uk_martin

Following the Riss / Grobauer / Castagna non-payment of wages episode, my guess is that the Birmingham name is like mud in Germany.

Kids with their own social circles tend to be in the 10-11-12-teenage age groups. Speedway promotions targeting kids tend to go for the toddler to primary school age group. I can remember going on my own and meeting my group of mates, as a 12yo, paying kids admission. Sadly, that's the age group no longer targeted by speedway promotions. That needs to change IMHO.

Yes they can, but parents are a savvy lot, if speedway as a product does not offer up value for money, they will do one of the plenty of other things that they can spend their money on to entertain their kids.

In other words people who let their heart rule your head when making their decisions. And that's what the promotion are relying on. But are there enough such people out there right now?

"A touch more"??? What do you earn a week for not putting life & limb on the line? To make it worthwhile, how about the following calculation? An above average start point, say £35,000 Plus £500 x number of meetings = £15,000 minimum (based on 30 meetings) Thus, would you expect any rider to look to earn less than £50,000 to make just taking part worthwhile for them? Any less than that, and a career as a plumber or a bricklayer would make much more financial sense.

What would you consider to be an acceptable attrition rate in riders who would choose to ride in the French, Danish or German leagues rather than allow their earnings be affected? How many Australian riders will choose to ride in Britain if the return on their considerable investment in getting here isn't matched by the prospect of a worthwhile return? As a matter of interest, at what figure would you set your cap at?

I've said for a while that the BSPZzz should adopt the American sports business model, and become the sports promotion organisation that oversees all clubs. Existing promoters would be co-shareholders according to their contribution into the pot and "franchisees" for their original teams. If that were to happen then the risks would be shared, as would the rewards. Not to mention the abolishment of self centred attitudes. That said, I'd still venture to guess that finding a venue these days, is a whole site easier than finding 7 or 8 additional riders to make up a competitive team.

Starting to sound like that line in the Pink Floyd song "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding". So there we have it...no new product ranges until the investment in the 2020 stock has been recouped. It doesn't matter what people want, they'll get what's offered to them, whether they want it or not.

And for every new stadium, how about suggesting 7 or 8 new riders who can make up new teams.

According to her Facebook post, Tracey has come down with Covid. With the incubation period being what it is, there's a possibility that transmission could have taken place at the meeting. It may not be a bad idea, if you were at the meeting too, that you get yourself tested...just in case.

Did they explain the mathematics about that? Did they mean 1,000 fans paying full fare (£16.50) at the gate, i.e. they need £16,500 in revenue per meeting? My guess is that 75% of the fans won't be paying full fare, as they are paying concessionary admission @£14 a pop. That difference of £2.50 x 750 = £1,875 per meeting, which over a (20 match) season makes a difference of £37,500, or in other words the difference between make or break. If they can survive at £14,625 per meeting in revenue, then happy days, but if not.... I just hope that they haven't got their figures in a twist.

Not to mention being the "Tracey" that text's the updates to the Updates site.

I guess that most of the stuff is sold out because it was the 2020 range. Daft as it seems, (and even more unbelievably) there doesn't seem to be a 2021 range, let alone a SoN Winners range. Still, this is British Speedway, what do you expect?

With theatres closed for lockdown last year, people needed to get their Xmas Pantomime fix somehow...

Congratulations to Team GB - World Champions at winning play-off's. Ironic in a way, coming from a country whose footballists can't win a penalty shoot-out to save their lives.

Football players are employees of their clubs who play and train for their employer 7 days a week and get paid on a weekly basis whether they play or not. Speedway riders are self-employed contractors with the ability to ply their trade to whoever hires them in whichever country, and only get paid if they ride for a team. That's a huge difference. Expecting a contractor to ride for one team in the Britain ONLY, where they might only get out on track once a fortnight, depending on the fixture list, would be unreasonable, and if it was part of his contract, would probably fall foul of restraint of trade laws.

So anyone connected to a VPN connects to a Polish server to fool the streaming source into granting you access for free.....and if someone isn't connected to a VPN, free links to foreign streaming services will be provided in the usual way, via that International World of Speedway section of this forum, eh? That's one hell of a risky strategy.

Hold on, hold on, hold on....are you suggesting that the BSPZzz imposes a ban on riders contracted to British clubs riding for any other team, anywhere in Europe? Are you serious? Well that'll be even less then. Given the choice of British & Polish pay scales, those with a Polish team place will opt to ride there. So if you take away the likes of Dan Bewley, Jack Holder, Brady Kurtz, Luke Becker, Sam Masters, Erik Riss, look at how much you'll be devaluing the British League product. And that's just those who ride in the Polish leagues. If you do that to the riders with Polish contracts, then you have to do the same for the Danes, Germans and Swedes too, because that's, um, discrimination, and that's illegal. But is that what you want to do? Seriously? So how many riders will you have in your one big league, given that anyone riding for a foreign team will be excluded from your plans? The names are available on the team averages pages of the SGB web site, just cross off those who ride abroad, and let us know how many that leaves. Divide that by 7 and let us know how many teams there are enough riders for. I'm intrigued to know the figures you come up with. You might end up with one league, but it won't be "big".

About 137 riders were registered with the SCB in 2021 across all divisions. If you have one big league, with 17 clubs, 112 of them will be needed, leaving only 22 (net of Pedersen's Summers's and Crump's retirements) left for 6 teams to fight over in the NDL. I doubt that there are 17 riders of genuine #1 stature to lead each of these teams. Ulrich Ostergaard, Dan Bewley, Brady Kurtz, Jack Holder...um...er...there may be one or two more...

16 teams will need 112 riders. As only 137 riders were registered in 2021, including NDL riders, on the basis of one rider one club, when the 112 plumb jobs have been taken, that'll leave only 25 riders for the NDL to be spread out amongst their 6 teams. So, plenty of Sits Vacant for the MDL / SDL etc types who may have struggled to have found a place in years gone by. This could have the effect of either drastically weakening the NDL product or it could be the springboard to greatness that some of these riders were hoping for...time will tell. So there were 137 riders in 2021. Barny Pedersen is retiring, so that's one less in the pot...will Jason Crump hang up his boots after this year's fling? Another one less if he does...Aaron Summers, another one less...any more? Any suggestions about who the 17 x #1's could be, bearing in mind how many of them rode for 2 teams last year? Oh, and IF Birmingham find a replacement promoter, make that 17 teams, needing 119 riders, with even less left over for the NDL.

I've seen collections of speedway badges on sale in Bargain Hunt...very often being sold at auction a lot cheaper than you'd get on sale from certain "specialist" speedway memorabilia auctions / sellers.

A sad end indeed to speedway's tenure in Birmingham. The apathy of the fans (another v.poor attendance - compare that to the crowd in Newcastle on their "last day") matched by the lethargy of the team. Can't help but think that they were under instruction not to drag the season out longer than it had to be. Birmingham Brummies, RIP.

Virgin Media carry the Disco group of channels, if cable TV is an option in your area.

Having just watched the FIM / Discovery+ video, outlining the plans for the real SGP series, including SGP2 (u21) SGP3 (u16) and SGP4 which features Poland Denmark and Sweden but NOT Great Britain, I'm left wondering if an ultimately true word hasn't been inadvertently spoken in jest here. I wonder if the BSPZzz will take an active part in the FIM's plans or if AGAIN the BSPZzz won't interested in playing on the world stage. Anyone who remembers the early years of the Speedway European Championship will remember the BSPA cold-shouldering the FIM. I wonder how long this attitude of "we're British, WE know best, and you (FIM) aren't telling us how to run our sport in our country" will last, and what damage it could do to the sport in this country? I wonder who will prevail? Who will prosper and who will go under? https://www.speedwaygp.com/news/article/9277/fim-speedway-world-championships-2022

Great! Has anyone worked out where they are going to get their riders from? The continent? Cue more absences, RR, Guests and more of the same old same old. Bear in mind that at the height of this season, there were only 137 riders licensed / registered to ride in the UK. One big league will mean no doubling up/down so those riders are going to be spread very thinly.