MattK

It's unlikely to make a difference. In the short term it will be business as usual, as Britain won't want hundreds of thousands of European workers having to leave and in turn a similar number of ex-pats being forced to return. In the longer term Britain will more than likely sign a free trade agreement with the EU, similar to what Norway have negotiated, which will allow the four freedoms of the EU Single Market, what are free movement of goods, services, capital and people.

I don't believe either are insurmountable. With two race nights to choose from, clubs will have the flexibility to negotiation with the other stadium users. As for local authorities, like you, I think that is a red herring. There will be no increase in the frequency, simply a change in race nights.

Precisely. Sweden had one world class rider (AJ), one rider who can be world class when he wants to, but it very inconsistent (Lindgren) and two riders making up the numbers. Remarkably similar in fact to the British team. Maybe Sweden just wanted it more?

Isn't Tungate an Ispwich asset?

Interesting development. This is potentially a massive opportunity for British speedway. If the council get the site for under £10m, build 200 houses and make a £20m profit (assuming £100k per house), then they'd have plenty of cash to build a dedicated speedway stadium somewhere more suitable in the Oxford area.

No. Stadia UK was granted planning permission for their racino by Reading council, so they were ahead of where we are, for a few months at least.

"It’s been clear for some time that our riders do tend to struggle when they get to major events on big, Continental tracks, and a lot of that is down to set-ups." I've always struggled to get my head around this. Is there some kind of set-up "database" that speedway riders use?

No one can possibly occupy that house during the coming year though, can they?

They must be close to 200 by now. And remember, the restrictions isn't until the new stadium is built, its until contracts for the new stadium are signed - whatever that means.

There isn't £40m to be made from running a stadium, the economics simply don't add up.

Let's say a stadium costs £5m to build and makes £500,000 a year profit. It would take 10 years to recoup the cost of the build and after 20 years you'd have made£5m profit. Alternatively you could build 200 houses and sell them at a profit of £100,000 each. You'd make a quick £20m and could retire to an island in the Caribbean. Which would you choose?

It would be interesting to know if Go Speed/BSPA received any compensation or whether was a "free" experiment?

That is a good question. There was supposed to be a buffer of commercial property between the new stadium and the houses, however last year plans were submitted to reduce the amount of commercial and increase the houses. So basically your guess is as good as anyone's!

The problem would be if fans choose to stay at home and watch the streams. For every stay at home fan the club looses £17 minus the cost of watching the stream (say£4). That means you'd need four streaming customers to cover the cost of one stay at home fan. Clubs wouldn't be prepared to take the risk that streaming meeting live couldn't cause hundreds of fans to watch from the comfort of their living rooms.

I'd imagine that the two parties would be to far apart to agree on a "market value" for the stadium.

It's not simply about dancing to the tune of top riders. Having set race nights for the EL and PL will also solve the far more pressing issues of riders missing due to clashes. This was a scourge on last season and in my opinion is the single biggest issue in British speedway which needs to be address.

I think that is more his "wish" than a serious proposal. The number of clashes with the PL would make it impossible.

What's to stop Wolves riding on a Wednesday?

Would position sharing actually increase the supply of riders or simply increase the demand? Coupled with the fact that only two or three teams could realistically afford the cost of two riders sharing one position.

I think that's only applicable if the stadium is considered unsafe. A similar thing happened in Swindon with a "historic" building. The whole situation does seem to have reached a stalemate.

Anecdotally, it was suggested most of the crowd were speedway supporters from other clubs, who enjoyed a free meeting, rather than attracting lots of new local interest. However, a good way of attracting people back would be a voucher for money off the next meeting and so on. These are simple marketing techniques used in almost all consumer-focussed businesses.

I've always wondered why clubs don't offer reduced (or even free) admission at the start of the season, firstly to get returning fans back into the habit and secondy to entice new fans. Swindon offered a £5 entry and got probably double the crowd of a regular meeting. The problem was, the next meeting the price was back up to normal (£17) and the crowd went back down again. I don't understand why clubs don't play around with the price. There must be a sweet spot between attracting lots of fans but not generating enough revenue which is where you are at £5 and charging so much it puts people off, which I believe is where we currently are at £17.

I think big changes like this should be proposed a year in advance, so that the creases can be ironed out before it is implemented. The problem is, the proposals are always so high level they don't give anyone a chance to plan ahead.

I think you have hit the nail on the head here. Most of us were introduced to speedway by our Dads, not because some fancypants promoter came into our school with a bike and a rider.

What's the difference between attracting 1,000 new fans aged 15-30 and 1,000 new fans aged 40-55? I'd hazard that speedway looses far more fans due to lose of interest, cost, rules etc. than through death.