Thank you Sky for nothing

[BWitcher]

2 minutes ago, Tsunami said:

Why should it have to be a theory. 

I was trying to be polite. 

You're claiming that the riders.. and I quote.. usually the USA ones..decided they should be rewarded with massive contracts and signing on fees. Now as I've said.. there were only two USA riders of top quality by the time Sky came on board. Ermolenko wasn't at the level he once was.

So was it really 'usually' the USA ones? Of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that it wasn't long before Hancock left the British scene and Hamill began to tail off in his effectiveness. So who were the 'usually the USA ones' for the next 10 years and more of the Sky coverage?

 

[Tsunami]

1 minute ago, BWitcher said:

I was trying to be polite. 

You're claiming that the riders.. and I quote.. usually the USA ones..decided they should be rewarded with massive contracts and signing on fees. Now as I've said.. there were only two USA riders of top quality by the time Sky came on board. Ermolenko wasn't at the level he once was.

So was it really 'usually' the USA ones? Of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that it wasn't long before Hancock left the British scene and Hamill began to tail off in his effectiveness. So who were the 'usually the USA ones' for the next 10 years and more of the Sky coverage?

 

Once again missing the point and trying to imply something that wasn't true and not said. Read it again.

There was a trend introduced, with more cash in the pockets of the promotions, when leading riders decided the windfall should be used to pay them a lot more than before. Promotions, competing against each other, risked losing the top riders so acceded to their requests which then had a knock of affect. After the first year, that then became the norm for all riders.

[BWitcher]

1 minute ago, Tsunami said:

Once again missing the point and trying to imply something that wasn't true and not said. Read it again.

There was a trend introduced, with more cash in the pockets of the promotions, when leading riders decided the windfall should be used to pay them a lot more than before. Promotions, competing against each other, risked losing the top riders so acceded to their requests which then had a knock of affect. After the first year, that then became the norm for all riders.

I haven't implied anything that wasn't said. You quite clearly stated. USUALLY THE AMERICANS. I've asked you who these Americans were as I can only think of two, Hancock and Hamill.

[Tsunami]

2 minutes ago, BWitcher said:

I haven't implied anything that wasn't said. You quite clearly stated. USUALLY THE AMERICANS. I've asked you who these Americans were as I can only think of two, Hancock and Hamill.

 

17 minutes ago, BWitcher said:

You're claiming that the riders.. and I quote.. usually the USA ones..decided they should be rewarded with massive contracts and signing on fees. Now as I've said.. there were only two USA riders of top quality by the time Sky came on board. Ermolenko wasn't at the level he once was.

So was it really 'usually' the USA ones? Of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that it wasn't long before Hancock left the British scene and Hamill began to tail off in his effectiveness. So who were the 'usually the USA ones' for the next 10 years and more of the Sky coverage?

 

Who said there were USA riders involved after the initial years ? Move on, you are going nowhere.

[BWitcher]

5 minutes ago, Tsunami said:

 

Who said there were USA riders involved after the initial years ? Move on, you are going nowhere.

Don't need to go anywhere, you can't even answer a simple question.

"Utter bollocks. I have said regularly on here, and it has been confirmed, that the windfall of TV money instead of being used to grow the sport, was in fact used to compete against each other when the riders, usually USA ones, decided they they should be rewarded with massive contracts and sign ons, and the promotors were forced to compete against each other for their services. "

Your words. Sky were paying out for a long time, so again WHO were these USA riders that caused all the problems. It's a very simple question to answer.

As it happens, if you'd just put 'leading riders' I'd agree with you... I'm just interested why you felt the need to single out USA riders.

Edited July 12, 2018 by BWitcher

[IainB]

16 hours ago, marko said:

Some sports just do not come across as well on the TV as they do live, I think this is possibly Speedway's biggest problem.

I can't agree with that, watching Speedway live at Leicester is crap, it was less crap watching it on TV the other night... it was still crap though. The TV coverage adds value with the rest of the presentation, rider interviews, replays, (comedy) commentary etc. I have seen a lot of cracking meetings on TV over the years, normally SGP/SWC and play off semis and finals, when there is something at stake and something to ride for it's well worth watching, live or on TV... too often though, especially a league level there's very little at stake. For me Sky hyped a lot of their matches up more than BT do, who remembers the return of Darcy Ward match?  A lot of us probably do, but who can remember who the teams riding were, what the score was or who even won!! The point is sometimes you can make the best of a bad job especially when the product on offer more often than not in this country is plodding along through the season building up to 6 meetings at the end of the season

[waytogo28]

17 hours ago, BWitcher said:

As it happens, if you'd just put 'leading riders' I'd agree with you... I'm just interested why you felt the need to single out USA riders.

Definitely "leading riders" it should have been because I know for certain that Iversen received the largest share of Sky money at King's Lynn , while he rode there in the Sky years.

[moxey63]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

I can't agree with that, watching Speedway live at Leicester is crap, it was less crap watching it on TV the other night... it was still crap though. The TV coverage adds value with the rest of the presentation, rider interviews, replays, (comedy) commentary etc. I have seen a lot of cracking meetings on TV over the years, normally SGP/SWC and play off semis and finals, when there is something at stake and something to ride for it's well worth watching, live or on TV... too often though, especially a league level there's very little at stake. For me Sky hyped a lot of their matches up more than BT do, who remembers the return of Darcy Ward match?  A lot of us probably do, but who can remember who the teams riding were, what the score was or who even won!! The point is sometimes you can make the best of a bad job especially when the product on offer more often than not in this country is plodding along through the season building up to 6 meetings at the end of the season

After a few years, Sky's coverage got slightly repetitive. It was two and half hours for 15 minutes of speedway action - and then it quite often overran! I used to sit through it all, but now I ask how I however did, even standing for two hours at the track itself. There was and still is too much padding out for live matches on the television. Live speedway, and it's only my opinion, helped the sport for a few years, maybe introducing new fans, but I feel it also cost many who actually wanted to attend the stadium and instead save their money and remained at home.

Though the ardent fan would say he'd never miss a match at his track, It's an easy habit to get into. And with the Play-Offs as we have them now, the whole season is pointless apart from the last six weeks or so. It is like watching wrestling where you know the guy who's being smashed about is going to eat some spinach and then win out eventually.

From day one of the season, a match should be important. The Play-Offs allow a team so many sleepy days before anything matters. And, do you know what, I think fans have cottoned on. I mean, Where do they all appear from when Play-Off Final arrives - surely it's like the fans you see outside a stadium when it's raining, waiting until the last minute to part with their cash in case the match is rained-off and their money is tied up.

Unless there was a relegation system to go with it, a serious one and not where clubs can decide if they want to come up or go down, then Play-Offs have probably impacted on the whole seven months of the speedway season for the benefit of a couple of teams that make the Final.

Once finished, they leave you cold and empty, all the hype when really they are anti-climatic. The only one that sticks out is 2006 - Reading v Peterborough - and that's because of the dubious double point rule that cheated the Berkshire club.

[Tsunami]

3 hours ago, waytogo28 said:

Definitely "leading riders" it should have been because I know for certain that Iversen received the largest share of Sky money at King's Lynn , while he rode there in the Sky years.

Nils wasn't a leading rider in the UK when the SKY deal was signed. So how could he receive the largest share of Kings Lynn SKY monies ?

[waytogo28]

For the last five years of the Sky money, Niels was the No1 and paid well over the odds to be so. That is a fact. Indisputable. As were leading riders for the years before him at most tracks. That is how they were "held". That is how the bulk of the Sky monies was disposed of. Top league promoters felt they were competing with the rise of the sport in Poland and of the Big paydays & Big money and also in Sweden, where cash was splashed. For whatever reasons it did not work here. Perhaps they did not assemble a team with enough Big Names in them to replicate the crowd pulling power as it did abroad. Perhaps they did not invest enough of their own resources and thought that the TV money would be enough. Who knows? It will remain a secret taken to the grave of current and ex-promoters. Something like "omerta" does exist within speedway.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2018 by waytogo28

[R87]

I do wonder what was going through the BSPA's mind in 1999 when they agreed the deal with sky.  There should have been a clear and constructive plan when they did the deal to invest money into the structure of the sport, to make it more attractive for both regulars and the casual viewer, improve the presentation and build on the profile that having regular television coverage for the first time in years.  A priceless opportunity to grab.

Instead,  it seems like they just saw the pot of cash and thought, ''well people will see it on tv now and they'll be flocking to their local tracks in droves''.  There was no spade work done, no thought to doing work themselves.  They simply continued to think of their own businesses first - in short, just continue to make it up as they were going along.

To have 19 years of live television coverage AND a substantial cash influx and be worse off than it was before 1999 is a damming indictment on the BSPA and they way they have governed the sport.  

[Whisperer]

32 minutes ago, mb1990 said:

I do wonder what was going through the BSPA's mind in 1999 when they agreed the deal with sky.  There should have been a clear and constructive plan when they did the deal to invest money into the structure of the sport, to make it more attractive for both regulars and the casual viewer, improve the presentation and build on the profile that having regular television coverage for the first time in years.  A priceless opportunity to grab.

Instead,  it seems like they just saw the pot of cash and thought, ''well people will see it on tv now and they'll be flocking to their local tracks in droves''.  There was no spade work done, no thought to doing work themselves.  They simply continued to think of their own businesses first - in short, just continue to make it up as they were going along.

To have 19 years of live television coverage AND a substantial cash influx and be worse off than it was before 1999 is a damming indictment on the BSPA and they way they have governed the sport.  

To be fair the ambition was to make Speedway great again and increase crowds so much so that the BSPA wholly funded the first year on Sky. The second year was a shared contribution and year three was the first deal but please don't run away with the idea that it was all bunce. The historical costs of getting it on air had to be restored, TR had knocked on every TV companies door and Ole Olsen had followed him by coincidence (or not) with his GP proposition, no broadcast or production partner were prepared to take a risk on British Speedway! Through Terry the BSPA took the risk and funded it in the belief that it would establish a TV audience that would repay their investment and it did. Sky are not and never have been the problem, this sport parceled itself up for television not the other way round.

[IainB]

10 hours ago, mb1990 said:

I do wonder what was going through the BSPA's mind in 1999 when they agreed the deal with sky.  There should have been a clear and constructive plan when they did the deal to invest money into the structure of the sport, to make it more attractive for both regulars and the casual viewer, improve the presentation and build on the profile that having regular television coverage for the first time in years.  A priceless opportunity to grab.

Instead,  it seems like they just saw the pot of cash and thought, ''well people will see it on tv now and they'll be flocking to their local tracks in droves''.  There was no spade work done, no thought to doing work themselves.  They simply continued to think of their own businesses first - in short, just continue to make it up as they were going along.

To have 19 years of live television coverage AND a substantial cash influx and be worse off than it was before 1999 is a damming indictment on the BSPA and they way they have governed the sport.  

NO! I won't have this... they changed the white helmet colour to green! They did all they could 

[Tsunami]

On 7/13/2018 at 5:18 PM, waytogo28 said:

For the last five years of the Sky money, Niels was the No1 and paid well over the odds to be so. That is a fact. Indisputable. As were leading riders for the years before him at most tracks. That is how they were "held". That is how the bulk of the Sky monies was disposed of. Top league promoters felt they were competing with the rise of the sport in Poland and of the Big paydays & Big money and also in Sweden, where cash was splashed. For whatever reasons it did not work here. Perhaps they did not assemble a team with enough Big Names in them to replicate the crowd pulling power as it did abroad. Perhaps they did not invest enough of their own resources and thought that the TV money would be enough. Who knows? It will remain a secret taken to the grave of current and ex-promoters. Something like "omerta" does exist within speedway.

 

 

To bring you back to what was obviously being discussed. WE weren't talking about the 'last 5 years' of the SKY deal. The discussion was about the claims by 'leading riders' USA riders who decided they should up their demands with the promoters having 'new money' and some promoters acceded to their demands, and the rest followed.  

[Humphrey Appleby]

On 7/14/2018 at 6:35 AM, mb1990 said:

I do wonder what was going through the BSPA's mind in 1999 when they agreed the deal with sky.  There should have been a clear and constructive plan when they did the deal to invest money into the structure of the sport, to make it more attractive for both regulars and the casual viewer, improve the presentation and build on the profile that having regular television coverage for the first time in years.  A priceless opportunity to grab.

Instead,  it seems like they just saw the pot of cash and thought, ''well people will see it on tv now and they'll be flocking to their local tracks in droves''.  There was no spade work done, no thought to doing work themselves.  They simply continued to think of their own businesses first - in short, just continue to make it up as they were going along.

To have 19 years of live television coverage AND a substantial cash influx and be worse off than it was before 1999 is a damming indictment on the BSPA and they way they have governed the sport.  

I think in fairness, tracks were living hand to mouth even back in 2000, and the Sky money was merely keeping the wolf from the door. Of course, with some foresight it might have been an opportunity to control costs by buying out rider assets and having centrally contracted riders, or indeed funding development tracks to bring through new riders in place of often absentee journeymen.

But the paying public at the time, those that should be consulted according to another thread, were insisting on having the top riders who’d bring back all those missing fans (despite the fact there had been an ongoing decline even during the period when every top rider rode in the UK). And any attempt to make the sport more affordable was derided as watering down the product.

I think though, the bigger concern is how just about every other minor sport can get on television these days, whilst speedway got cut. And even if Sky had overpaid for football, cricket and F1, why were other broadcasters not jumping at the opportunity if it’s such a hot property?

[Odds On]

its quite simple, riders demand high fees, promoters cant afford them but need to be competitive, promoters then have a golden goose, goose lays the eggs, riders eat the eggs, goose dies, promoters fooked!!

[Pieman72]

Everything that Sky put's it's paws on goes wrong. Remember the launch of the World Champoinship Grand Prix and look what we've ended up with watching unknown riders from a forest clearing in Scandinavia. It's all down to money but speedway is a sport that relies on it's fans not  the 'armchair Joe's' flicking between the sticky tires and the proper stuff. I just wish the administrators could get it, no fans means no speedway....got it !!