uk_martin

The City's motto is "Forward"" which is the antithesis of how speedway has gone over the last 50 years. This may explain the declining fortunes of the club and the diminishing attendances.

I appreciate what you say. I think though that the "sponsorship" bridges have to be crossed as you come to them. The Brummies gained a crappy reputation thanks to its former owners for not paying some foreign riders. The current owners have stated that the finances are on a knife-edge and have not yet demonstrated that there's money in the pot through new sponsorship to pay riders this year either. If you were sat at home in Denmark, or Germany or wherever, would that be an enticing prospect to you, not knowing if your efforts were going to be rewarded or not? Contrast this to previous years when there were plenty of announcements about new sponsors (Mercon, Selco, Edwards et al...) This year - zip. The only sponsorship announcement this year was about the Bulls MDL team. Even the Edwards Plumbing adverts have been removed off the web site which now features less than half a dozen adverts in total. If the riders aren't willing to come over to ride for a team, not knowing whether or not they are going to be paid, then you aren't going to get as far as the visa sponsors license issue.

Nothing in the press releases (no matter how many issues of Speedway Star you scour through) about sponsors of any sort. The new owners made their reliance on increased sponsorship plain for all to hear when they took over. Maybe this is at the heart of the issue.

And some mugs pay money to buy the weekly Compendium of Press Releases, masquerading as a magnificent feat of journalism?

It's not the Brummies' job to "feed" the Speedway Star. It's their job to find the stories. They're supposed to be journalists, not the teams' print media publicists.

Great News. All the buzz on the Brummies social media this weekend is all about Josh Auty. He's in the BEN Fund meeting and he's having a testimonial. Surprised me in a way. 12 months ago, the Brummies socials were one long James-Shanes-a-thon. It's been a while since Shane's has featured. Was thinking it was going to be his turn this week.

If somebody breaks a dart, can he use someone else's dart as a "guest"? Or can he use Dart Replacement?

Great News According to the Brummies web site, Stefan Nielsen will be fit and ready for the start of the season - http://www.birmingham-speedway.com/_mobile/news.php?extend.3111 Was there a doubt over this?

So you start the process with minus 3 riders...add a team in the way of Oxford, that needs another 7 riders, and all of a sudden, to make up the league's quota or riders, you are on minus 10. Give everyone else a 2-3 month head start and then surprise surprise, there's nobody left that you can mop up in the final weeks before the season starts. This goes to back up what I've said before, there is a very limited pool of riders. Hardly enough to go around now, as it is, and with people talking about how great it would be to see Eastbourne, Swindon, Coventry, Bradford etc return, you have to ask, where the riders to fill all those extra team places will come from.

I wonder sometimes why speedway only seems to attract an audience from the lowest social strata. It's hard to grasp why 600-700 people will "struggle" to afford an evening's entertainment where the admission is under £20, when a night at a music concert at a 10,000 capacity venue can easily sell out despite tickets being 5 or 6 times the price. That tells me that there are plenty of people with money in their pockets. So why can't speedway attract them? And to those who say that you get 2 whole hours entertainment for your money for your concert admission compared to 15 minutes for your speedway admission, I'm reminded of the day that 25,000 people paid over £50 each to see Usain Bolt for 10 seconds at Perry Barr's "other" stadium. People have money. Speedway just has to find out how to attract the people who have it.

Sebastian Ulamek II by the sounds of it.

What a commentary on the state of British Speedway...the recycle bin for the rest of the world's rubbish.

That's put to bed the rumours going around that the Brummies were going to revert to their 1977 configuration of two guests and rider replacement to cover the top 3 places in the team, then.

Nobody's suggested Brent Werner yet....

There you go then.... one down, two to go. So, how about Shawn McConnell as the second of the three? Still entertaining the crowds in the USA and a firm favourite of the fans of a certain generation.

Has Ludvig Lindgren completely retired from racing? If not, let's start a rumour...

I wonder how many visits to Manchester one of his main sponsors - Jörg Grohmann - (& his "trophy wife" - Maren Schütt) will make, and will they attract the Eurosport cameras as much in the stands of Belle Vue as they do on the SGP circuit iainb would be most upset

Great News! According to the Birmingham Speedway web site, the Birmingham Bulls will be competing again this year. No mention though of which riders will be in the team though.

I wonder if Nigel Pearson will be reading this...

They stand no chance of fulfilling that desire. If it's set at £15 people will say it's only worth £10. If it's set at £10, people will complain that it isn't worth more than £5. A no-win situation. I think that they are hoping to create a core of viewers who will subscribe to all the meetings being shown and making their money that way, rather than hoping that 10 or 12 people will be interested enough in an away meeting that they will pay-as-they-go. How does this postcode recognition work? Do people who are within a given distance get charged the same price for the stream as they would at the gate to deter the lazy stay-at-homes, and those from a distance away get it cheaper? What technology prevents illegal rebroadcasts per what happens with Polish & Swedish TV streams?

Assuming that your team getting hammered at an away track proves an attractive proposition to a newcomer...??? Only time will tell...fingers crossed it works.

It could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing...I'm not sure. Anyone remember the Bet365 streaming service from a couple of years ago? That didn't last long did it? I assume this one will be paid for on a pay-per-view basis? So where does the money go? Is there a BSPZzz oligarch who will be trousering 40% of revenues again, like with the Sky Sports deal, or is this genuinely for the benefit of the Championship clubs and they will get a fair share of the revenue? Questions need answering. And how long before the "usual suspects" on BSF start distributing the links to the streams like what happens with Polish and Swedish speedway matches, meaning that all the "genuine fans" belonging to BSF will opt for the "free" links rather than spending their money on the subscriptions that will fund the sport? Suppose for a minute, someone decides to subscribe to a meeting...and invites a gang of his mates around to have a "watch the speedway party"...bring your own food and booze, etc...how will that one subscription compensate for a whole gaggle of people who now won't be paying their admission on the door because they can watch the racing on TV, and not have to pay stadium prices on food and drink, and of course they can download their own race cards off BSF too, so they won't need a/several programmes?

Do you know how much that TV money is? In fact, is there any TV money at all? The last I heard, speedway in the UK is lucky to have any TV coverage at all, let alone get paid for it.

So the BIG question will be... which team will be the first to announce who it's 7 riders are? The Coventry Bees or the Birmingham Brummies?

Are you kidding? SS doing "investigative" journalism??? Yeah, but who? And how did their lives / careers improve as a result? And why the past tense? Is there nobody left on the scheme now?