2014 League /s

[stratton 1,491]

Why do people want a north/south split?

 

I'm looking forwards to the prospect of teams like Edinburgh, Scunthorpe, Berwick etc coming to Swindon next season.

It would be great Matt and i certainly would travel to some of those venues,it might not be all doom and gloom maybe a new league could kick start something better longterm for the sport.? Edited August 31, 2013 by sidney

[arthur cross 492]

Why do people want a north/south split?

 

I'm looking forwards to the prospect of teams like Edinburgh, Scunthorpe, Berwick etc coming to Swindon next season.

 

It's not so much a case of "wanting" a north/south split ... it's just a realistic economic view that some sort of regional groupings may make a big difference towards more clubs breaking-even (or better) instead of still losing money.

 

From your view as a spectator, you've every right to look forward to teams like Edinburgh, Scunthorpe and Berwick visiting Swindon to give you some extra variety among the opposition.

 

But despite the great enthusiasm of a few Monarchs and Bandits fans (the Scorpions' long-distance away support is almost non-existent), your club will get hardly any away fans' money at the turnstiles while you're enjoying watching those meetings ... the costs of staging those meetings remains the same (stadium rent, riders' wages, ambulance, etc) without as much crowd money coming in.

 

Less obviously, but arguably more importantly towards balancing the books, creating one big league without regional groupings would almost certainly lead to more 2-match (or even 3-match) tours to help cut down travelling time for the riders ... for example, there'd probably be far more cases of teams visiting Poole/Wed & Swindon/Thu on consecutive nights or requesting Swindon/Thu followed by either Somerset or Plymouth on the Friday ... tours do save money if the weather's good but they're a financial disaster if the last meeting of the trip is a washout after a club's already paid for all its riders having what's turned out to be a unnecessary night in a hotel.

[The White Knight 9,039]

Some great Points to ponder here. I have certainly got food for thought.

 

A super Thread.

[Halifaxtiger 5,318]

Why do people want a north/south split?

 

I'm looking forwards to the prospect of teams like Edinburgh, Scunthorpe, Berwick etc coming to Swindon next season.

 

Personally, I agree but you can't ride 46 league matches in a season, and that's what you would have. This way, you do get to see and visit northern clubs, just not all of them.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Halifaxtiger

[RHayes 72]

South & West: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Leicester, Swindon, Poole, Somerset, Rye House, Lakeside, Plymouth, Eastbourne, Wolverhampton. North & East: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Berwick, Workington, Newcastle, Redcar, Scunthorpe, Sheffield, King's Lynn, Peterborough, Ipswich & Belle Vue.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Richard Hayes

[oldtimer 340]

The BSPA need to find out if SKY are pulling the plug or not, Swindon are struggling to pay their riders even with SKY. Also need to ask all Premier and Conference clubs how many are definitely going to have air fences in place by the start of next season. If there is to be one big league how will the team averages be worked out, will a Premier riders average be reduced if he is now racing against former Elite riders. The difference in ability is too great between top Elite and second string Premier riders and would produce processional racing so will Elite riders say over 8 point averages be banned from competing in the new league. The only way promoters can afford new air fences is to get the money back from their only income and that's the fans, unless their sponsors give more. However many I have spoken to say the current prices are as much as they are willing to pay for the entertainment given. Of course the entertainment could be improved, and I am not talking about the racing more the presentation. Is there a firm who will rent air fences for a season with an option to buy? Would the Premier League still be viable with half the current teams? Answers on a postcard please.

[MattK 3,447]

Personally, I agree but you can't ride 46 league matches in a season, and that's what you would have. This way, you do get to see and visit northern clubs, just not all of them.

 

According to my calculations, there are 26 Thursdays from April to September. If you fans want regular weekly meetings, without lots of challenge matches, cups and fillers and we want the league to be self-sufficient, then I think we should be looking at somehow trying to fit every clubs home and away once into the fixtures.

[arthur cross 492]

According to my calculations, there are 26 Thursdays from April to September. If you fans want regular weekly meetings, without lots of challenge matches, cups and fillers and we want the league to be self-sufficient, then I think we should be looking at somehow trying to fit every clubs home and away once into the fixtures.

 

Can you please start being realistic in what you'd like to happen instead of hoping for the downright impossible or economically suicidal !!

 

Let's say we had the one big 24-team league next season, requiring 23 home and 23 away fixtures to satisfy your ideal wish of bringing every team to Swindon while also taking the Robins to every other track in the league (presumably ideally on each of those tracks' regular night so that all the other fans also have as convenient a home schedule as yourselves at the Abbey Stadium) ... I'll also be generous and let you have the last fortnight of March to give you 28 weeks in which to squeeze in all those fixtures.

 

Given Swindon race on a Thursday, you're going to need 27 weeks to fit in all your home fixtures plus your trips to Birmingham, Ipswich, Redcar and Sheffield as they're all Thursday tracks as well.

 

Add in just an average amount of grim weather when setting-up a fixture-list like one rainoff every 2 months and that's another 3 Thursdays you'll be expecting to need to catch-up those rain-offs, making 30 Thursdays in total.

 

Ok, you can ease the pressure a little bit with careful bits of Bank Holiday scheduling between "same night" clubs but those meetings are the biggest nightmare of all to reschedule after a rain-off ... in any case, I've already shown how easy it is to use up 30 Thursdays with only average rainfall so that means a choice between ...

 

1) letting the regular-season run into mid-October to make it last 30 weeks which seriously limits any title-deciding play-offs (great for the purists on this forum but almost certainly bad news for securing a deal from any TV-company)

 

2) having playoffs to suit any TV-deal and therefore relying to a ludicrous extent on good weather so that everything's tidied-up in a regular-season that can last only the 28-weeks until the end of September.

 

And as it stands at the moment, there would be 6 Friday tracks - Coventry, Edinburgh, Lakeside, Plymouth, Scunthorpe, Somerset - making it even tougher for them to avoid using a few off-nights against each other.

 

(Like the set of 5 Thursday tracks I've already mentioned, there would also be 5 Saturdays at Berwick, Eastbourne, Leicester, Rye House & Workington ... 2 Sundays at Glasgow & Newcastle .... 2 Mondays at Belle Vue & Wolverhampton ... 1 Tuesday at Dudley ... 2 Wednesdays at King's Lynn & Poole ... and 1 "mish-mash" at Peterborough due to them having to work around various one-off agricultural events at their showground.)

 

If England qualify for next summer's football World Cup, you've also hardly any spare capacity in the speedway schedule to let clubs dodge round the nights of England's games.

 

Whatever league format is served up in 2014, I doubt any current Elite or Premier promoter would want more than 20 regular-season home league meetings ... any more than that is asking for trouble from the great British climate, regardless of how much the fans have a regular home-night as their top priority when they're surveyed.

Edited August 31, 2013 by arthur cross

[stratton 1,491]

 

 

Can you please start being realistic in what you'd like to happen instead of hoping for the downright impossible or economically suicidal !!

 

Let's say we had the one big 24-team league next season, requiring 23 home and 23 away fixtures to satisfy your ideal wish of bringing every team to Swindon while also taking the Robins to every other track in the league (presumably ideally on each of those tracks' regular night so that all the other fans also have as convenient a home schedule as yourselves at the Abbey Stadium) ... I'll also be generous and let you have the last fortnight of March to give you 28 weeks in which to squeeze in all those fixtures.

 

Given Swindon race on a Thursday, you're going to need 27 weeks to fit in all your home fixtures plus your trips to Birmingham, Ipswich, Redcar and Sheffield as they're all Thursday tracks as well.

 

Add in just an average amount of grim weather when setting-up a fixture-list like one rainoff every 2 months and that's another 3 Thursdays you'll be expecting to need to catch-up those rain-offs, making 30 Thursdays in total.

 

Ok, you can ease the pressure a little bit with careful bits of Bank Holiday scheduling between "same night" clubs but those meetings are the biggest nightmare of all to reschedule after a rain-off ... in any case, I've already shown how easy it is to use up 30 Thursdays with only average rainfall so that means a choice between ...

 

1) letting the regular-season run into mid-October to make it last 30 weeks which seriously limits any title-deciding play-offs (great for the purists on this forum but almost certainly bad news for securing a deal from any TV-company)

 

2) having playoffs to suit any TV-deal and therefore relying to a ludicrous extent on good weather so that everything's tidied-up in a regular-season that can last only the 28-weeks until the end of September.

 

And as it stands at the moment, there would be 6 Friday tracks - Coventry, Edinburgh, Lakeside, Plymouth, Scunthorpe, Somerset - making it even tougher for them to avoid using a few off-nights against each other.

 

(Like the set of 5 Thursday tracks I've already mentioned, there would also be 5 Saturdays at Berwick, Eastbourne, Leicester, Rye House & Workington ... 2 Sundays at Glasgow & Newcastle .... 2 Mondays at Belle Vue & Wolverhampton ... 1 Tuesday at Dudley ... 2 Wednesdays at King's Lynn & Poole ... and 1 "mish-mash" at Peterborough due to them having to work around various one-off agricultural events at their showground.)

 

If England qualify for next summer's football World Cup, you've also hardly any spare capacity in the speedway schedule to let clubs dodge round the nights of England's games.

 

Whatever league format is served up in 2014, I doubt any current Elite or Premier promoter would want more than 20 regular-season home league meetings ... any more than that is asking for trouble from the great British climate, regardless of how much the fans have a regular home-night as their top priority when they're surveyed.

Arthur twenty home fixtures is about right i think.Wouldnt certain tracks have problems doing more anyway with the Greyhounds curfews( ect) and also it is not financially viable the point you made about the World Cup is a massive point.I hope this new league gets set up teams start on a level playing field and balance the books and try and get a bit of stability for the longterm. Edited August 31, 2013 by sidney

[arthur cross 492]

Arthur twenty home fixtures is about right i think.Wouldnt certain tracks have problems doing more anyway with the Greyhounds curfews( ect) and also it is not financially viable the point you made about the World Cup is a massive point.I hope this new league gets set up teams start on a level playing field and balance the books and try and get a bit of stability for the longterm.

 

Every greyhound track has a very settled weekly pattern of meetings (only a few of the big events shown on Sky require any one-off adjustments) so it's always easy for speedway clubs sharing with dog tracks to work out on which days the speedway track's available.

 

Personally, I think it's going to be too difficult to find enough common ground between the wealthier end of the Elite League and the poorer end of the Premier League to establish one big league of all the current 23 Elite/Premier clubs plus any ambitious National outfits like Dudley.

 

In fact, given such a wide range of ambitions to merge together, I reckon it would be a fine achievement to bring as many as 18 clubs into any new top division ... however, I fear that would still have the gloomy side-effect of some of the leftover clubs closing down unless the National League could be pitched at a slightly higher level to help absorb them.

 

Closures did happen in connection with the last "one big league" era of 1995 & 96 ... for example, Newcastle still had horrible memories of how much it cost them being a top-division club for just one season in 1984 so they closed when the 2nd Division ended in 1994 but always wanted to return if that level was revived ... sure enough, the Elite-&-Premier format began in 1997 and Newcastle have been a Premier club for all of that level's 17 seasons.

 

Meanwhile, even if England do qualify for it, the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil (generally 4 hours behind the UK, a couple of its venues 5 hours behind the UK) might not be quite as big a problem for speedway as either the 2006 or 2010 versions (Germany & South Africa each 1 hour ahead of the UK).

 

That's because there will be late-night kick-offs UK-time that won't clash with speedway during the first couple of rounds of group games (10 matches will start at 11pm/UK, 1 match starts at 2am/UK to round off the only day with 4 matches squeezed into it instead of 3) ... however, for the last round of group games and the whole knockout, everything's 5pm, 8pm or 9pm/UK ... the full set of venues/dates/kick-offs has been on FIFA's website for a few months already and the teams will be added into it when the group draw's made on Fri-6th-Dec.

[stratton 1,491]

 

 

Every greyhound track has a very settled weekly pattern of meetings (only a few of the big events shown on Sky require any one-off adjustments) so it's always easy for speedway clubs sharing with dog tracks to work out on which days the speedway track's available.

 

Personally, I think it's going to be too difficult to find enough common ground between the wealthier end of the Elite League and the poorer end of the Premier League to establish one big league of all the current 23 Elite/Premier clubs plus any ambitious National outfits like Dudley.

 

In fact, given such a wide range of ambitions to merge together, I reckon it would be a fine achievement to bring as many as 18 clubs into any new top division ... however, I fear that would still have the gloomy side-effect of some of the leftover clubs closing down unless the National League could be pitched at a slightly higher level to help absorb them.

 

Closures did happen in connection with the last "one big league" era of 1995 & 96 ... for example, Newcastle still had horrible memories of how much it cost them being a top-division club for just one season in 1984 so they closed when the 2nd Division ended in 1994 but always wanted to return if that level was revived ... sure enough, the Elite-&-Premier format began in 1997 and Newcastle have been a Premier club for all of that level's 17 seasons.

 

Meanwhile, even if England do qualify for it, the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil (generally 4 hours behind the UK, a couple of its venues 5 hours behind the UK) might not be quite as big a problem for speedway as either the 2006 or 2010 versions (Germany & South Africa each 1 hour ahead of the UK).

 

That's because there will be late-night kick-offs UK-time that won't clash with speedway during the first couple of rounds of group games (10 matches will start at 11pm/UK, 1 match starts at 2am/UK to round off the only day with 4 matches squeezed into it instead of 3) ... however, for the last round of group games and the whole knockout, everything's 5pm, 8pm or 9pm/UK ... the full set of venues/dates/kick-offs has been on FIFA's website for a few months already and the teams will be added into it when the group draw's made on Fri-6th-Dec.

So Arthur as you have made some great points and made this into a great thread what would your personal preference be for the future.?

[Halifaxtiger 5,318]

According to my calculations, there are 26 Thursdays from April to September. If you fans want regular weekly meetings, without lots of challenge matches, cups and fillers and we want the league to be self-sufficient, then I think we should be looking at somehow trying to fit every clubs home and away once into the fixtures.

 

Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with that.

 

Arthur's post above is spot on, though.

 

Personally, I think it's going to be too difficult to find enough common ground between the wealthier end of the Elite League and the poorer end of the Premier League to establish one big league of all the current 23 Elite/Premier clubs plus any ambitious National outfits like Dudley.

 

In fact, given such a wide range of ambitions to merge together, I reckon it would be a fine achievement to bring as many as 18 clubs into any new top division ... however, I fear that would still have the gloomy side-effect of some of the leftover clubs closing down unless the National League could be pitched at a slightly higher level to help absorb them.

 

Closures did happen in connection with the last "one big league" era of 1995 & 96 ... for example, Newcastle still had horrible memories of how much it cost them being a top-division club for just one season in 1984 so they closed when the 2nd Division ended in 1994 but always wanted to return if that level was revived ... sure enough, the Elite-&-Premier format began in 1997 and Newcastle have been a Premier club for all of that level's 17 seasons.

 

 

I think it will be difficult but not impossible to bring them all together - the points limit will remain in existence - and while there's no doubt wealthier clubs will cherry pick riders that happens in the PL now anyway.

 

I certainly don't think that the NL should have to change in anyway to support any team that might be discarded as that risks the existence of teams at that level. The creation of a third league between the two others is possible, but no-one should be forced into it.

 

I think the problem of amalgamation in terms of finances comes when clubs are forced up. Going down or staying the same (and we are talking about a PL level set up) should not involve the same issue.

Edited September 1, 2013 by Halifaxtiger

[arthur cross 492]

So Arthur as you have made some great points and made this into a great thread what would your personal preference be for the future.?

I think it will be difficult but not impossible to bring them all together - the points limit will remain in existence - and while there's no doubt wealthier clubs will cherry pick riders that happens in the PL now anyway.

 

I certainly don't think that the NL should have to change in anyway to support any team that might be discarded as that risks the existence of teams at that level. The creation of a third league between the two others is possible, but no-one should be forced into it.

 

I think the problem of amalgamation in terms of finances comes when clubs are forced up. Going down or staying the same (and we are talking about a PL level set up) should not involve the same issue.

 

Easiest to reply to both the above posts in one go ...

 

The "winter of discontent" in late-2010 & early-2011 proved how it was nearly impossible for various Elite clubs to reach agreement over the average of just one rider in particular (and slightly wider implications of how that could affect team-building in the future) ... that's why I'm so sceptical of the biggest egos among Elite promoters being prepared to agree to a points-limit that would almost certainly be much nearer the current Premier level than the current Elite level (as an example, let's say the Elite drop their limit three-quarters of the way towards the Premier instead of meeting in the middle).

 

As Halifaxtiger nghtly points out, it's easier financially to drop down rather than move up ... Ipswich's decision to drop down from 2010-Elite to 2011-Premier just before the "winter of discontent" erupted proved to be magnificently well-timed for them but they'd been among the poor relations of the Elite for a while by then.

 

Several wealthier Elite clubs will have big concerns that their crowds will nosedive faster than the costs they're saving if they agree to a points-limit pitched really heavily towards the current Premier level.

 

Meanwhile, the Premier clubs have to judge a very narrow balance to find the right points-limit that's not too much more expensive that they have at the moment but still leaves room for number-1 riders whose names are big enough to attract enough extra fans to cover any extra expenses.

 

Effectively you've got a much larger-scale situation like the problem that's always been very awkward in the Conference/National League over the last decade trying to find the right mix between the small clubs who can only operate at that level and the reserve sides of bigger clubs ... this time, you're trying to mix clubs who can only operate at Premier level with a few clubs feeling they're taking part with one hand tied behind their back because they've had to drop down well below their ideal Elite level.

 

Look at the turnover of clubs in the Conference/National since 2002 and that's a really good example about why I think it'll be so difficult to bring all 23 Elite & Premier clubs together into one big league,

 

That's why I stick with my earlier reckoning that getting even 18 clubs into one big league will be a fine achievement ... and while I appreciate Halifaxtiger is one of the best supporters of the National League's ldeals and level, I can't see how it can remain unaffected by such a hefty upheaval of both the levels above it.

 

Hence, in answer to sidney's question, I think we should start with around 18 Elite/Premier clubs in a new Top League but I suspect only some of the leftovers would feel able to fit into the current National League ... looking maybe 5 years down the road, I'd expect the Top League to settle down at about 14-to-16 clubs as some of its original members realise the National's clearly their more realistic level, especially if the National's prepared to be upgraded a bit to help accommodate them as well as any of the original leftovers who didn't want to drop straight into it.

 

Do I think that's what will actually happen ? ... probably not because judging by the BSPA's past history and decision-making, there's little hope of reaching any sort of tidy merger to start with ... and even if that did happen, I'd also doubt any original friendliness and agreements would last more than a year or two before enough bad bickering rose up again to start another round of knee-jerk decisions.

[Skidder1 7,642]

I don't disagree with most of your points, although why you seem to think that its only certain EL promoters that have big egos I don't know. With a new top league points limit of 38.5 being heavily rumoured around several tracks and an increase in the number of top league fixtures also being mooted (although not sure by how many?) there does seem to have been considerable discussion on this already at BSPA towers!!

[MattK 3,447]

I don't disagree with most of your points, although why you seem to think that its only certain EL promoters that have big egos I don't know. With a new top league points limit of 38.5 being heavily rumoured around several tracks and an increase in the number of top league fixtures also being mooted (although not sure by how many?) there does seem to have been considerable discussion on this already at BSPA towers!!

 

Is that 38.5 Elite or Premier league points?