Emil

[racers and royals]

What I heard about the Torun owner was that he is fed up with speedway, and going over to Football. Wonder if he is the same guy you refer to.

Roman Karkosik who is a very rich man-now not involved with the speedway any more I think.

[Tsunami]

Roman Karkosik who is a very rich man-now not involved with the speedway any more I think.

That'll be him r&r.

[Humphrey Appleby]

Not sure much of this is entirely correct. A work colleague's brother is a pro golfer on the tour, but doesn't make a particularly good living - it's surprisingly expensive to compete, what with all the travel etc.

Yes, but he makes some living and even if he's actually losing money on tournaments, can probably do a few golf lessons or whatever to subsidise it. There's plenty of young pros in the lower echelons of golf and tennis who'll effectively be subsidising their own participation in the hope of making it big, but they won't be doing it for more than a few years unless they have rich backers.

 

A golfer also only has to buy a decent set of clubs and throw them in the back of a car or the hold of a plane to get to a tournament. A speedway rider has substantial equipment costs and needs a van to get around, before even considering how to get somewhere like Australia. Participation in speedway could not be sustained on an amateur basis, at least not beyond riding occasional weekend meetings at local tracks.

 

Further, I can't imagine that many of the young Aussies that have come over here are "independently wealthy", but they seem to get buy even if not doing very well & they are "professional sportsmen", are they not?

Certainly not, but they're nearly all paid something to subsidise their racing. They are also not racing at World Championship level with the commitments and costs that entails.

 

Not sure your second paragraph holds much water either. I think it is unreasonable to call all professional sportsmen mercenaries. Perhaps some are & certainly many in football, for example, but I think to say almost all are, is way off the mark & you do them a huge dis-service in many, many cases.

I consider mercenary to be a descriptive rather than derogatory term, but okay, call them journeymen instead (although journeymen has connotations of mediocrity, whereas you can be a mercenary superstar). There are virtually no riders who're able to ride for the same team throughout their career (not least because of the points limit), and most will ride for umpteen teams. I therefore think it's very difficult to have any loyalty to any employer, and neither should they as they can be dumped at the drop of a hat if they're injured or lose form.

 

Moreover, no matter how much loyalty a competitor may profess to a particular team, if someone offers them more money to go somewhere else then 99% will take it if they can.

 

No, not everyone wants to be world champion, but then as you say, some go into sport & find they aren't good enough. The fact is, many sportsmen compete & lose money (speedway is a good example of that) & still take the risk. However, ask the likes of Leigh Adams, Chris Morton, Dennis Sigalos, John Louis, Tommy Knudsen, Jan Andersson, Scott Autrey etc, if they wanted to be world champion & I think we know what the answer would be. So, no, not every rider has the ambition to be world champion, but surely those that race in the kind of bracket that Emil does, harbour that ambition?

I doubt many riders actually thought too deeply about it, but under the old World Final system the profits from the staging would effectively have gone back to the sport that employed them. Furthermore, riding in the World Championship involved less commitment in terms of time and less potential loss of other paying meetings, whilst becoming World Champion probably leveraged a pay rise from their teams. So whilst riders undoubtedly competed in the World Championship for a pittance, it was at least a symbiotic relationship.

 

What we have now is a private corporation running a competition masquerading as a World Championship for its own benefit. It expects a substantial commitment in terms of time and expense, effectively expecting riders to subsidise the costs of running the series they're making profits from. No doubt they'll argue they provide a televised showcase for riders to leverage sponsorship from, but most people wouldn't go to work for someone on the basis of having to find third parties to pay their salaries whilst their employer reaps the benefit of their labour.

Good job you weren't a top Rugby Union player pre the 1990s

Top Rugby Union players were not true amateurs. If they weren't outright being paid boot money, decent jobs with benefits were arranged for them by their clubs.

 

In addition, I don't think the administrators of the sport were making much money in that era either. There was no World Cup and not even any proper leagues, with pretty much everything outside of the Five Nations being played on a 'friendly' basis.

 

And of course Union players also had the option to go to Roogby League.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Humphrey Appleby

[Ozrik]

But why should he be on better terms than anyone else? At the beginning of the year they all start on 0 & he shouldn't be given anything special to compete - what happens if he gets offered a better deal than say, Greg & then Greg wins the title & Emil flops? And he isn't an "asset" of the GP series, is he?

 

I'm not disputing the riders should get a better deal - but they ALL should, not just Emil. If he wanted to ride in the GP, he would, but clearly he isn't that bothered about being world champion, whilst Woffinden et al are.

Not sure much of this is entirely correct. A work colleague's brother is a pro golfer on the tour, but doesn't make a particularly good living - it's surprisingly expensive to compete, what with all the travel etc. Further, I can't imagine that many of the young Aussies that have come over here are "independently wealthy", but they seem to get buy even if not doing very well & they are "professional sportsmen", are they not? I have oft been lambasted for saying that riders risk injury in the name of entertaining us - which I stand by - but I also accept that they would race for nothing in a disused quarry watched by one man walking his dog. Riders race because they like it. Sportsmen compete because they like it. They don't all make a decent living.

 

Not sure your second paragraph holds much water either. I think it is unreasonable to call all professional sportsmen mercenaries. Perhaps some are & certainly many in football, for example, but I think to say almost all are, is way off the mark & you do them a huge dis-service in many, many cases.

 

No, not everyone wants to be world champion, but then as you say, some go into sport & find they aren't good enough. The fact is, many sportsmen compete & lose money (speedway is a good example of that) & still take the risk. However, ask the likes of Leigh Adams, Chris Morton, Dennis Sigalos, John Louis, Tommy Knudsen, Jan Andersson, Scott Autrey etc, if they wanted to be world champion & I think we know what the answer would be. So, no, not every rider has the ambition to be world champion, but surely those that race in the kind of bracket that Emil does, harbour that ambition?

Followers of speedway would like to see him in the GP. Without him, it's a bit like running Wimbledon without Novak Djokovic. One of the players with a good chance at winning, not competing.

 

Asset maybe the wrong word. My point is that if ability correlates with marketability then any organisation, promoter or sponsor, i'm sure would like to have him in their stable. In those terms, you can wonder if everything that could be done is being done.

 

And yes i think they all should get more. A post here says the prize money has not altered between 2012 and 2015. BSI have set the GP series up to represent the pinnacle of the sport, as the world title should be. FIM sanction that position. Now they should reward the riders who qualify or are selected accordingly. I don't know the details or arrangements, but to me it doesn't appear like that is the case at the moment. For example you dont see Valentino Rossi, or the rider starting 15 on the grid in Moto Gp having trouble competing all over the world.

 

I know there is no comparison, just trying to emphasise the point, i would like to see more of my ticket payment go to the riders.

Any rider with a genuine chance of winning should be in there, and i don't think anyone can doubt that Sayfutdinov has the abilty.

 

The series could make it so they can't resist competeing.

Why oh why do people STILL fail to understand what is going on here!

 

What nationality is Emil?

 

What is the event he is being used as a promotional tool for?

 

Track the money behind said company.

 

In that part of the world, quite simply, you do as you are told.

Why isn't the same restriction applied to Laguta (2) or Belousov, or Karpov, who doesn't know wether they expect him to be Russian or Ukrainian.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Ozrik

[BWitcher]

Ah yes, the lagutas.

 

You're right, no restriction there.. They're regulars in BSI events such as the gps and the World Cup!

[waiheke1]

Ah yes, the lagutas.

 

You're right, no restriction there.. They're regulars in BSI events such as the gps and the World Cup!

oh come on. Surely you're not indicating there was anything amiss with Grigorij's "breakdown" en route to the world cup.

It's simply the second most unfortunate case of engine trouble this year, behind Troy Batchelor's woes against the aces.

[f-s-p]

 

 

$3400 for the last place effectively.

 

$1000 is just for track reserves who likely live round the corner and wont ride anyway.

 

But yes I agree with you, pretty good money for a minority sport like speedway and certainly far in excess of the earnings pre GP.

 

Of course the FIM set and pay the prize money but it is nice to see you post positive things about the SGP for a change

The GP's require a special gp license on top of the normal FIM license so it's not nearly as good of a deal as I once thought for the non riding track reserves...

[Dave the Mic]

Followers of speedway would like to see him in the GP. Without him, it's a bit like running Wimbledon without Novak Djokovic. One of the players with a good chance at winning, not competing.

 

Asset maybe the wrong word. My point is that if ability correlates with marketability then any organisation, promoter or sponsor, i'm sure would like to have him in their stable. In those terms, you can wonder if everything that could be done is being done.

 

And yes i think they all should get more. A post here says the prize money has not altered between 2012 and 2015. BSI have set the GP series up to represent the pinnacle of the sport, as the world title should be. FIM sanction that position. Now they should reward the riders who qualify or are selected accordingly. I don't know the details or arrangements, but to me it doesn't appear like that is the case at the moment. For example you dont see Valentino Rossi, or the rider starting 15 on the grid in Moto Gp having trouble competing all over the world.

 

I know there is no comparison, just trying to emphasise the point, i would like to see more of my ticket payment go to the riders.

Any rider with a genuine chance of winning should be in there, and i don't think anyone can doubt that Sayfutdinov has the abilty.

 

The series could make it so they can't resist competeing.

Why isn't the same restriction applied to Laguta (2) or Belousov, or Karpov, who doesn't know wether they expect him to be Russian or Ukrainian.

I don't dispute that many speedway fans would like him in the series, but you are advocating making a special case for him & the reality is, he doesn't deserve that. If he wants to compete, he will, but he has turned down offers previously & won't do the qualifiers. Maybe that will change.

 

I don't at all dispute that the riders should get more of the cake on offer, but Sayfutdinov should get no more than anyone else & that is what you were initially advocating. He does have the ability - or appears to - but until he is prepared to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, his desire has to be questioned.

 

Your analogy of Djokovic isn't relevant - he has won any number of majors & will probably go on to win more than any other male player to date. Sayfutdinov has won to European titles & nothing else.

 

Your MotoGP example, as you rightly say, offers no comparison.

 

The bottom line is, Sayfutdinov rides in the GP for what is on offer - the same as all the other riders - or he doesn't. No special treatment.

Yes, but he makes some living and even if he's actually losing money on tournaments, can probably do a few golf lessons or whatever to subsidise it. There's plenty of young pros in the lower echelons of golf and tennis who'll effectively be subsidising their own participation in the hope of making it big, but they won't be doing it for more than a few years unless they have rich backers.

 

A golfer also only has to buy a decent set of clubs and throw them in the back of a car or the hold of a plane to get to a tournament. A speedway rider has substantial equipment costs and needs a van to get around, before even considering how to get somewhere like Australia. Participation in speedway could not be sustained on an amateur basis, at least not beyond riding occasional weekend meetings at local tracks.

 

What rot. The guy I know is in his 30's. And you know nothing if you think you just buy a set of clubs and "throw them in the back of a car". Practice, practice & more practice, rounds of golf, hours on the driving range & putting greens. Flights, hotels, caddys, coaches. Give lessons? Of course.

 

 

Certainly not, but they're nearly all paid something to subsidise their racing. They are also not racing at World Championship level with the commitments and costs that entails.

 

So? Ask someone like, say Aaron Summers how much it costs him to compete. The pint is they are still pro sportsmen, whatever their level.

I consider mercenary to be a descriptive rather than derogatory term, but okay, call them journeymen instead (although journeymen has connotations of mediocrity, whereas you can be a mercenary superstar). There are virtually no riders who're able to ride for the same team throughout their career (not least because of the points limit), and most will ride for umpteen teams. I therefore think it's very difficult to have any loyalty to any employer, and neither should they as they can be dumped at the drop of a hat if they're injured or lose form.

 

Moreover, no matter how much loyalty a competitor may profess to a particular team, if someone offers them more money to go somewhere else then 99% will take it if they can.

 

Look up the definition of mercenary. Just because riders chop & change teams doesn't make them mercenary. The reality is, every team is put together due to the restrictions of the points limit & that is why they end of, often, with more clubs than my golfer friend

I doubt many riders actually thought too deeply about it, but under the old World Final system the profits from the staging would effectively have gone back to the sport that employed them. Furthermore, riding in the World Championship involved less commitment in terms of time and less potential loss of other paying meetings, whilst becoming World Champion probably leveraged a pay rise from their teams. So whilst riders undoubtedly competed in the World Championship for a pittance, it was at least a symbiotic relationship.

Really? You think Tommy Knudsen wasn't thinking about winning the world title as he got dumped on his backside at Bradford? Honestly.

What we have now is a private corporation running a competition masquerading as a World Championship for its own benefit. It expects a substantial commitment in terms of time and expense, effectively expecting riders to subsidise the costs of running the series they're making profits from. No doubt they'll argue they provide a televised showcase for riders to leverage sponsorship from, but most people wouldn't go to work for someone on the basis of having to find third parties to pay their salaries whilst their employer reaps the benefit of their labour.

 

The series is the FIM sanctioned World Speedway Championship. It isn't masquerading as anything. It IS the world championship, regardless of who it is run by. Just as F1 is the world motor racing championship & the World Cup is the world football championship. All run by commercial organisations. It's 2015, everything is commercial. The truth is, no rider has to race in the GP's, just as Emil chooses not to & if they all said "No", they would have to rethink it, but they don't have to as the riders don't stand up for themselves.

 

 

[Ozrik]

I think you have that issue well covered

[Trees]

Do the FIM have much say in what BSI do with the Speedway World Championship? Or do they just rubber stamp each change as it comes up?

[PHILIPRISING]

THEY have a big say

[Trees]

So there is stuff that BSI want/wanted to do but are/were not allowed?

[PHILIPRISING]

So there is stuff that BSI want/wanted to do but are/were not allowed?

YES ...

[Humphrey Appleby]

THEY have a big say

Only thing I can really think the FIM insisted upon is having a few token qualifiers rather than allowing BSI to handpick all the riders. They overlook plenty of other things.

What rot. The guy I know is in his 30's. And you know nothing if you think you just buy a set of clubs and "throw them in the back of a car". Practice, practice & more practice, rounds of golf, hours on the driving range & putting greens. Flights, hotels, caddys, coaches. Give lessons? Of course.

The average jobbing pro-golfer still has nothing like the costs of an international speedway rider.

 

So? Ask someone like, say Aaron Summers how much it costs him to compete. The pint is they are still pro sportsmen, whatever their level.

Yes, but you were saying that riders would still ride for no money. If he's a pro-sportsman then he's being paid something, even if it doesn't cover all his costs.

 

My point though, is that amateur speedway riders would not be able to commit to riding somewhere like the Australian GP if there was no financial support.

 

Look up the definition of mercenary. Just because riders chop & change teams doesn't make them mercenary.

What are they then?

 

Just as F1 is the world motor racing championship & the World Cup is the world football championship. All run by commercial organisations.

They are not all run by commercial organisations. F1 is an exception, but most/all football competitions are run by the governing bodies of those sports.

[Ghostwalker]

Imo the whole meaning of being a pro is that it's a work and not a hobby.

 

A professional sportsman/woman is someone who have their sport as their work and that they earn enough to live from it.

[Dave the Mic]

 

The average jobbing pro-golfer still has nothing like the costs of an international speedway rider.

Not once did I say they did, but your comments were way off the mark. The guy I know has thus far earnt just under 100,000 euros this year & has to fund everything from that. Not exactly the life of riley & I suspect that an "international speedway rider" would do better than that.

Yes, but you were saying that riders would still ride for no money. If he's a pro-sportsman then he's being paid something, even if it doesn't cover all his costs.

Of course, but what I was saying is they don't all make a load of money. The point is, they don't all make a decent living from speedway & for some it costs them to compete.

My point though, is that amateur speedway riders would not be able to commit to riding somewhere like the Australian GP if there was no financial support.

 

Nor would they as they wouldn't be good enough, so the point isn't really relevant, is it?

What are they then?

 

In the main, forced to move on due to the points limit. If you are going to quote me, don't just quote the bit that justifies your flawed argument - use the entire quote in context.

 

 

They are not all run by commercial organisations. F1 is an exception, but most/all football competitions are run by the governing bodies of those sports.

 

So what is FIFA if not a commercial organisation? As I think we have seen, it does make a fair amount of money from football.

 

[Humphrey Appleby]

So what is FIFA if not a commercial organisation? As I think we have seen, it does make a fair amount of money from football.

FIFA is the sport's governing body, so whilst it runs the World Cup at a profit, those profits (in theory) directly benefit the game. Okay, its officials have been on the take for years, but it still subsidises the running of things like the Womens' and Youth World Cups.

 

BSI is a private owned company that effectively pays a flat rate to the FIM for 'rights' and keeps everything else as profit.

[Ozrik]

FIFA is the sport's governing body, so whilst it runs the World Cup at a profit, those profits (in theory) directly benefit the game. Okay, its officials have been on the take for years, but it still subsidises the running of things like the Womens' and Youth World Cups.

 

BSI is a private owned company that effectively pays a flat rate to the FIM for 'rights' and keeps everything else as profit.

Yes, and so BSI should pay the riders much more handsomely than they do.

 

Do the FIM support the national speedway bodies with annual financial payments?

[PHILIPRISING]

Yes, and so BSI should pay the riders much more handsomely than they do.

 

Do the FIM support the national speedway bodies with annual financial payments?

BSI don't pay the riders other than a one-off at the start of the season ... pay rates are set by and paid by the FIM

[f-s-p]

Yes, and so BSI should pay the riders much more handsomely than they do.

 

Do the FIM support the national speedway bodies with annual financial payments?

They do have a fund to help projects. From the past the U21 finals in Argentina and in the future the U21 team final in Mildura.