FIM signs extensive deal with Eurosport Events

[DutchGrasstrack 804]

From todays press release:

"The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Eurosport Events has agreed a long-term partnership which will see the Discovery-owned event management company promote FIM Speedway events including FIM Speedway Grand Prix, Speedway of Nations, Speedway U21 and Speedway Youth World Championships globally for the next 10 years. The new agreement will begin in 2022 and builds on the existing partnership between the organisations for the promotion of the FIM Endurance World Championship (EWC) since 2015.

In an expanded role following a competitive tender to select the new global promoter of the sport, Eurosport Events will leverage its long-standing motorsport promotion expertise and the international scale of Discovery to develop the sport and grow Speedway around the world.

The partnership will seek to expand Speedway GP’s international calendar, extend the distribution of the sport on TV and digital platforms, launch Speedway into new territories and increase its audiences around the world.

Eurosport Events will oversee the full operational and commercial aspects of the sport including multi-platform rights management and distribution, broadcast production, sponsorship rights strategy and the full suite of marketing, brand and promotional activity. It will also work with local organisers on local promotion and maximising ticketing, hospitality and fan engagement activities.

Following the signing of the contract, the FIM President Jorge Viegas expressed his satisfaction: "The FIM launched the tender process back in 2019 for the promotion of the FIM Speedway World Championships 2022-2031. Discovery and Eurosport Events has won the vote of the Board of Directors for its innovative proposal in terms of sport promotion and television coverage.

“The FIM is delighted to expand its collaboration with Discovery and Eurosport Events, who has been the promoter of the FIM Endurance World Championship since 2015. This new collaboration will provide increased media visibility of the FIM Speedway Grand Prix World Championship through Eurosport platforms and key third-party broadcasters. The FIM would like to thank BSI and OneSport who have made a significant contribution to the development of the Speedway over the past twenty years and to wish them every success in 2021 and for the remainder of this season,” Viegas said.

President, Eurosport and Global Sports Rights & Sports Marketing Solutions, Andrew Georgiou, said: “Eurosport Events has an outstanding record in building and strengthening the event portfolios of rights-holders, as well as a unique ability as part of the Discovery global network to grow a sport and its audience. We are privileged to deepen our relationship with FIM and have the opportunity to develop one of the most entertaining and exciting motorsports series in the world.

“Speedway already enjoys one of the most passionate and engaged fan communities in motorsport in a number of our key markets, so we can’t wait to deploy Eurosport Events’ promotional know-how and the global scale of Discovery’s channels and platforms to strengthen the sport even further and best serve existing and new fans around the world.” Georgiou said.

Head of Eurosport Events, François Ribeiro said: “We are delighted to grow our relationship with FIM and expand our motorcycle events portfolio in addition to FIM Endurance World Championship. Beyond our global media footprint which was an asset during tendering process, we proposed FIM a comprehensive pyramid approach from grass roots, junior world championships up to Speedway GP and Speedway of Nations top level. Speedway sporting foundations are strong. Speedway remains one of the only motorsport categories organised in stadiums, driven by fans. FIM gave us a global responsibility for the next 10 years, and we look forward to 2022." Ribeiro said.

Eurosport Events will take on the role with a proven track record in growing some of the most popular motorsports series in the world - including the FIA World Touring Car Cup, FIA European Rally Championship, new electric touring car series PURE ETCR, FIM Endurance World Championship and UCI Track Cycling – and organising events across four continents. As part of Discovery, the promoter will also have the ability to tap into the scale and depth of the group’s worldwide lifestyle platforms, channels and brands to raise the visibility and awareness of the sport to new audiences globally."

[arnieg 3,624]

6 minutes ago, DutchGrasstrack said:

From todays press release:

In an expanded role following a competitive tender to select the new global promoter of the sport, Eurosport Events will leverage its long-standing motorsport promotion expertise and the international scale of Discovery to develop the sport and grow Speedway around the world.

The partnership will seek to expand Speedway GP’s international calendar, extend the distribution of the sport on TV and digital platforms, launch Speedway into new territories and increase its audiences around the world."

 

Sounds remarkably similar to BSI's proud boasts about 20 years ago.

[fatface 2,549]

6 hours ago, arnieg said:

Sounds remarkably similar to BSI's proud boasts about 20 years ago.

Yes. But to be fair to BSI they have taken the Speedway GP series forward. I don't think any fair-minded person would question that. Cardiff, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Sydney, Stockholm and the like have been a big step forward from the model they inherited of Coventry, Landshut and Linkoping.etc. It's not all been a gold-plated success, granted. But the ambition and vision have put the World Championship in a better place than it was 20 years ago. That said, it has stalled in recent years - I never got any sense that IMG treated BSI anything other than a tennant in their offices - and the time is right for someone with a truly international reach to have a crack.  

[Jonny the spud 2,281]

 All levels from “Grass roots” eh?

 

I look forward to well known sponsors putting together a financial package to help British riders compete with the high spending foreign riders / teams / leagues. 
 

 

 

I won’t hold my breath. 

[PHILIPRISING 7,298]

1 hour ago, falcace said:

Yes. But to be fair to BSI they have taken the Speedway GP series forward. I don't think any fair-minded person would question that. Cardiff, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Sydney, Stockholm and the like have been a big step forward from the model they inherited of Coventry, Landshut and Linkoping.etc. It's not all been a gold-plated success, granted. But the ambition and vision have put the World Championship in a better place than it was 20 years ago. That said, it has stalled in recent years - I never got any sense that IMG treated BSI anything other than a tennant in their offices - and the time is right for someone with a truly international reach to have a crack.  

ONE of the problems they will inherit is trying to get a crowd, a venue and a track at a SGP in a non-speedway country. That was a fence at which BSI's expansion aspirations often came tumbling down. 

[Humphrey Appleby 13,941]

2 hours ago, falcace said:

Yes. But to be fair to BSI they have taken the Speedway GP series forward. I don't think any fair-minded person would question that. Cardiff, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Sydney, Stockholm and the like have been a big step forward from the model they inherited of Coventry, Landshut and Linkoping.etc. It's not all been a gold-plated success, granted. But the ambition and vision have put the World Championship in a better place than it was 20 years ago. That said, it has stalled in recent years - I never got any sense that IMG treated BSI anything other than a tennant in their offices - and the time is right for someone with a truly international reach to have a crack.  

I'd question it.

I'm not suggesting that keeping the old World Final format was the way forward, but the latter World Finals that were held in decent stadia had pretty decent audiences compared with most GPs today. After about 1993 though, these events all seemed to be held in small and often remote venues with few other attractions, and the results were there to see. But I'd have thought even Coventry managed to pull crowds that some GPs would be happy to have today, and of course the Millennium Stadium (or the other indoor venues) wasn't built yet with its stakeholders needing to fill an expensive loss-making venue. 

BSI - unlike the BSPA and other speedway promoters - did understand how to leverage money out of local municipalities and tourist boards, and how to court the relatively new cable/satellite channels desperate for cheap content. And I suppose at one point their founder did harbour ambitions to be a sort of Bernie Ecclestone, taking the SGP to better venues and new markets around the world.

But when it came to the crunch, there were really only a couple of prestige venues in any given year, with the rest of the series filled with the sort of tracks like Landshut and Linkoping plus the obligatory Polish ones just as in the old days. Other than the Millennium Stadium and perhaps Prague, few other venues proved sustainable in the long-term and the SGP never ended up going to 'new markets' except for the handful of GPs in Australia and NZ, and that was really only because some other mugs were found to throw away their money. Plus there were numerous fiascos with GPs being called off, moved at a day's notice to another venue, and indoor meetings being abandoned with fans in the stadium. 

In the end, IMG/BSI seemed to either realise the SGP wasn't really going anywhere or just lost interest, and seemed to settle on running the competition as cheaply as they could get away with. Although ironically, going to proper speedway tracks seemed to improve things in some respects. 

I'll say in fairness that I think speedway is a hard sell, with expensive set-up costs, vulnerability to the vagaries of the weather (seemingly even indoors ), the sport having no sort of high profile anywhere other than Poland (and even that's debatable), an unattractive spectator demographic which is somewhat reflected by the rather thin list of sponsors, and virtually no wealthy patrons or those that can open doors to sources of funding. But a change of promoter is long overdue and the rights should have been re-tendered years ago.

It will be interesting to see what Discovery/Eurosport can do with speedway, although they did make Ski Jumping cult viewing so who knows?

Edited October 1, 2020 by Humphrey Appleby

[Humphrey Appleby 13,941]

12 minutes ago, PHILIPRISING said:

ONE of the problems they will inherit is trying to get a crowd, a venue and a track at a SGP in a non-speedway country. That was a fence at which BSI's expansion aspirations often came tumbling down. 

Where did the SGP actually go that was a 'non-speedway' country?

I can't think of a single GP that was held in a country that didn't have at least one speedway track that holds meetings every year. Yes, speedway might not have a massive presence in the likes of Italy, Finland and Croatia, but speedway is a minority sport in every country where it's ridden (including Poland).

A 'non-speedway' country would be somewhere like the UAE and Malaysia that the Spar occasionally speculated about on slow news days. 

And let's not forget that GPs were held in these alleged non-speedway countries because they were either cheap to stage or because there was some promoter there willing to fork over a staging fee. You'd hope that in return they'd get access to the promotional, marketing, organisational and technical skills of BSI, plus the Rolodex of potential sponsors, yet it seems local promoters were largely left to their own devices which is why stuff like no signage or insufficient beer happened. 

Tampere was a disaster because the stadium was totally unsuitable for a track and the racing was a poor spectacle. That should have been pointed out at the start by people who you'd thought would know something about building a track. 

Riga was a comical joke - the stadium was clearly in no fit state to stage a GP, and it seems there was no supervision over the preceding months to check how things were progressing.

Speedway is a hard sell at the best of times, but fiascos like the two GPs mentioned above will certainly not endear you to existing fans let alone win over new ones. 

[PHILIPRISING 7,298]

1 minute ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

Where did the SGP actually go that was a 'non-speedway' country?

 

IT didn't and that was the point I was making. It is a big sell to those who have no idea what speedway is and without local participation. And, of course, speedway tracks will have to be constructed  all of which makes some of Eurosport Events promises to the FIM inherent in their contract tough to accomplish. I know from first hand knowledge how much work goes on behind the scenes to actually stage a SGP and it will be interesting to see how EE go about that. 

They paid the big (very big actually) bucks essentially for TV content (a bit like Eccelstone in the early days of his reign in charge of F1) but there is such more to it than that and the more SGPs (as promised) will require riders to think about their options unless they are paid the sort of money available in the Polish leagues.

[moomin man 76 171]

 

1 hour ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

Tampere was a disaster because the stadium was totally unsuitable for a track and the racing was a poor spectacle. That should have been pointed out at the start by people who you'd thought would know something about building a track. 

The stadium and city were right for a speedway GP in Finland, with an 18,000 capacity stadium in a city where speedway was until the late 1980s a prominent sport with an inner city track. The municipality were also keen on the event.

Unfortunately the first meeting from a racing point of view was a disaster on a track with long narrow straits. That pretty much killed interest in the second GP there and another venue bit the dust...

[fatface 2,549]

2 hours ago, PHILIPRISING said:

IT didn't and that was the point I was making. It is a big sell to those who have no idea what speedway is and without local participation. And, of course, speedway tracks will have to be constructed  all of which makes some of Eurosport Events promises to the FIM inherent in their contract tough to accomplish. I know from first hand knowledge how much work goes on behind the scenes to actually stage a SGP and it will be interesting to see how EE go about that. 

They paid the big (very big actually) bucks essentially for TV content (a bit like Eccelstone in the early days of his reign in charge of F1) but there is such more to it than that and the more SGPs (as promised) will require riders to think about their options unless they are paid the sort of money available in the Polish leagues.

It will be interesting to see what transpires. I admire BSI's ambition with some of the more prestigious stadia, not always successfully. And it's perfectly understandable why they settled upon a strategy of "safe bets" in the core markets in Poland, Denmark, Sweden and the UK. Despite some of the above critiques, the SGP is well ahead of where it was in the late 90s, so BSI deserve credit for that. 

Having worked in sport, I understand a lot of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes and - more often than not - the bright ideas that come from outside have been investigated and are not viable. That said, I can't resist tossing my tuppence in! 

To expand they are going to have to take it into markets where there are deep pockets and no financial reliance upon gate receipts or take it to new, but lower risk markets close to their core markets.

For the former, I am talking about places like Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Qatar where they happily pay through the nose to host F1, MotoGP, ATP Tennis, European Tour Golf. I spent a little time in Qatar and witnessed the odd spectacle of guys like Valentino Rossi, Andy Murray and Ernie Els performing in front of paltry crowds. Thing is, these series are global brands and get those countries "on the map" and good PR for what are effectively dictator regimes. Speedway cannot do this, it doesn't have the reach.

The latter might involve getting the SGP into places like Spain, Ireland, Netherlands using stadiums that are quality, oval and (relatively) convertable. And all within an EasyJet/Ryan Air Flight from the UK, Sweden, Poland and Denmark. Admittedly, it would be a difficult sell to the locals. But what European speedway fans wouldn't fancy a weekend in Dublin, Majorca or Amsterdam? So there might also be interest from hosting tourist boards/local Govt for a Speedway GP too? Of course, this only works in a back to normal post-COVID context.

One I can't understand is talk of Argentina. It's a tiny market for speedway and miles away from the majority of speedway fans. It all smacks of "a bloke Armando knows". I wish EE well, but it'll be no easy sell, that's for sure. 

Edited October 1, 2020 by falcace

[davidncohen 18]

A significant part of Jeff Scott's "Hitchhikers Guide to the SGP" is all about the impact that BSI has had on the sport during their tenure, from the highest level(s), right down to the personal. It's quite nuanced, goes into plenty of detail, and leaves the reader in no doubts about where the blame for the current state of speedway might lie. It also touches on the impact all of this has had on the domestic UK scene.

And, certainly, the same agreement above, was the basis for the initial BSI tenure - new markets, global reach etc. etc. etc. so nothing really new there.

It is really hard to imagine exactly where / how Eurosport can make a difference. The SGP universe exists in a kind of 'bubble' on it's own, so I can quite easily see it continuing as is, and maybe consolidation is the best we can hope for.

Of course, the post-Covid-19 world will have an impact, as it will for many sports. As an example, an almost sacrosanct view was that football without fans is _nothing_, and that has been turned on it's head.

[Humphrey Appleby 13,941]

7 hours ago, falcace said:

The latter might involve getting the SGP into places like Spain, Ireland, Netherlands using stadiums that are quality, oval and (relatively) convertable. And all within an EasyJet/Ryan Air Flight from the UK, Sweden, Poland and Denmark. Admittedly, it would be a difficult sell to the locals. But what European speedway fans wouldn't fancy a weekend in Dublin, Majorca or Amsterdam? So there might also be interest from hosting tourist boards/local Govt for a Speedway GP too? Of course, this only works in a back to normal post-COVID context.

I really don't see the point in speedway trying to go to 'other markets' when it's pretty much at death's door in its core markets. Maybe if a local promoter was prepared to pay substantial amounts to stage a GP, but that's really not going to happen with a sport that has virtually no public profile anywhere in the world. Local despots are only going to be interested in things with high profiles where they can be seen patronising, and I'm afraid no sheikh is ever going to get their robes dusty at a speedway track. 

And to what end? It's highly unlikely that a GP would spawn a thriving speedway scene in somewhere like Ireland or the UAE, and I think speedway has already been tried in places like Spain and Portugal with no success. 

Maybe somewhere like Amsterdam (or more likely Arnhem) would be worth a punt as there's at least some speedway in the country already, plus it's close enough to bigger speedway markets to pull some fans from there. But really the sport needs to be focusing on making the experience better in the countries where it still has some support. 

As for Argentina, I suspect a lot of GP staging is based around 'a bloke someone knows'... 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Humphrey Appleby

[Humphrey Appleby 13,941]

7 hours ago, moomin man 76 said:

 

The stadium and city were right for a speedway GP in Finland, with an 18,000 capacity stadium in a city where speedway was until the late 1980s a prominent sport with an inner city track. The municipality were also keen on the event.

I'd agree that on paper it looked ideal, and Finland deserved a GP more than many countries that staged them. But yet again poorly executed - an inspection of the stadium by someone who understood something about the technicalities should have quickly revealed the difficulties of putting in a decent track. At that point you make it a condition the track has to go over the football pitch (which was non-existent at that point anyway), some solution needs to be found for the drains, or whatever the excuse ended-up being for putting in a rubbish track. If not, then you politely say thanks but no thanks.

I ran a motor racing series for 15 years and even though it was amateur low-level stuff, I'd still always personally go and inspect a track that I'd not raced at before, or recently. As the series grew we increasingly got offers from circuits which was nice, but sometimes you had to turn them down because of inadequate facilities or geographical location. 

[iainb 4,962]

I think if Eurosport want to break into untapped markets they maybe should have gone for a longer deal, 20 years because as things currently stand it's highly unlikely they're going to successfully break into a market that requires a crowd to make it pay. Under a 20 year plan they could have been offering "Speedway Scholarships" to promising motorbike riders from countries like Spain, Japan, Brazil, Argentina etc. to fund a riders development to a certain level in the European leagues to get to a standard where they could be included and promoted in their local country.

[Grand Central 2,654]

As far as I can see the FIM have pulled a blinder.

They have sold the SGP for massive bucks to a second company/group that hasn't got the faintest idea about Speedway and it's limitations ... Just like they did with BSI twenty years ago. 

And they have done so on the same bogus premise of the bizarre idea that there is vast untapped market .... . All those countries who haven't shown a ounce of interest in the sport in almost 100 years of its existence are all going to be won over THIS TIME . Bonkers

The truth is that they have not shown any interest in Speedway because ... THEY REALY ARE NOT INTERESTED. It is that simple.

The FIM have actually sold the SGP at a massively inflated price, not based on what it actually IS but on a fictional 'what it might be' in a parallel universe. For the second time.

Mr Viegas saw a bunch of mugs coming in and sold them a chocolate teapot for a King's ransom.

Brilliant work that man.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Grand Central