Ben91

Less can be more. The issue with the British calendar isn’t that there aren’t enough meetings it’s that there is no consistency and often there are huge fixture gaps during the height of summer. If a team was at home once a fortnight and away once a fortnight (alternate weeks) it would encourage more fans to attend away meetings potentially.

Something like this would be great and overdue but think getting licensing could be a huge stumbling block sadly. Wish you luck.

The funny thing is we don’t have 14 Simon Lamberts. The career second division man has been killed off by the short sighted rule changes of the last decade. They’re the bumblebees of British speedway. Nobody really cared about them but their demise brings down the whole shebang.

Are there any facts behind this supposed cancellation/massively reduced GP calendar or is it all speculation? If the latter then there’s not much point worrying about what impact it would have on British speedway.

Radical plans for change have been written down on some very dry parchment. Let’s hope there are no strong gusts of wind that blow it into the fire. Otherwise the back up plan is to carry on as we were.

I’m not sure. I think their ambition drove them to solely wanting top league racing, but that’s only my opinion. I’m sure others will know more than I do, I’m really piecing together what I saw myself and was told (lots of rumour and innuendo) at the time and coming up with what seemed to be the most likely scenario. Scott Nicholls says in his book he is still owed money from his time at Rye House. Whether the well dried up or not is another matter I guess.

My understanding was more along the lines of the promotion wanting to operate at the top of the top table. The first season was a reasonable success with a Saturday race night. Season two with the fixed race night was a big problem and the money ran out (I believe). Second tier speedway with a Saturday race night was ideal for Rye House. It was almost an unsinkable ship if managed correctly. For one reason or another it wasn’t, but the sport’s governing body should have seen it for what it was, a rare example of a club that owned its site and had no restrictions. That was worth saving for the benefit of the entire sport at almost any cost.

Those free Conference League meetings tended to coincide with the Premier League team racing away somewhere on the same evening…

Barely did this year did he?

People need to stop seeing TV coverage as a tool to promote the sport. If that’s the aim then the promoters should take out some prime time advertising on television. The days of flicking through the channels and stumbling upon something are long gone. There are too many channels and streaming options. Television companies aren’t going to give out a deal to help push speedway to the masses. They want something that is established and will bring eyes to their channel. The promoters need to make the sport an attractive proposition for a broadcaster to take an interest not expect a TV deal and for that TV deal to suddenly attract fans through the gates of tracks.

Appreciate that I’m biased as it’s the club I support(ed) but allowing Rye House to die was a real travesty. A track that owned the stadium and had no restrictions over when it could operate. Somewhere that could have been a real asset to the sport in this country. Around the same time I’m pretty sure other tracks were bailed out too. Ones with bigger names but less solid foundations.

They are. Football (one of the biggest of them all) is phasing gambling sponsorship out because it can cause serious addiction. The number of bookmakers who offer speedway markets has also decreased. They aren’t interested. The only people who want to bet on speedway are the existing diminishing fan base or those with serious gambling addiction who would happily bet on Romanian under-12s netball. Companies sponsor things that will help them improve or promote their business generally. Speedway won’t. Greyhounds is a dying sport too and one that has always been synonymous with gambling. It isn’t a partnership that has just sprung up. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth but let’s not assume bookmakers are the saviour. It’s straw clutching.

Bookmakers already offer speedway markets. Bet Victor (or any bookmaker) has nothing to gain by sponsoring a sport with such a small profile and potentially no TV coverage. It would have to be a huge favour to Harry Redknapp to get something like that to happen. Things are pretty dire if that’s our great white hope.

What bookmakers are queuing up to sponsor speedway?

Absolutely. That’s where we have to back ourselves to eventually match and even surpass what the Polish league can offer. Won’t happen overnight but that isn’t to say it can’t happen given time. It needs a long term plan however and well, we all know how rare those are in speedway here…

While it may be a sweeping generalisation I feel like Eastern Europeans in generally are a little more stoic than people in the west too. There’s some motorbike racing going on at the end of their street for a couple of hours a week, they just get on with it as part of life. Live and let live. Here on the other hand if someone starts a moped in the next town someone will raise a noise complaint.

Professional sports are generally moving away from gambling sponsorship. It’s not a good look. There are outliers such as darts but that is a sport with a profile to put the bookmaker in front of millions of people on television. Speedway can’t do that. Nobody knows the odds like a bookmaker and Speedway would be a losing bet for them.

British Speedway has two options. A) make sure it is the one other league that riders choose or B ) strike out on its own. Remove the fixed race day and rebuild its own product. Short term the big names will stay in Poland but if we focus on developing our own riders in the long term we won’t be as reliant on Poland propping the sport up as it apparently (according to Poland) does right now. The bubble could always burst in Poland. It did here after all. It is in our best interests to have our own sustainable model here in the event of that happening.

Poland want the sport in a stranglehold. This would be the exact opposite. Doesn’t suit their agenda so won’t happen.

A great signing for Scunthorpe and they’ve done nothing wrong but no way should riders with almost 8 point Premiership averages be allowed to ride in the Championship. Highly likely he’ll double up too. The average conversion rate and doubling up free-for-all is a huge part of the reason the sport is in dire shape here. Apologies to Scunthorpe fans for being a downer on what for them is positive news. It’s sadly a poster child for the negative spiral British Speedway is in though.

This is silly from Poland. They want riders to only ride there eventually. That kills Speedway elsewhere, then it becomes a one nation sport. Very short sighted. Just goes to show stupidity is a sport wide problem.

A two team Premiership made up of Belle Vue and Ipswich. They will race each other home and away 15 times. Top two reach the play-offs to decide the winner.

Your last paragraph is bang on. Making a Championship club take a bullet isn’t the way to achieve it. More clubs can sustain the lower level of racing. Evidenced by the Championship containing more tracks. The way to serve the sport as a whole is to bring the standard to the level that is sustainable across the board. The issue then becomes that because of the mismanagement of the last X amount of years we now have a shortfall of Championship standard riders (let alone Premiership). Not to mention stadium rent costs only going in one direction. Basically we’re in a huge mess. The solution needs to help as many tracks as possible survive in the short term and thrive in the long term, not just be a vehicle for Ipswich to be able to retain Doyle and Sayfutdinov.

Not wanting to move up because it isn’t financially viable isn’t sense of entitlement, it’s sensible. The overall standard of the sport here has dropped. The GP riders and Sayfutdinovs in the Premiership only mask the fact that the rest of the riders are Championship standard at best. That’s why they are racing in both leagues (that and the suggestion they’re owed a living from the sport so should be allowed to race for multiple teams in Britain). The sport here can’t justify the level it tries and wants to present. The fact that landlords want their rent so admission prices will only rise regardless of what’s on show doesn’t help. This spiral will only continue. There’s no overnight fix. Those running the sport need to publicly acknowledge that and put a long term plan in place. Smoke and mirrors breeds rumours and discontent. Tell the fans what is happening and why and most of them will be a lot more understanding.

The current business model is clearly unsustainable. Premiership club dies so a Championship club has to step up to keep the Premiership afloat. Rinse and repeat. This Groundhog Day can only repeat itself a finite number of times, before long there will be no teams left. It’s concerning the number of fans who think things should carry on this way, let alone that the people running the sport seem to agree.