Humphrey Appleby

Somehow sums up speedway. Just how much us Monster putting into the SGP anyway?

I'd think cricket and rugby league would be considered indispensable as well. Rugby League is particularly interesting as I'd have thought that it and speedway were comparable popularity wise in the 1970s and into the 1980s. As others have pointed out though, it's also about attracting advertisers and with the best will in the world, the speedway clientele is not the investment banking set...

Yes there's undoubtedly some truth in this, but the bottom line is that speedway just isn't considered indispensable by Sky...

An average of 2.2 million viewers per GP still compares very favourably to the 75K that speedway gets, and I'd have thought even cricket doesn't get much more than that on Sky. I'd agree that most of what's on the dedicated F1 channel is a complete waste of time, although I do quite like watching the GP2 and GP3 support races.

Most of the problems in Russia are more mundane. Stuff going missing in customs and bureaucratic delays unless you have a government fixer, criminal gangs with their fingers in everything, and then the Russian speciality of tourist abduction. I was on a business trip to Russia last year and my colleague went missing for a day before turning up the other side of town minus his wallet and phone and not remembering how he got there. The British Embassy advised him to not even bother reporting it because half the time the police are involved themselves. And a quick browse on the Internet reveals this does not seem to be at all uncommon. I actually like Russia and things have dramatically improved in the last 15 or so years, but there's still too much dodginess around everything to do with the bureaucracy. I know that ice racing seems to stage world championship events without too many problems, but usually half the field are Russians anyway, and perhaps it's just too low on the radar to attract hassle from the authorities. Far from it. Following your team's riders as they progressed through the rounds made things far more interesting, and attending a World Final was far more exciting than I've ever experienced GP wise. I certainly don't suggest to return to that system, but it's wrong to suggest the qualifiers (at least before they were shorn of their GP riders) were boring.

The FIM recognise the ACU as the organisation responsible for motorcycling in the UK, so there's no chance of them overruling the ACU with respect to a decision about the SCB. It's possible that another promoters' or club association might get recognised by the ACU if there were enough demand/lobbying, but I think the BSPA actually has some sort of observer status at the FIM. Realistically though, if a group of promoters/clubs/tracks want to run speedway under their own auspices, they'd have to run outside the ACU. Maybe this would be a good thing though, as neither the ACU or the FIM seem to do a lot for speedway other than selling the family silver... Nothing would happen. It's already been legally investigated by various motor sports bodies and the recommendation was that they can't ban competitors or tracks involved in unlicensed meetings. It might be frowned upon (sometimes for good reasons), but the authorities wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they were subjected to a legal challenge and I'm sure they already know it.

I think the Millennium Stadium is struggling financially.

They probably have a fixed budget to get events to their locations, and presumably think speedway fans would have already gone to the GP if they had any interest in going.

I think Russia is wishful thinking. It's a nightmare to organise anything in Russia without the right fixers, and speedway isn't the World Cup or Champions League. If it was going to happen then I imagine it already would have.

Not really. Speedway is only raced with any seriousness in a handful of countries, and then only as a minority sport. Even in Poland the sport's popularity seems to be pretty regionally based, and I'd wager it's demographic is not ABC either. The claimed geographical coverage of SGP would appear to be the satellite footprint where the SGP highlights are put out as filler material. I've seen little or no substantive evidence as to what the SGP viewership is in most of the non-speedway countries and given that I've been to many of these countries and never seen any evidence of speedway on television, I'd question how much penetration there really is. At the end of the day, the European markets relevant to speedway are the UK, Poland, Scandinavia and maybe Germany.

I doubt they're turning up to the GPs just for fun, or so that a few spectators in the stadia will be exposed to the brand. And Poland is hardly all of Eastern Europe, or even the majority of it. Monster may not do direct advertising, but they still need the exposure that television coverage brings.

Probably a foregone conclusion already...

Will Monster be so happy to be blacked-out from one of the largest potential markets in Europe?

I'd imagine that Poland may be the biggest national market in terms of actual speedway viewers, but the popularity of speedway there is over-estimated and from a sponsorship point of view it's also about latent/potential support. From a commercial perspective, the UK has a larger population and much larger economy than Poland, thus more potential to sell cans of Monster or whatever. If I were Monster, I'd certainly not be amused at a UK blackout.

I suspect a lot of sponsors in major sports do it for the corporate kudos rather than the direct returns from spectators/viewers. They use the corporate entertainment opportunities to impress clients and to do business. The problem with speedway that no serious business in their right mind would want to entertain clients at a speedway stadium, probably not even somewhere like Cardiff. Speedway also has this uncanny knack of shooting itself in the foot. The last serious sponsor of British speedway was Coal Products, but they came along at a time when use of coal for domestic heating was in steep decline because everyone had installed gas or oil central heating, not to mention that councils were introducing smokeless zones. Monster is probably the first sponsor in years that the average person might actually have heard of, and indeed actually go out and buy the product (even though it's ghastly stuff). We don't actually know what they're paying, if indeed anything, but yet within a few months of getting them on board, the SGP manages to lose television coverage in it's biggest market...

The ACU/SCB might claim this, but we went through this several years ago with the MSA. The MSA realised it could not legally stop unlicensed racing at licensed tracks, nor prevent licensed drivers competing in unlicensed events.

And why should he not? Everyone makes a living off someone else's money, so if Matt Ford puts time and effort into Poole speedway and is successful, then why should he not reap the rewards? Speedway is a risky business as well, with more destitute former promoters than successful ones.

Yes, I believe there was a trial 10-a-side match staged at Wolverhampton about 20 or so years ago. I think it was some sort of hybrid senior/junior match as meetings were at that point 15-heats followed by a 5/6-heat junior match.

If you have a particular trade though, then it is a form of ownership if a body is restricting where and when you can ply that trade

Where's the money going to come from to do that? I'd doubt that riders would want to sign to long-term contracts without any financial guarantees. That's the problem though, isn't it? How many promotions develop juniors or bring in raw riders to polish their talents? They just try to find some ready-made foreign rider to sign on a conveniently low assessed average, and then claim rights over them for time immemorial. I wouldn't disagree that the current implementation of the asset system doesn't really prevent riders from going where they want in practice, but it's become a largely pointless exercise in an era when so few promotions are actually willing to pay transfer fees. Loan and transfer fees are just an unnecessary additional expense.

Yes, but they wouldn't have had to pay anything if there wasn't a transfer system in place. I actually do support the notion of compensation for promotions who genuinely develop and nuture riders. However, I certainly don't think promotions who sign overseas riders should expect anything (with the possible exception of riders on 'apprentice'-type schemes), and neither do I think promotions should expect transfer/loan fees for riders who've been doing the rounds for years. If Darren Bent is still under contract this January, then it's not unreasonable to ask for compensation. If he's a free agent, then unlike speedway he can freely go where he likes, which is why football clubs tend to sell players before they're out-of-contract.

Yes it is unfair, although I can understand why Peterborough want to try to make some money out of the daft system. However, Peterborough have had several years of use out of him and allegedly didn't pay on occasions in the past, so unless he's under contract, why shouldn't be able to sign for who he pleases?

It already is - usually eight months from March until October. The asset system has nothing to do with whether a rider is contracted or not, but in theory prevents an out-of-contract rider from signing for who they like. Would anyone in any other industry tolerate such an arrangement? Sorry, we're not employing you this year but any other employer you might find has to pay us for the privilege of you working for them...

Nothing in principle. The Bosman ruling was specifically about allowing out-of-contract players to move between EU countries, not within EU countries.

Yes, but speedway already did conform with the Bosman ruling as Bosman only applied to transfers between EU countries. As as I'm aware, there's never been any restrictions on riders signing for teams outside of Britain. Domestic football had to change because foreign intermediary clubs could be (and were) used to effect domestic transfers, but unlike football, riding for multiple speedway teams in different countries is a practical proposition. Back to the BSPA system though, I've little doubt that the asset system would never stand up in court if anyone could be bothered to challenge it. It was close to being abolished in football back in the early-60s, but the players union settled for improved wages instead. Regardless though, it's become a complete irrelevance in recent years. Few teams are willing to buy riders, so it's now just a perpetual merry-go-round of promotions being both loaners and loanees.