certain that they're doing it for the benefit of no-one other than themselves. The international fixture list is cluttered enough already. -
It is of course a wyvern, not a dragon and is a commonplace emblem in the county so much more relevant than the second-hand use of the Oxford/White City Rebels design. It's great to see a promotion using intelligence over the use of a questionable design as the confederate flag, widely recognised as the symbol of racism and totally irrelevant to Somerset. Of course this will be irrelevant to many, as we have seen in this forum thread and will be ridiculed by the ill-informed but there will be plenty who respect this little piece of intelligence. Success is often down to attending to the minor details.It's good to see some in speedway can see the bigger picture.
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The EL ceased to be viable from the point where riders could make far more money racing in the GP and Poland at weekends, plus a few 'extras' in Sweden and Denmark rather than up to six days a week in Britain. It's taken far too long for the BSPA to realise this. British speedway needs to stop kidding itself, rebuild from the ground up, not top down and by developing the sport make it capable of attracting these 'names' in the long term. Having top international names may attract the odd speedway supporter but it's the outside world we need to attract and most of them have no idea who Tai Woffinden, Greg Hancock or Nicki Pedersen are. Time indeed to stop living in the past, employ only riders who have a commitment to Britain and let the others go off and bleed the sport dry abroad - while the gravy train's still on the rails, that is. If we are to try to get them to race here it clearly needs a very short series of meetings on high money to attract them - unlikely to be a league as we know it and running as an addition to the normal domestic season.
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That's good to hear, Philip following the concerns that Sky might block them from the world feed. I suspect BT's studio side will be excellent. The fear was that a general bike commentator would be used - a repeat of Eurosport's Burnicle error.
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Sadly that sums up Eurosport.... They're fine with events that have continuous action and they can just stick on for hours to fill time like winter sports, tennis and cycling but anything that takes a little more production is sadly beyond them. It's ironic considering it started out as the sports service of Eurovision. (There's more to the European federation of broadcasters than a song contest). All they had to do was monitor Premier Sports coverage before muscling in. Bear in mind that they were taking an international feed from CMore so obviously all the Swedish language presentation and interviews were lost to them and could only be filled by the endless 'locked-off' wide shots that should have been covered by ES' own presentation, ideally from a studio. Poor research, as shown by the choice of Jack Burnicle as initial commentator, clearly originating with "Oh, he does bikes, he'll do". I do hope BT don't fall into a similar trap re commentary. No, that's not a job application. Quite happy to leaver all that and all the baggage that comes with it to others now. There are add-ons to Kodi that allow the user to stream individual sports events and sports tv channels, just as you can using a normal web browser. It's not exactly an easy matter unless you're well-versed in the use of Kodi. There's plenty of help articles and You Tube videos out there. Obviously this is as much of a 'grey' area as using websites. Please bear in mind that although it uses Kodi the Speedway Portal is not part of this - it does not give links to live streaming. I'm sure Andy would prefer there to be no confusion over that since such a misunderstanding would compromise his good work. Kodi is a very wide-ranging media player and of course can be adapted to all kinds of uses. It does take a fair bit of work to understand it though.
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I fully agree about Sweden. They were excellent matches on the whole, on more technical tracks than the flat-out Polish ones. I don't think having washouts in the first two weeks helped Eurosport but by the end they clearly only showed it if they had completely run out of alternatives. David Rowe did a great job on commentary too but Eurosport's typically chaotic scheduling didn't help matters.
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BT Sport indeed have the SGP/SWC but have not made any statements about which channel will carry it. I expect it to be bundled with Moto GP which is restricted to the pay package of BT Sport 2/Europe so I fear you might be out of luck but, as I say, nothing's been announced yet. Indications are that Eurosport have ditched the Swedish Speedway which given its poor commitment to regular coverage last year is sadly no surprise. The SEC/Pairs was on a separate deal with Eurosport Poland for international coverage unlike the Grand Prixs so should be still on there this year. As for Sky we are in the midst of a five year deal so I would expect there to be coverage as before. Obviously no formal launches yet but BT are including speedway in their promos for the year ahead.
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It's a little ironic to see the Express & Star being criticised for switching to overnight production when it was one of the very last to do so and held out right until the end long after almost every other 'evening' paper had switched to morning publication. It is still the highest-selling regional daily in the country by a substantial margin. You have to bear in mind the huge fall in local newspaper circulations in recent years. The industry is in freefall, although not quite dead yet. Sadly these are the modern realities of the newspaper industry which of course is run as a business, not a social service. Having said that, I miss the Argus and Sporting Star and their counterparts around the country, badly.
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Live Match Streaming For Armchair Fans?
RobMcCaffery replied to heathen chemistry's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
The Bet365 experience does suggest again that Go Speed aren't that adept at setting up, or understanding the full consequences of deals. Either that or they just have to take what's on offer. I just wonder whether there is any analysis by the BSPA of the decline of attendances in 2014 and, logically if the streaming was losing them customers, the rise back in 2015. It would be interesting to know exactly how damaging it was in reality, rather than in theory. Okay, the Go Speed deals have fairly regular league matches on Sky and in the case of the earlier deals a useful sponsorship subsidy. I get concerned though that other aspects of the deal severely restrict people being able to promote the sport via social media due to Sky having such exclusivity. If something remarkable happens at a meeting there's no chance of it going 'viral' due to the restrictions. A lot of promotion online is by someone (professional or amateur) posting photos or video that get shared, and shared, and shared. It's pretty tough to do that in speedway. I think we're missing an opportunity. If one of the video companies catches some remarkable incident it should be out there, getting the sport noticed! -
Poland 2016 Season Extraleague News
RobMcCaffery replied to racers and royals's topic in International World of Speedway
Look, I presume that you are not working in your first language but you (and those liking your post who really have no excuse) are failing (I do hope accidentally) to understand my post. It is absolutely ludicrous to interpret my post as blaming the problems on big gates. I said EVEN WITH big gates that it's possible to screw-up speedway. Of course excessive payments are the problem. Let me try again and perhaps the three of you might understand. Despite big gates Poland is managing to screw up speedway by paying out far too much to riders. There, will that do or can you find some some petty point to latch onto and please ukmartin and iris123 or can we talk about speedway? At least a fan of Polish speedway can see that things aren't as perfect as others choose to think for some odd reason. -
Don't be put off by the standard BSF negativity/cynicism Wildcat Steve, I can understand your excitement about George's return and I do hope it all goes well. As time goes by people will begin to realise that the NL, despite its faults, is a vital foundation of any British Speedway revival. Imagine a league without stupid double points rides, with reasonably stable teams, good racing and affordable. Who needs big names? Well, some do and they can cling to what's left of the upper levels of the sport as they disintegrate.
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Poland 2016 Season Extraleague News
RobMcCaffery replied to racers and royals's topic in International World of Speedway
This does rather prove that even with large gates and plenty of income it's still possible to thoroughly screw-up speedway. Regarding the Extraleague use of Fridays - it does suggest that they are making sure that if Britain goes for a two night race week, then they'll do the same, and they'd rather like Fridays. -
Speedway Portal Announcements
RobMcCaffery replied to HagueyUK's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
Of course not, that's not what I said! I was pointing out that the deal wasn't perfect. I really do question the motives of people who make this kind of posting, completely disregarding the point being made. Despite the money (wasted in the vast majority of cases) there IS a downside to Go Speed's involvement, the strangulation of distribution of speedway clips on social media being a huge one. It's not all back & white! You can point out something's deficiencies without the ridiculous conclusion you chose to make. -
How Do We Attract A New Young Audience?
RobMcCaffery replied to PHILIPRISING's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
Nothing kills a good sporting (or milk) conversation more effectively than politics (sigh). There is a place for that but once beer hit £3 a point I left pubs to others.... Anyway, looks like the death of another decent conversation here. -
Wimbledon Stadium: Some Important News
RobMcCaffery replied to Parsloes 1928 nearly's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
If I see something as appalling as his post which went way past any standard of decency in a speedway forum I will tell him what I think of him and his posting. I leave the pathetic 'fishing and biting' rubbish to those who haven't got anything better to do. Still, it gives you the rare chance to seem clever, doesn't it? -
We need to be careful not to get confused by directorship and shareholding. It is quite possible to hold the majority of shares in a business without being a director of it, rather like you can own a speedway business but not actually be a licensed promoter (and vice-versa). It's quite possible that Kirimaar could have had a majority share which was sold to Sandhu without either being a director, at least initially so hopefully that lessens the confusion. Now what happened to Jack Parker's share? I take it he cashed-in in the eighties.