Humphrey Appleby

Great, but then ask them what they'd choose if it came down to making a living. Whilst I'd agree that the crude restrictions as employed by the Polish League are probably not going to do much to control costs, I suspect it's as much to make the point that the SGP shouldn't encroach on Polish League schedules. I've also never really put a lot of store in what competitors think about how professional sports should be run. As with most employed persons they'd rather do less for more, and often fail to grasp the economic realities of how and why things are run in the manner they are.

The bottom line is that most, if not all of the top riders make their money in the Polish League. The SGP can only exist because there are professional leagues allowing the riders to subsidise their world championship ambitions, but at some point he who pays the piper has the right to call the tune...

Whilst the NZ GP was quite entertaining and I have absolutely nothing against Greg Hancock, the fact that 40 or nearly 40 somethings continue to dominate the SGP demonstrates the lack of talent coming through the ranks. It's highly likely that Hancock, Gollob and possibly even Crump will all hang up their leathers in the not too distant future, and who's there to replace them? The current SGP lineup could well claim to be the weakest in history...

Well not really. For the high profile football clubs it's because the return is political prestige, but for other football clubs there's frequently a turnover of owners. The difference between football and speedway though is there's a bigger supply of rich willing victims. It's true that domestic speedway has its 'fan promoters' as well, but again there's a reasonably high turnover of ownership as people 'do their wedge' and depart stage left. However, the losses in domestic speedway are arguably much less in absolute terms than many other sports, and are of a reasonably known quantity. Conversely, if you're promoting a single expensive event (i.e. a GP), you could be badly hit by weather or other factors and it's more difficult to mitigate this risk.

I think it's amusing that speedway and F1 should be considered in the same breath. Quite aside from the issue of actually finding an affordable venue in Melbourne (although indoor Docklands might be a possibility), speedway fans would be forced to pay sky high prices for accommodation, whilst any coverage the speedway GP might get, would be totally swamped by F1. This is quite aside from the requirement for local government financial support. Victoria state government are already coughing up AUD 50 million for the Melbourne GP, so why would they want to pay even more in hope of a handful more fans turning up?

The Speedway GP rights holders are BSI who are owned by a UK subsidiary of IMG. IMG UK lost a substantial amount of money in recent years, so the parent company are unlikely to be keen to pursue anything that isn't profitable to them. This essentially means 'overseas' ventures with high organisational costs will be reliant on local promoters with deep pockets who're prepared to unwrite any losses. Monster is neither here nor there - they're sponsors of the series organisers (i.e. IMG/BSI) rather than individual GPs. Perhaps they might be willing to underwrite a US or other 'overseas' GPs, but this remains to be seen. Buckley Systems appears to be a moderate sized although growing corporation (with turnover around GBP 35 million per year). It's perhaps good that speedway can attract backers of this size, but equally successful businessmen don't get to be successful by running charities. No matter how much one loves a sport, you're not going to continually pump money into something unless there's ultimately some return.

The NZ GP may have been an on-track success, but the key is whether it's a financial success. I don't know what the officially reported attendance was in the end, but even with government support I don't imagine the promoter would have made money on it. Australian and US GPs are unlikely to draw sufficient attendances to cover their costs, so will depend heavily on what local authority support can be obtained, and finding promoters willing to take a large financial risk. If it were so straightforward, there would have been more than just a solitary Australian GP.

Yes, sponsorship normally benefits the players, stadiums and sometimes by extension the fans. Monster's sponsorship (not that we know what it actually amounts to) will benefit the riders, stadium improvements and fans exactly how?

Well the difference of course, is that Monster is a sponsor that people stand a chance of having heard of, but it shows how desperate speedway is when the fans start lauding sponsorship deals. You rarely see football fans jumping up-and-down because Budweiser decided to sponsor the FA Cup, or Investec with test matches. I've no doubt Monster's involvement will be very beneficial to IMG/BSI, but what it'll do for speedway in general is still yet to be answered. It's also nice that IMG/BSI have employed someone to specifically deal with Monster, but perhaps if they'd been more attentive before they might not have lost other sponsors... BTW - did KFC ever pay up?

I very much doubt the FIM have employed a team of forensic historians to write a short summary piece for their website, which is very likely culled from existing, but not entirely accurate secondary sources. It's actually a fairly reasonable summary for the uninitiated, but an FIM press officer (with all due respect to Marc Petrier) responsible for the news output of all the FIM disciplines is unlikely to have trawled through old newspapers Down Under to ensure the facts are 100% accurate with respect to track racing.

Are we running the sport for the benefit of the riders, the promoters, the fans or television? I'd suggest certainly not the former, even if the EL 'stars' already command wages far in excessive of what revenue levels can sustain. At the end of the day, those running speedway have to do what keeps the sport in business. If that means running 30 or 40 meetings per season without the 'stars' then that's what has to happen. Running half the fixtures with the 'stars' and half without will just make the half without an inferior product that the casual fan will stay away from. Moreover, what would star-studded teams bring to the sport that they didn't a few years ago? British speedway fundamentally needs to start from a lower level - putting out cost effective teams, developing its own rider base, and eventually developing its own stars. Prostituting itself to the SGP riders will simply lead to a downward spiral that will eventually doom the professional sport in Britain,

Why would they take the financial risk themselves? I can't see how an Aussie GP at a low key venue (with all due respect to Gillman and Kurri Kurri) could possibly hope to break even without external funding. And of course the obvious question is if IMG/BSI willing to promote an Aussie GP, why have they waited until now?

A sports team has to be run on different lines to a normal business. In other businesses you're essentially competing with all the others, but whilst in speedway you may compete on track, it requires cooperation off the track. Teams need to understand they cannot and shouldn't always try to win, because the greater good of the league depends on the majority of the teams being competitive and financially healthy. This seems to be difficult for the average businessman to grasp, because they're so used to doing everything their own way. Unfortunately, far too many owners in recent years have also run teams as some sort of glorified hobby rather than on proper business lines. That's why they've allowed rider wages to spiral well beyond what revenue can justify, which has lead to a revolving door of promoters burning through a pile of cash for 2 or 3 years before leaving their teams in the lurch. G. An international promoters association to coordinate fixtures and share riders amongst the professional leagues. This should also insist on a share of the proceeds from the SGP and SWC, if not actually run the competitions itself.

Whilst I'm not overly impressed by the BBC these days, I suspect it's as much about how relevant they feel the information is. I'd guess speedway simply needs to make itself more relevant. Only 8 or 9 years ago I had the BBC on the phone fairly regularly to check the details of some minor story or other. That speedway can't even get that far sums up the low currency in which it's held... The BSPA website is a poor comparison, but frankly I don't think the SGP website is that good at all. It has improved, but not from a very high standard to start with. I don't think it's the job of BSI to promote British speedway, but I do think it's the job of BSI to promote the SGP which I don't think they do that well in all honesty. As for Poland, my endearing impression is that speedway is hardly known outside the speedway areas of Poland. Traditional news media is frankly little short of dead these days. Adopting new forms of publicity is the future.

I don't think anyone would deny that the promotion of British speedway is dreadful, and has been for a long time. To some extent it's a problem of the sport becoming de-capitalised, but when you look at the efforts of the official commercial rights company, it's looks pretty woeful. None of this means that the SGP efforts are great though. I appreciate it's the close season, but a search of the BBC sport website reveals precisely three brief mentions of the SGP in the past couple of years.

I don't think I've ever suggested the SGP isn't fit for purpose, and have acknowledged the successful aspects of BSI's involvement. It's not entirely my cup of tea, but if evolves into a full-time series that gets people interested in the rest of the sport, that would be fair enough. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to analyse the hype and claims that are made by the SGP and its supporters. When one puts actual facts and figures to the SGP since BSI's involvement, the reality is that it's watched by much the same number of fans and in much the same stadiums (with two obvious exceptions) as the World Championship was 20 years ago. Yes, it's admittedly now shown regularly (semi-)live television which I agree is an improvement, but equally I think that's as much a reflection of the huge growth in cable and satellite television and its need for content (by way of example even grasstrack meetings in fields are on television these days). Okay, there's a reasonable argument that speedway may have declined even further in the public consciousness without the SGP. Equally though, despite have the pick of dates, riders willing to ride for well below market rates, and reasonable television exposure, has the SGP really developed that much in the past 12 years despite the proclaimed talent and ability of IMG/BSI? A company that's BTW lost how many millions recently? I could also go on (again) about the ridiculous arrangements whereby the rest of speedway doesn't benefit financially from its premier event, but that (probably) is not the fault of IMG/BSI.

Whilst I have reservations about the actual vision and professionalism of BSI who to me, only appear good in comparison to the very low standards of the rest of the sport, I don't entirely disagree. The problem though, is even if the SGP disappears off into the sunset sweeping all before it, where does that leave the rest of speedway? I can honestly say that if the future of speedway is a touring individual circus, that will not be speedway as I know it and frankly it might as well be tiddlywinks. Without wishing to appear pedantic, the 'Balkans', 'Baltics' and 'Middle East' are not countries which suggests these are regions that can receive SGP coverage on channels distributed by satellite, but that doesn't indicate how many people might actually be watching. Are there are figures available as how many people watch the SGP in (say) China or South Africa? Yes, but many other relatively minor sports manage to stage WC/GP rounds outside Europe, not to mention MotoGP, Superbikes and even Motocross, so it can't entirely be down to logistical problems.

Where is the evidence they haven't? We keep hearing about all these countries in which the SGP is now shown, but what sort of viewing figures are we talking about? For the record as well, I travel regularly in Europe and to some extent elsewhere in the world, and I've yet to see the SGP shown anywhere but the 3 or 4 main speedway countries (and I do make a point of looking). If highlights are shown in all the claimed countries, I can only assume they're on some obscure channel in the middle of the night. Well it is to some extent, because new faces come through domestic competition which has subsumed by the SGP. In addition, there are far fewer opportunities for new names to break into the SGP compared to the old World Championship system, because it's not just a case of getting recognised, but also coming from the right country at the right time and having the right backing. Yes, but it's not just about having the stadium, but also putting up a suitable amount of cash to stage a GP. If it's so attractive to stage a GP, why has there only been one staged outside Europe to date, and 10 years and at least two abortive attempts to get the next one? The more GPs, the more money can be raised from staging fees and possibly television as well. I suspect the main limitation is the number of willing tracks and the number of wage paying meetings you can reasonably expect the riders to give up. However, if the SGP expands much more during the European season, it will start to come into conflict with Poland. At the moment, the 12 rounds can just about be fitted around the Polish league season, but I suspect neither the Polish clubs or their riders will be very happy if they have to start missing meetings they earn their bread-and-butter from.

I went to the O2 arena a couple of weeks ago and actually wondered whether you could hold a GP there. I think it would probably be a bit small capacity wise, but you could possibly get a track in there.

Of course I've heard of it - one could hardly not have with Hancock waving cans at the television cameras at every opportunity. I still think people are wishfully thinking that it's more than it actually is, although it's undeniably being aggressively marketed. I'm also not sure how it'll get young people watching speedway given that it seems to sponsor just about every extreme sport going, but I guess we shall see...

Coca-Cola's $35 billion per year in sales, Red Bull around $4 billion, and Monster possibly up to a couple of billion. The fundamental problem though, is that Monster is an inherently vile drink and you can't even make Jagerbombs with it either. That's inevitably going to count against it in the long-term...

No problem with BSI making money from a commercial perspective, but let's not pretend it's for the good of global speedway... Monster is obviously growing in terms of brand recognition, and is probably fairly well known amongst the extreme sports fraternity. I wouldn't put it in the league of Coca Cola or even Red Bull though, and I bet if you went down the local and asked for 'Monster' the chances are you'd get a blank look...

It's not really a matter of sponsors being good, bad or indifferent, but how much of the sponsorship actually accrues to the 'global sport'/ BSI pay the FIM an agreed amount for the rights, but speedway doesn't seem to see any of this. Perhaps more sponsorship could mean more prize money for the SGP/SWC riders, but that's paid by the FIM under a long-term agreement, so that would seem unlikely. So the upshot of Monster sponsoring the SGP is that it might fill BSI's coffers, but the net benefit to speedway overall would appear to be nothing. This contrasts with just about every other sport where at significant percentage of the sponsorship actually goes to the sport. It's also interesting that no indication is given of how much the Monster sponsorship is actually worth, so for all we know the sponsorship amounts to a few free cans of the drink in the pits (except in Denmark ). By contrasts, football, rugby and cricket all give some indication of what their title sponsors are paying, I suppose some sort of moderately recognisable name as a sponsor might make some other moderately recognisable companies think the SGP is worth being involved with, but I'm afraid it's ultimately all pretty meaningless to anyone but the BSI shareholders...

And the positives for speedway as a whole are what exactly...? ;-) Ah, better looking start line girls it seems. I suppose there will at least be something interesting to watch this season... :-)

Well the deal might have a global effect on BSI's finances, but how exactly is it of benefit to speedway as whole? Did I also read somewhere that Monster is banned in Denmark?