AlanF

I agree that the play off winners should be the champions.

One of the reasons that play offs occur in just about all American and Australian sports is because of the unbalanced schedule due to the huge geographic area. The teams do not play the same number of games against each team and so it would not be fair to crown the team with the best record as champions as they may have had a weaker schedule. Clearly the playoffs are hugely popular with the paying public and will Never disappear. However, I don't see why you can't have the best of both worlds. Major League Soccer awards the Supporters Shield to the team with the best record at the end of the regular season and it is a prestigious trophy. They then play the play offs and the winners are the champions. I don't see why the Elite League could not do that.

Calling this a draft is so misleading. Never heard of a draft that has the same riders in multiple years and has clubs getting protected choices. Defeats the whole purpose. I think they are way over complicating things. Just make every team have two Brits 23 and under and all foreigners can never drop below 6.00 (maybe even 7.00). Apply it to both leagues and there will be plenty of opportunities for British riders to progress.

If they did, the rights holders aren't doing much with them.

Communication and marketing by the BSPA is very poor. I live in the USA now but still follow the sport closely. However, there is absolutely nothing out there that would allow my interest to be turned into cash by the BSPA. I would pay good money for an app or site that let me see full Matches or highlights the following day or a subscription to a weekly highlights and news show. There must be a lot of people like me out there. You can't just rely on income through the turnstiles. Even minor league soccer here has a deal with You Tube where you can see any match played. Congrats to the Speedway Star for moving into the 21st century. You gained an extra subscriber.

Don't know why you can't just treat them as two separate meetings. Charge $30 to get in. Reopen the turnstiles in the interval between meetings. If you come in, it's $15, if you leave you get a $15 refund. Turnstiles close at the start of heat 1 of second meeting. If you paid $30 and it is abandoned after 10 heats of the first meeting, you get a $15 refund.

The issue with the Confederate Flag has played out exactly as it should. If you believe that the Civil War was fought over slavery, then it is clearly offensive to Americans of color, and opposition to the flag is significantly more than just being PC. If you believe that the Civil War was fought over states rights then we have a win win situation here. The southern state of South Carolina voted to remove the flag from government buildings. It made the decision itself with no pressure from the Federal government. If you are a White Southerner, the process worked exactly how you fought for it to work, so you should be happy. Walmart, TV Land etc. made their own commercial decisions to remove the image. Again, no government interference so nothing to complain about. If you don't like it, don't shop at Walmart. Plenty of other places to buy your flag. Nobody is trying to ban the flag from any private home or business. Somerset should make their own decision. If the name and logo offends you, don't go the track. If it offends enough paying customers, they will change it rather than continue to lose money. Nobody needs to ban anything.

The Confederate flag is so ingrained in Southern history that it will, quite simply, never go away. Just about all white Southerners are in favor of the flag and just about all black Southerners are against the flag. America is completely split on racial issues. If a black person suffers at the hands of a white person, the black population think it is racially motivated and the white people do not. There have been many cases recently of unarmed black teenagers getting shot by white police officers. You can argue whether the killings were necessary, but in America opinion is split completely down the middle. The country has had recent mass protests and riots in major cities across the country and race relations are at an incredibly low level and the slightest provocation can trigger major problems. "Black lives matter" has been the rallying call for protesters. Whatever you think of the origins of the flag, it is an extreme provocation. It is offensive to a large percentage of the American population and has no business being flown from government buildings. It will never be banned from private use, and neither should it. If a white Southerner is proud of their heritage then fine, just don't wave it in a black person's face and expect them to be happy about it. The Government belongs to the black peoples as much as it does the white people. I still don't see how any of this affects Somerset. The Old Miss Rebels play in front of 80,000 people every game and most of their team are black.

The Confederate flag is a living, breathing symbol of white supremacy. Since the Governor of South Carolina suggested it be banned from public buildings, six black churches in the south have been set on fire. In my view it has no place in modern American life. However, the issue is not relevant to the UK or Somerset speedway. I don't see any problem at all with the Somerset Rebels.

So we are legislating to save promoters from their own incompetence? Most of those were Glasgow signings and the only team they hurt was Glasgow.To be fair, your idea of top 8 in Aussie Championships is probably fair (don't know about US or NZ), but I still think they should never be able to drop below 7.00 for team building purposes even if they are in the top 8.

But they probably wouldn't have done if they knew he would be 7 this year as well.

I would hope a promoter would know he was rubbish before he used up 7.00 of the points limit on him.

I think the strict 7.00 average or top 4 in a state championship is arbitrary and a waste of time. Just assess any newcomer from outside the EU at 7.00. Then just make the rule that for team building purposes any non EU rider can never drop below 7.00. Speedway's points limit is a built in check and balance that will weed out the ones that don't need to be here. No promoter is going to waste 7.00 on a rider that can't get anywhere near it. Let Holder, for example, in on a 7. If he only gets 5.00 this season, let a promoter decide if he wants him in 2016 on a 7.00 average. Not sure if it is legal but if so, apply the same criteria to EU riders. It's not like we would be banning them.

Leigh Adams would surely be one of the best never to be World Champion.

I have never seen better PL riders than Tom and Joe Owen at Newcastle. Around that period, the Owen brothers, John Jackson, Martin Yeates and Colin Richardson were virtually unbeatable unless they were riding against each other.

Wasn't asking anybody to invest. Just seeing if there was any interest. Obviously there would need to be a ton of work done before even thinking about asking anybody for money.

Very little response to the thread anyway, so I doubt the "boys club" have to worry.

I believe Isle of Wight didn't worek because too much of the financial burden was placed on one person and he didn't want to carry the load anymore. Point 9 of my proposal suggests that no person could own more than 10% of the club.

It seems to me as though the future of regular league speedway is hanging in the balance. Being a promoter doesn’t seem to be economically viable, crowds are down and there is not a lot of optimism around the sport. At some point we are going to run out of businessmen willing to throw money at trying to make a go at it. So how do we move forward? I believe that if a club is going to make a loss, then it makes sense to spread that loss over as many people as possible. If supporters could come together and take ownership stakes in a club, then I feel that there would be a much better chance at a future in the sport in the UK. It takes a lot of money to run a club, so it is doubtful that everybody could take part. So here is the plan (please forgive the $ sign but I am in the US and not sure how to get the pound sign on my keyboard): 100 people put in $1,000 to buy a 1% share of the club (or 1,000 people put in $100). This immediately gives our club $100,000 working capital. Buy an underperforming club (e.g. Birmingham). Each member has a cash call of $100 a month from March to October, creating additional cash flow of $10,000 a month during the Season. It would be $10 a month if 1,000 members. Given the above, the club would have to lose over $60,000 to not be self sustaining. Members elect a committee of the membership to oversee the club’s affairs. Committee finds and pays a promoter to front the club. Committee up for election every 3 years. (Every year would give no continuity) Members are able to sell their shares to others. No member would be allowed to own more than 10% of the club Monthly meeting for all members to be updated with the affairs of the club. A pledge for transparency with financials, attendance figures etc, to help other BSF members understand the mechanics of running a speedway club. Members get half price admission to our club. Any of the above points could be altered or deleted. The actual details aren’t the point of this post. The main thrust is that spreading the risk would be a big help and that ownership by the fans would increase the attachment to the club and help it to be successful. The Brummies fans raised $10,000 with no prospect of ownership or say in the running of the club, so I think this would be possible. Thoughts

The most important piece of information any club can have is an email address. You can do all your marketing through that. Any club that doesn't have the email address of its supporters and communicates with them regularly is missing a huge opportunity. Get additional email addresses in your area by doing any kind of free giveaway or even buy an appropriate mailing list. All that matters is you get their email address. Send fixture reminders, videos, incentives to bring extra fans, anything. It takes on average about 7 contacts with a potential customer before they buy what you are selling. This is all marketing 101 and little or no cost. Having said that, once they give you a chance, you have to make sure they are not greeted by a dust cloud in heat 1, haven't taken their money and then called it off before heat 1, the doctor is sober, don't run out of food, not playing 40 year old music on broken down sound systems etc. No amount of marketing will work if the product is not good.

All I know is that when I flew from London to Miami last year I had some Scottish bank notes that my uncle from Edinburgh had given me. The currency exchange folks at Miami airport didn't want anything to do with them.

Remember reading that the career of a professional athlete goes through a cycle. It was something along the lines of: 1. When they break into a sport, they just want to compete and improve. 2. When they reach a certain level, their main goal is to get paid as much as possible. 3. As they reach the end of their career and have passed the peak of their earning potential, their main concern is on winning trophies. So, I guess it depends on the make up of the team, how invested they are in the result.

I'm surprised the Australian authorities or the riders themselves don't hire an immigration attorney to handle all the applications centrally.

If I was a PL promoter, I would be very keen to sign a couple of these riders that are riding EL. Joe Jacobs, for example, may find it tough going for Wolves but he is going to learn so much that it must be a certainty that he will add significantly to his PL average.

Will these riders become assets of the team that selects them? Would have a big impact on deciding whether to go with current ability vs. potential.