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Trees- I think you may have made the correct decision as seeing all the flooded fields around Leicestershire this morning with more rain due today and a poor forecast for Monday I think an early decision may be made to prevent riders flying in

Only thing I am not sure about is the averages when will they change for the first time ? I am glad others support my view that a temporary replacement is the best option as going to struggle to cover the meetings

Leicester can have a replacement if they wish but has to be for a minimum of 28days. The problem is the promotion are being naive and thinking Bates will be fit in mid April yet the guy I saw at Sheffield on Sunday can hardly walk and couldn’t bend down to get into a car looking to be In agony

I think the match against Somerset demonstrated how RR is not going to work for the Lions to cover Josh Bates injury break. At home to get 3 points from these rides is not enough When you have to cover with the reserves this to me is too much of a risk and a change needs to be made to make the team at full strength

I heard last night that part of the prize for winning rider of the night was a VIP experience for the rider of the night if wished.

Plan B then at Leicester with the average changes as original planned replacement now has too high average.

Coventry press and practice was last Saturday and the track at Paul Chapman arena is looking good I am told so Leicester P&P should go ahead, just remember that a number of riders are riding at Simon Stead’s farewell meeting At Sheffield on Sunday so may limit their practice at Leicester

I would not read too much into that tweet as you have to remember that Lasse lives in Leicester as his U.K. base but agree would be the best option

So with the season start less than 2 weeks away and Josh Bates out until at least the end of April with a target of the British Semi final I hear. That means 10 meetings being missed which in my view is far too many to be covered by RR including very important KO cup meetings and with the new race night the club need to win some meetings to keep supporters coming. Who would Lions fans like to come in to replace Josh ? To me the best options seems to be Lasse,Klindt or Starke

Monday 9th April I was told as a starting date but did hear that many clubs wanted to run a couple of meetings at home before doing a tv meeting so that date may be a week or two later

I am going back to my colleagues at BT to try and find out why the deal has not been announced as I was originally told it was tied in to a BT announcement that they had secured the rights to Moto GP long term and that they were running an advertising campaign about the home of motorbike racing with Moto GP,UK Speedway and GP Speedway This announcement has now taken place and the ad campaign is in full swing but no mention of the Speedway

Grand Central- I would like to see what caterers you can find to come to site with Kitchen and canteen truck to seat upto 30 people to offer choice of two hot meals and a dessert then offer a choice of cobs/Sandwiches for later on. Need to be on site from 12:30- 18:30 This company have to be prepared to travel U.K. wide if you can find somebody let me know as have lots of work to throw their way.

The Return- On Sky Speedway OBs there could often be in excess of 30 staff on site all the staff always got a hot meal and pudding & tea/Coffee then often a sandwiches depending on location. You have to remember the catering company have got the costs of bringing their kitchen and canteen trucks as well as food costs. This is something that BT have done away as well as staffing and camera numbers.

Every Sky Speedway meeting cost over 35k a meeting and that does not include Sky staffing costs in Osterley or the actual airtime and satellite uplink capacity which Sky have long term lease via BT media & Broadcast. Obviously I am unable to go into every cost but can give you a few examples over £1000 a meeting for catering,£2500 for power,£1100 for scaffolding, £200+ for security, Temporary Internet circuits £1400 Most experienced cameraman on excess of £500 a day plus travel. BT did a very good job in 2017 in cutting the OB and production costs but in my opinion that did show on screen with less cameras and older OB equipment. Some of the savings were Made like on catering, security and less staffing, cranes In 2018 I I understand that the production budget has been increased so there will be some on screen benefits which is good. i read with great interest in the thoughts and comments about a highlight package and magazine style programme in the week. This very nearly happened in 2014 on Sky sports in addition to the live coverage it was all costed out but the BSPA were not happy about this and it never got off the ground as some clubs feared it would affect attendances and some put pressure on local video companies to not provide footage for this and also into live productions. It still shocks me that Speedway is not able to attract a TV programme sponsor as there are a number of high profile companies involved now with clubs but did hear that at one point that Go Speed were asking for unrealistic prices whether they would take less now who knows. Even if they only got 25k for these rights better than nothing

From what I have been Martin is taking the U.K. racing very seriously and will be coming over to do extensive practicing at Leicester with his engine tuner not just sorting his U.K. equipment but also his GP bikes. With this level of professionalism I am sure barring injury he will the U.K. sorted

No need to worry the league racing is happening in 2018 had this confirmed again today by a former colleague now at BT. He understands the delay in announcement is due to the forthcoming confirmation of whom has won the PL Football rights 2019 onwards. If BT are unsuccessful in getting what they want they will likely run an ad campaign about what other sport they still have on the channels inc Speedway.

The British Basketball on FreeSports is a paid for broadcast with the league and sponsors paying to get the sport on TV. Basketball is very fortunate that the owners of Sheffield based OB company Televideo are huge basketball and Netball fans so do offer their services at a very low rate. So much so to help get the SuperLeague of Netball going and live on Sky sports they waived all the fuel costs for the broadcasts and covered a lot of their riggers wages. I really do not think Speedway fans have much to worry about it’s hust a case of timing the announcement correctly and I’m sure there will be some noticeable improvements with coverage too. One thing that always surprises me is that Speedway cannot get a league sponsor and that sponsor involved in Speedway already doesn’t take up the TV coverage sponsorship rights

Sky are fully aware of a loss to sport subscriber numbers and action is being taken to try and combat this. Over the next couple of years there will be quite a few big changes in UK sport broadcasters to try to keep out foreign competition e.g Netflix,Amazon,BEIN sports and Canal + It is has already been announced that from late 2018-19 Sky sports and BT will wholesale each other’s channels to subscribers. Getting back more on topic with I am hearing a higher production budget that coverage can be improved with more camera angles and production staff to improve the output. Dont get me wrong Steve and the team did amazing job last year on such a small budget but it did show at times. It’s interesting that it has been mentioned on here that we may get same amount of meetings but over a longer period that will entail some quite big gaps with no tv meetings which armchair fans will not appreciate

I have heard the same as Phillip Rising that BT will be covering The Premiership Live in 2018. Last I heard was that tenders for OB work had been done so not sure what the hold up is

From what I got told this evening is a further complication that is Nicholls has offered to ride just in the Championship for Peterborough but the BSPA have said the rule still stands which then does open up avenues with employment law and discriminatory rules preventing employment in the U.K.

One clear confirmation of the continued BT deal is clubs have the BT sport logo on race suits and team wear. For example when Poole posted picture of Sundstrum wearing a 2018 Pirates replica race shirt which is big BT Logo on it and having seen the Leicester ones again featuring BT sport. its just a case of they go public with the deal I have a feeling it will be around start of February

I have a feeling Martin Vaculik will be in this meeting as it’s planned to be Leicester press and practice the day before so will be in the country

What Garry Stead ?

So who would the fans like to be the new Lions manager ? Jim was a lovely bloke but did struggle at times wth seeing the programme and consequently made a few tactical errors.

Skidder1 Kim Nillson has decided that he will not be riding in the UK at the start of the season as now has a regular place in Poland and wants to try progress his career on the continent. I would not be surprised to see him back in the UK later in the year though