enotian

and how long would that contract last??? currently they mostly last for 8 months of a season. speedway riders are self employed. I'd say the vast majority of people would work for the person who pays the most. add in that riding against the toughest competition helps you progress/stay at the top. It's just something else we have to learn to live with......

we hope but Glasgow said they couldn't accommodate social distancing. then there's the greyhound stadiums which might not jeopardise their core business. just impossible at the minute. I do hope they've thought about what can be done if there's no improvement in the situation throughout next Summer. Some viable alternative funded by fulfilling the Eurosport deal or streaming. GP''s are asking people to take part in vaccine trials so there must be something close to being ready but who knows.....

they'd get less meetings though. if a home season has say 24 fixtures and you have two teams you have 48 home fixtures and the same away. only one home team and you only get to ride in half that. it's not quite that simple because currently teams face each other more than once home and away and that wouldn't be possible with one combined league of say 20 teams. i mostly agree, although would say they deserve to earn as much as possible for the risks they take (at their choice of course). but again the problem might be if riders walk away then how do you fill the teams. we're already talking about some not riding in the UK so if there was a 20 team league that's 140 riders needed. where do they all come from especially if some established riders decide they can't make it pay? without seriously diluting the standard? so whilst i don't like doubling up and like the sound of one big league it just might not be feasible. Doubling up for anyone was always a Pandora's box that should never have been opened.

totally agree one problem though. Doubling Up. Will/can the domestic riders settle for riding in one league only?

7 years 6 months! He'll serve half and be out in time for the start of the next UK speedway season.... Apologies, it's not a joking matter. Anyone who prey's on the vulnerable has no place in society regardless of how tough their start in life might have been or the addictions which might have consumed them. I suspect his victims will suffer the after effects of his actions for much longer than he will atone for them.

Agree with this entirely but just to be fair to FIM I think the idea of SON was that more countries could participate rather than there'd be more varied winners as such. The SWC only had 8 or 9 nations, one or two of which were also rans. The problem this year was we didn't get to see the likes of France, Finland, Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia so it lost that element. On that basis I think SON has a place but agree that SWC was superior

What if the question is "what do cockney's call their arses?" I imagine Bewley takes all the rides anyway so the third team member might as well be someone who benefits from the experience, as will Bewley. Might even get to have a pop at some of the U21 riders as we look prime candidates to be on the end of that tactic. Such a shame Woffinden is injured as I genuinely thought we had a good chance. Hopefully in the not too distant future we'll be able to adequately replace him. As someone mentioned earlier Adam Ellis might have been worth a punt but not fair on the lad when he's been injured.

it would also give all 16 riders the chance to plug their sponsors while they 'ponder' over gate pick for their final. It's ideal for for this scoring system. Probably much better for TV highlights as well. I quite like the idea of 5 finals. D Final:13th to 16th, winner progresses to the C Final: with 10th to 12th, winner to B Final with 7th to 9th, winner to A Final with 4th to 6th, winner to the Grand Final with 1st to 3rd. All gate picks after heat 20, no track grading in between finals. Effectively you could finish on zero points after 20 heats and still win the GP (however impossible that might be). Offset against the fact that you qualify direct to the Grand Final if you finish in the top three. No safety net of finishing 2nd in a semi final. After heat 20 you have to win it to still be in it. I suppose it's the conundrum all sports wrestle with. Balancing a fair test which rewards the best competitor with the need for entertainment.

Sorry you misunderstood. What I mean is that if you live stream a regular league match, away supporters who would not have had any intention (or opportunity) to attend might very well pay to watch their team. I think I might if it was the best entertainment option that night. Remember you're competing with other TV which people have already paid for or a night out. So say the away team has 1000 regular supporters and you get 500 of them to pay £10 to stream, then that's £5,000 you wouldn't have made without streaming. Excellent. Then there's neutral supporters. I really can't see this being many. Put it this way if Leicester v Eastbourne was available to stream for £10 on a nice summers evening there are plenty of other things I'd rather be doing here in Newcastle (at least there will be again next summer). But you are reaching a global audience so let's say 1,000 neutrals pay £10 so you make £10,000 extra. Excellent. The question now is does £15,000 income cover the cost of providing the stream? And importantly what negative impact does it have on your gate receipts? I don't know how much it would cost to stream a meeting but I suspect TV standard would be very expensive. If you're talking one camera and one commentator then less costly but lower standard. Again remember you're competing with other activities. I've no idea but say a man with a camera and a commentator providing all the streaming tech charge you £5,000. You're still £10,000 up. Excellent. But what about those supporters who would have turned up and paid on average £15 who now stay at home and stream for £10. Or worse where a group of people (family of four) pay £10 instead of £60 on the gate. If 50 families did that then you've lost £10,000 on the gate receipts (consider that the family would also be saving travel costs so it's a real threat). You are no better off and that's before you consider the impact on bar takings and the like. The threat of bad weather could make this even worse if more people who would have normally paid on the gate decide to stay at home. I reckon most people attend as a group or at least as a pair. If they stay home and share a stream that's £10 instead of £30 at the gate. Clearly the numbers are made up but I've tried to be realistic. It all seems a bit too marginal with a risk of actually losing money for any promoter to try this at league level. Feel free to suggest that there are 10,000 neutrals out there desperate to stream league matches every night of the week but you'll struggle to convince me. Don't get me wrong I think it would be great but it just doesn't sound financially viable to me. As I said earlier it's your shared events which could really attract the number of streaming sales needed to make it viable.

to be fair though is streaming of league matches even at Premiership level viable? you might increase income from away supporters who wouldn't have travelled but how many neutral supporters would pay to watch a match that doesn't involve their team? then you have those locals who used to attend as a family but now just buy one streaming pass instead. regardless, would the income received even cover the cost of providing the coverage? for a league match? you need to scale it up to make it viable. i can see how it could work for shared events, pairs, 4TT, rider championship with all teams represented. potential there are a lot of supporters who wouldn't normally travel who just might pay for those streams. how about doing a magic weekend event a la rugby league where all the teams participate at the same venue? or have a knock out cup weekend (quarter finals on the Saturday, semi's and the Final on the Sunday all at the same venue) charge £50 to stream 7 matches over the weekend?

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exactly. if you could convince a local authority that having a speedway (or sports) stadium would bring thousands of visitors to the region (for example for a GP) to boost the local economy then you might be part of the way there. but then who funds it? Gateshead FC have been looking for a new stadium for years. There's plenty of waste ground in Gateshead but there's no funding. I'd have thought with Rob Grants lineage to farming you're looking at a Berrington Lough type prospect rather than a NSS Manchester.

How about 5 additional heats? Top 3 straight to the A Final proceeded by 4 heats of winner stays on. Starting with 16th to 13th, the winner of which progresses to heat 22 against 12th to 10th and so on until the winner of heat 24 joins the top 3 in the A Final. Effectively you could finish 16th after heat 20 and still win the meeting. The traditionalist/purists will love it!!!

Just for a bit of fun.... if you can imagine a world where 2021 exists and the Diamonds have a Championship speedway team (with the same averages and points limit in place) and Archie Freeman is available on a 2.00 average..... what do you do to the 2021 team, remembering the 2020 team was already 2 points under the limit. Stick or twist? And if you're twisting, how would you twist??? Newcastle Diamonds 1. Claus Vissing 8.43 2. Matthew Wethers 6.92 3. Nick Skorja 5.00 4. Ondrej Smetana 5.00 5. Max Clegg 4.92* 6. Connor Mountain 4.61* 7. James Wright 4.00 Team Total: 38.88 Remaining: 2.12

its about the % of TV meetings in these circumstances though or rather the % of none TV meetings with no crowds. Much less fixtures in Sweden and Poland. Whereas in this country they'd have to have run many loss making none televised meetings without crowds, to maintain the integrity of the competition. Of course they could have thought outside the box and arranged a much reduced competition which was affordable within the TV revenue and would still fulfill the contract. Had they have done it quickly enough it might have been one of the first live sports to appear during lockdown and who knows what the audience might have been. But they didn't. Or maybe you're right and the TV deal isn't worth a bean so it wasn't worth trying to secure the income from it? Either way someone dropped a bollock.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53669432 don't be so sure.... in a world where you are struggling to make a return from your sport stadium as a going concern and planning permission suddenly becomes less problematic (under the fog of a pandemic and a housing crisis (didn't Boris campaign to get rid of immigrants to solve this?)) and a property developer comes along offering you an out..... you might just bail out and take the pay off. Lots of decisions being made to "aid the economic recovery" which will make a lot of very rich people even richer. Then again I'm a sucker for a conspiracy

yes I wouldn't pay to stream an Eastbourne meeting unless it was against the Diamonds. There is no way each track could have run meetings and relied on streaming revenue. Those receipts would be far lower than gate receipts and other income that a normal meeting would generate. But with a little creative thinking arranging one meeting per week featuring a number of teams (albeit scratch line ups due to the lack of riders) either pairs, individual or 4TT might have attracted viewing figures of the scale previous TV matches had. Then you start to look like having a viable product. Not ideal but might have got the sport some much needed exposure at a time when sports channels must have been desperate for live content.

given that people have paid subscriptions for more content than speedway you couldn't expect those figures for a pay per view but even if you got 50% at £5 per event (c20 heat individual, 4TT, pairs etc) you're into £200k income. I'm no expert on the costs of running a meeting but I can't imagine £200k wouldn't cover it. alas I think the window of opportunity has passed and now our screens will be filled with millionaires who didn't want to entertain us when we needed them to. whilst our under paid speedway riders who I'm sure would have jumped at the chance to entertain are still sat twiddling their thumbs earning nothing for another six weeks at least. we've all been let down during this pandemic but you do have to feel for the riders.

Total missed opportunity for speedway in this country. They've correctly identified that the sport can't run, as intended, behind closed doors..... and then done nothing about it. So now they wait until a potential further relaxation to allow x number of spectators, which at this point has to be as likely as a return of tighter restrictions. They seem to be planning for an August to November season by which time most other sports will be under way in some form or another. Speedway could have returned from Monday if the promoters had given some consideration as to what format would have allowed the sport to have returned behind closed doors. Clearly due to no supporters and a lack of riders there's no way of holding fixtures, as intended, across the country. But if you could arrange one event per week featuring each of the clubs (say pairs or fours) and make it available pay per view then you might have had a viable product. If you got 10,000 subscriptions around the UK (or globally) at £10 that should provide enough revenue to cover costs. Supporters who are normally paying £15+ per week are literally a captive audience so if the product was good enough the events could be weekly. You could even offer season tickets for a series of events. You never know a broadcaster might have even paid for the content and made it free to their subscribers, given how desperate the sports channels are for content. Driest May on record and not any shale shifted in anger..... lets hope that November is just as dry.

Whilst the demand on the NHS has been avoided (largely thanks to people who don't actually need it not turning up and, sadly, likewise people who do need it not turning up) the virus is still an unknown quantity. However, I don't think running speedway would place any significant pressure on the NHS. Indeed I suspect many of the Medics might welcome the escape? But given the hysteria surrounding and lack of verified information on the virus it's hard to see how sporting events can go ahead with spectators present. I agree that most speedway crowds could social distance but you have to ask would you want to? Any night out is supposed to be enjoyable, not a test of your health and safety risk assessment skills or standard of your PPE. Socially distanced events just don't sound like any fun at all to me. The point about the age profile of speedway fans is important as many may still be required to stay indoors for a longer period. Could any promotion afford to run with even lower crowds? Then factor in the lack of riders? There's probably only about 20 Championship standard heat leaders available plus another 40 youngsters so running credible leagues looks impossible. This and the fact that standard of streaming service individual promotions could offer would probably be sub standard and the revenues less than gate receipts, kind of leads you to a less is more scenario. Pool the resources together get a weekly pay per view event with a decent standard of coverage for streaming. Spread the riders across teams and maybe run pairs, 4TT, individual championships (even a mini league) over the shorter season. Hopefully you get subscriptions from across the country. If say the average normal attendance at the 22 tracks is 800 and you attract 50% of them (factoring in families would only need one subscription) to the weekly pay per view for a standard £15 per event that's a decent income stream and should make it sustainable for the promoters and riders and affordable for the public. It should be relatively easy to set up although I'm not sure what the Eurosport position would be. Maybe they'd even fund it for some much needed live content for their channel?

If the only riders available are UK resident (and not riding in Poland) I reckon there are only approximately 60 who have either had a team place in a top two divisions or were about to for the first time (Palin etc) due to be active in 2020. Assuming that any Aussies won't return for a short season. Spread across 19 teams it's going to be hard to run anything with any integrity. I suppose you could have mass doubling up if the Premiership teams stick to Monday/Thursday.

Looking forward to the Gems matches. Some really talented youngsters to see before they (hopefully) become massive stars. I think it's probably the future sustainable level for the Diamonds tbh. Interesting move by the new promotion. However, hopefully the double headers won't be marathons. The danger being that those not inclined to hang about for a half hour of track grading between matches or for 4 hours plus to see 30 mins of action will have had to pay £3 more for nothing extra. Regardless of any centre green displays or ability to buy fresh meat produce, it could end up being a massive turn off for some. Intend to get both matches done in a maximum 2 and a half hours please.

Have to chuckle when people defend the seven and then in the same breath say that we've got two points to play with to make changes! There's no point in trying to deny that a team that's two points under the limit, doesn't have a #1 and will struggle in heat 13 and 15 is going to struggle. But at least it's an interesting team with same potential to improve. Who knows if James Wright can recapture his former form? Or if Connor Mountain will have a break through season? Or if Nik Skorja is a top talent (World U-21's in 2019 (scoring 7,2,2) which only Lambert from the Brits qualified for). Or if THJ has self esteem issues? Who knows? What it does show is that the new owner is prepared to take a gamble. Let's hope it pays off.

Looking at riders active over the last two season (which given the Wright signing might not be long enough) the following fit Rene Bach 7.19 Doolan 6.71 Ludvig Lindgren 6.47 Palovaara 6.25 Bjerre 5.87 Matej Kus 5.63 Nike Lunna 5.63 Andersson 5.62 Theo Pijper 5.49 Kurtz 5.43 Jan Graversen 4.93 Andersen 4.86 Would Palovaara and Bjerre fit exactly to the points limit??

the point being that averages are misleading. Having not ridden in the majority of heat 13 and 15's last season whilst third heatleader for Glasgow, Vissing will now be in both heats week in week out. Who knows he might have still averaged above 8 had he rode in those heats last season so he might retain his average but he'll have to defeat better riders to do so now he's our #1.