MattK

No, not at all. But people say they "take money out of the sport". Well, my question is, what happened to all the money when British league meetings were packed to the rafters in the 60s, 70s, 80s etc? Did those promoters buy the stadiums and invest in youth facilities in order to give clubs a solid foundation or did they cream off the profits into their own pockets? BSI is a commercial organisation, but so is every individual club. The fact that BSI make a profit and the average British club doesn't, is up to the clubs. Maybe without Sky we can have the British Final on a Saturday night and get a decent crowd which can put some money back into the club's pockets?

What did the old one-off world final (before IMG and BSI got involved) bring to league speedway?

I can't see Sky bothering next season either. If they were really interested in speedway, why did they allow the GP contract to go to Eurosport?

Next season watching it live will be the only way to see British speedway. Whether this will be a positive or negative is yet to be decided.

Any number of reasons. Maybe he wants to cash out, maybe he has other debts, maybe he doesn't have the upfront cash required to build houses? I wouldn't put too much importance on historic planning outcomes. Nowadays, councils and locals have very little say in decisions and as long the plans meet the legal framework. Don't forget, both major political parties have emphasised house building as a way to boost the economy and to help ease the pressure on social housing. For a case in point, Swindon Council rejected plans to build 900 houses near a place called Coate Water, which is a local water park and beauty point. There was a petition with over 50,000 signatures (including Ant and Dec!) and yet permission was granted by the Planning Inspectorate.

In the same way F1 "owes" karting or even the driving test? If the leagues cannot exploit the SGP, then they only have themselves to blame.

But you have to compare the number of people who bought full prices tickets for their children (there were quite a few kids in the £90 section I was sitting in) compared to the number of people who either didn't bring their kids or even didn't come at all because there were only limited concession tickets available. I would suggest the difference is negligible.

Does a 5 year old get charged less for an apple in Sainsburys than an adult? No. Therefore why would a seat in a stadium for a one off event cost any less if a 5 year old is sitting in it than an adult?

Does your five year old get a discount in Sainsbrys on the food he eats? Does Sainsburys offer a discount on the food it sells which are eaten by five year olds?

Can't argue with that. But on the flip side, people say Brits need more international test meetings (which are also just glorified challenge matches), whereas these we have meetings like this, the European Championships and the European Junior Championships where British riders could get real experience against their peers, but they're not allowed to enter.

The pairs formula is a bit odd, although it usually encourages close racing. I thought the coverage was fine. I wonder what people expect for free? Yes it was annoying that the first five heats were missed, but at the same time Eurosport have a policy, which is fair enough and they stuck to it. There were a few gap and it wasn't as slick as Sky/the GPs, but I thought Scott Nicholls was decent enough, although he needs to iron out the ers and ums. The other guy, Steve Day, did OK given he is not a speedway person. Frankly, I don't think speedway needs commentary in the traditional sense, as the action is easy enough to follow. I much prefer the "chatty" style of commentary that your get with other motorsport coverage.

I wonder if this is other symptom of cost cutting? Less money spend on materials and preparation lead to a poorer quality surface and in turn a knock-on effect on the racing.

Swindon did this and they even used to send out a weekly email newsletter. It stopped a couple of seasons ago.

If you look at the numbers, I think there are a lot of casual supporters floating around. For example, lets assume around 30,000 people attend speedway on a weekly basis (EL 10*1500, PL 12*1000, NL 8*500). At Cardiff the attendance was around 40,000, so 10,000 additional casual supporters. However, of the people I work with who regularly attend league racing, half didn't go to the GP, which suggests there are even more casual supporters who attend the Millennium, but not league meetings. Then look at TV audiences. League racing gets around 75k and GP 100k viewers. This suggests that three or four times as many people watch speedway on TV than regularly attend meetings. This is a massive potential audience of casual or armchair fans that league clubs could be targeting, if they could be bothered (which they can't).

At least next season we won't have to worry about Sky making clubs race on a Monday.

It's being sold as "Redevelopment potential" so the agent clearly thinks differently.

Hold on a minute. Haven't those people been heavily involved in the speedway over the last 20 years, precisely the time when speedway has been in decline?

OK. Three ideas for promoting speedway within a large company... Firstly, the simple. Get a friendly supporter to put up posters on the noticeboards and distribute leaflets into the common areas such as by drinks machines and comfy chairs. This requires supplying more materials by the club, but should cost less than a hundred quid. Two - a bit more involvement from the club. We have sports and social clubs ranging from the taking part such as football and tennis, up to wannabes, like the karting club that I am a member of. Sponsor a "speedway supporters club" by offering a staff discount and something for people to remember their first speedway meeting by, such as a pit walk or watching the last heat form the centre green. This idea is more reliant on employees organising and signing up members, but a few times a year there is a sports and social roadshow, so introducing at least a couple of hundred new fans to speedway should easily be possible. Third - which requires the most effort from the club. We have a number of local and national businesses which offer staff discounts. Every eight to ten weeks these companies do a roadshow where they come to our head office and promote their products. The club would have to have a TV screen with a DVD playing, maybe a bike and even a rider in attendance to get people's attentions, but again I am confident you could introduce a couple of hundred new people to speedway by this method.

But part of promotion is raising awareness among people who aren't aware of speedway. I work for one of Swindon's largest employers (around 3,000 people in our offices) but there is absolutely no mention of speedway on the noticeboards, sports and social clubs, news items or staff discount schemes.

Unfortunately, these old codgers are part of the problem, not the solution. I do wonder if the resistance to appoint anyone from outside of speedway is in case they suggest sweeping away all of the hangers-on.

I don't see why you'd need a "supremo" type figure, but I've always wondered why promoters don't employ a marketing company to re-brand, re-launch and promote British speedway as a whole. You could even share the "profits" with them to reduce the up-front costs and give them some incentive to succeed.

Fair comment, although I think "quaint" is a perfect description of modern league speedway. Maybe clubs should offer people real china to drink their flasks of tea out of?

"But there's something undeniably quaint, even old-fashioned, about speedway. And it's devoid of glamour, unlike the multi-million pound industry that is Formula One." I think these two sentences perfectly sum up modern speedway.

Well, Twitter is ablaze with rumour tonight.

I guess the BSPA earn money from sponsorship of TeamGB, so if top riders are missing and/or the team doesn't progress, then this reduces the value of that. BSI probably don't care either way, as GB are fifth or sixth on the rankings, so are unlikely to make the final. On the other hand, King's Lynn have presumably paid BSI for the right to host one of the qualification rounds, so Nicholls missing may reduce the crowd and therefore reduce KL's profit?