Humphrey Appleby

If they have permanent tracks then their overheads will be substantial lower so it'll be easier to take the financial hit on any postponement/cancellation. Whether it's staged by a third party promoter will also have a bearing as they'll take the hit.

Since when has Cardiff supported a league team? I suspect a London GP would get the crowds, possibly more than Cardiff (although wouldn't be difficult if only 19,000 turned up this year), but the staging costs and lack of subsidy from the Welsh authorities (although Visit Wales no longer seems to be listed as a sponsor) probably wouldn't justify it. The Olympic Stadium is probably the only realistic option and that doesn't have a roof, so you're running the gauntlet of high staging costs with the possibility of cancellation. If you're having to spend a fortune to adapt a venue and build a track, then you need the certainty that the event is actually going to happen.

The obvious issue is that F1 and MotoGP are held on tarmac circuits that don't require much preparation, don't change much from race-to-race and are also largely driveable/rideable when it rains. With the best will in the world, a speedway track takes much more preparation and can only take so much pounding before it needs significant reconstitution work. I daresay different events could be held on different days, or even with enough time in-between, but it all adds to the costs and is it really going to pull significantly more fans to justify this?

I thought we heard in the past that the shale was being stored in scientific pyramid shapes. I thought lessons would have already been learned by now, considering it's pretty the same promoter.

Probably down to the cost.

Erm... Jim'll Fix It, Val Doonican, Little and Large and I'm sure many other terrible shows...

Probably not, but as others have pointed out it may be the only way to prove stadium capacity has not been exceeded. In the old days, sports venues had turnstiles with counters, but I don't think they've been used at Oxford for years.

Sadly - and whilst I don't wish to impune anyone - you still have to supervise volunteers when it comes to cash. A combination of laxity - if it's not your money - temptation, and letting in your mates for nothing, means any promoter should be maintaining a high degree of supervision over the cash take.

As I said, it's harder to argue if there's cash involved elsewhere, but the difference between checking QR codes and taking cash is somewhat different. With pre-paid tickets the money has already been taken, so it's just a matter of ensuring someone has paid so the level of trust and supervision can be lower. The last couple of 'large' events that I did were probably in the order of couple of thousand people each. I personally spent the entire day trying to find a bank that could provide $5k in $5 and $10 bills as a float (this wasn't the UK), supervising the cash collection at the gates, counting the cash to ensure it matched the entries, and then guarding the cash until the end of the event. That basically meant I couldn't do anything else, so effectively added one person to the payroll. With bigger events and more entrances, you'd need more people involved in the cash supervision. The problem with one entrance is that everyone tends to turn up at once and with bigger crowds causes confusion and creates congestion which is critical at the start of the event. It's not insurmountable if you have the resources, but you have to balance the number of volunteers you have or the wages you'll have to pay against what you think you might lose if you don't take cash. For the rugby events only about 10-15% of people paid cash anyway (and that was 3 years ago), whereas for the motorsport events it had already dwindled to 1-2% before we insisted on online payments only. [In practice, if someone turns up on the day and offers cash then I do accept it, but I just don't advertise it.]

I count precisely three people complaining about it on here, including one who probably isn't likely to go regularly. I'm nothing to do with the Oxford promotion and certainly don't know why they'd have a no-cash policy on the gate but not in the stadium. I could suppose though, that in-stadium sales are easier to manage as they'd go through a till and are more easy to reconcile. Back to the point though, I have organised events, including sports events, and not having to handle cash greatly simplifies administration and allows you do things with fewer staff. And in a sport with fine margins that can be the difference between running and not running. You might be losing out on a handful of customers as a result, but the extra money you might gain probably won't cover the wages of the extra person(s) you need to supervise, guard, reconcile and then bank the cash. Been there, done that, and it's wasted effort when online payment options are available. I appreciate it may seem like an inflexible policy, but just to give an promoter perspective...

Very simply because paying cash is potentially open to fraud from employees, can get otherwise get lost/stolen (which itself means you need to assign someone to look after it), and then needs to be physically taken to a bank assuming you can actually find one that's still open these days. In short, it's a pain to deal with now most people (including my 91-year-old Aunt) have a smartphone and are well used to paying for stuff online.

The 1970s was full of game shows that I seem to remember being denounced as dumbing down television. And of course most of the time you were looking at that girl with the creepy clown on the test card anyway...

I think that gives you the answer as to why speedway was once (relatively) successful. I do think speedway is quite difficult to market for a number reasons, not least because it's just sunk so low in so many ways. Incoherent and at times farcical organisation, poor facilities that potential spectators and sponsors wouldn't want to go anywhere near, an almost non-existent wider public presence, and a rapidly ageing fan base. There's no money to try to improve facilities, little collateral to borrow money against, and very much a hand-to-mouth existence that makes any sort of longer plan difficult to implement. But I think the sport does need to consider what price point it can realistically pitch itself at, work out what it can afford to pay, work out what riders are prepared to ride for what it can pay, and then base its structure on that. And that also means riding when people want to want, putting itself out on social media, have paid streaming for all teams and meetings (not just half of them). There should basically be a two-tier structure - one regular league where costs are pitched to ensure there are always 12-16 teams, and a more flexible developmental league for everyone else. A 6-team top league is a joke, just screams that sport can't get its sums rights, and no serious sponsor is going to want to get involved. I also think you need to consider central contracts to control rider costs, try to ensure the same 6 or 7 riders ride in each meeting (barring injuries), and offer longer meetings with some sort of meaningful 'gimmick' competition after the main match to try out different concepts. Quite simply, maybe 4 riders going round in circles all the time is boring and it needs 8 or even 12 riders in some sort of F1-type configuration. It might be unpalatable to some existing fans, but they won't be around forever...

Yes, I don't doubt you're largely correct. But if you're doing your best and it's still not good enough or in fact you're making things worse, maybe it's time to throw in the towel. There's really nothing worse than well meaning people who think they're holding things together, when in fact they're actually discouraging better people from getting involved.

Yes, but why is F1 a worldwide phenomena and speedway isn't? F1 isn't actually very spectator friendly, taking place in fairly remote places with poor viewing, whereas with speedway you can see all the action. But it was clever enough to make sure it was one of the first regularly televised sports. Cricket for some reason, has always attracted high rollers (originally because of gambling) although it's always had participation across the social classes. If you look at the sponsors and adverts during cricket, they tend towards investment and trading companies rather than used car dealers or panel beaters, and that tells you everything about who's following the sport. Moreover, its following knows how to leverage the media, sponsors, financing and government support for the sport, which is why we still have 18 first class cricket clubs despite most of them living a quite marginal existence. At a test match, look at all the politicians, celebrities and captains of industry who turn up, none of whom would be seen dead at speedway. Rugby Union largely has a similar sort of following - maybe less so in Wales - but again look at the type of sponsors that it attracts. Rugby League probably has many parallels with speedway. Historically a bit hand-to-mouth, but arguably rooted deeper in its core communities than speedway, so there was more willingness from local media and businesses to rally round during tough times. It was also clever enough to get on television early, which is perhaps what attracted Murdoch to 'buy' the sport and raise it out of the dark ages. Having said that, I still don't think it's really ever made the expected inroads that you'd have expected from the massive investment, remaining a largely regional sport in both Britain and Australia. Ice Hockey - again many parallels to speedway and arguably sharing a similar fan base historically. Also had it's ups-and-down and massive instability over the years, before seemingly finding its current moderately successful format. Again, it's probably survived because ice hockey is a major sport in a few other countries and it can benefit from that, although you'd have to say British ice hockey is still not very high profile or featured prominently in the mainstream media, and that's again reflected in the type of sponsors it has. Football is just the great God that's followed pretty much by everyone to some extent. Easy to play, easy to watch, a whole soap opera around it, and plenty of rich fools willing to throw around their money to demonstrate their munificence... Mainstream television has always been quite banal. You're just getting old and only remembering the good stuff from yesteryear...

Neither Hackney nor Wimbledon were knocked down for shopping centres or housing, and were replaced by other sports facilities. Well okay Hackney ended up being the Olympic media centre as far as I'm aware, but it could potentially have been relocated within the complex if the right representations had been made.

Oxford speedway, in many respects, has always been Oxford's sports team and is situated right at the heart of its core demographic within the city. Oxford United - even though it's had its successes (and many failures) is always going to be a lower league team, whereas the Cheetahs have featured world-class riders and been amongst the best teams in the world in the past.

In truth it was always a fairly marginal sport with few or no wealthy benefactors, and to a certain extent has fallen victim to land pressures and environmental concerns that have forced it from prime locations. But Hackney in particular was basically situated within what became the London Olympic park and the sport apparently did nothing to ensure it was included amongst the other minority sports that had facilities built for them. That sums up the mismanagement of speedway down the years.

F1 doesn't have a track operating in London either, but still gets plenty of attention. The 'mass media' is much less important than it once was. Few under the age of 50 read newspapers or even watch mainstream TV these days, so the opportunities are there for sports that can gain attention through other channels. The problem of course, is that speedway is largely followed by people well over 50 and unfortunately has been unable or unwilling to address that underlying issue for the past 20-30 years. Just as an example, any sport of any credibility has an app where you can get news and live results, but does British speedway? The SGP now has one which is a start, but even that's somewhat lame (e.g. its developers are apparently unable to even make a proper logo for it).

Does it? GPs have been held in Norway, Finland, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, New Zealand and Australia over the years and I think it's highly questionable whether it's done a thing for the sport in those countries. The interest in speedway really never encompassed that many countries - maybe at it's peak around 10-15 where there was significant interest, and perhaps another 15 where speedway was ridden - but this largely seems to have contracted during the GP era. I also doubt the series rights holders, whether Discovery or IMG/BSI before them, are much interested in what's better for the sport and far more interested in making a few extra quid - whether that's from the hosts and/or minimising the costs of putting together material for their television channels. Having a GP in the likes Teterow has little to do with bringing exposure to the sport in Germany, and everything to do with being a lower cost venue to pad out the series. Do we even know where the supposed Australian GP is going to be held in 4 months time? How are Australian fans supposed to plan their time off and travel...?

Why would the FIM or more likely the series rights holders want to restrict how many lucrative GPs they stage each year? As you say, it's all about maximising revenue and very little to do with sharing things around, quite aside from the fact hardly anyone else actually wants to stage a GP.

Using a transponder system that's used by just about every other motorsport would solve such problems. Don't even need video replays, even if they can also be linked to a timing system as a backup check.

Filling in the programme, ranking the riders (in individual meetings) was always part of the 'fun' for me, and helped pass the indeterminable delays between heats. It was a bit of shock going to Costa Mesa where the next race starts pretty much as soon as the riders have got off the track from the previous one. Heat formats in individual meetings also represent a complex permutational challenge and thinking about how to optimise them (whilst waiting around for next heat to start) subsequently proved invaluable in my professional career. So each to their own...!

Apologies - I read that you said head-to-head took precedence over race finishes.

That's what I thought, but the 2022 SGP regs say the following... 9.2. Ties After the completion of heats 16 or 20 When establishing the order between the riders in the list of intermediate classification at the conclusion of heat 16, 20, a) Precedence will be given to the riders (tied on race points) having the most number of 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th placings (a “0” for last placing is better than M-R-F-T-d-N). b) If the tie still persists and involves only 2 riders, precedence will be given to the better placed rider in the heat or heats where the 2 riders met. c) If the tie still persists and involves more than 2 riders, it shall be checked whether there is a possibility to determine a proper precedence (e.g. 3 riders tied on points: A, B, C: • Rider A has beaten rider B • Rider A has beaten rider C • Rider B has beaten rider C Then the precedence will be: best position for rider A, then rider B and then rider C. d) If solutions a), b) and c) cannot resolve the tie, then the rider with the lowest allocated SGP number will be deemed the better placed rider.