Humphrey Appleby

Seems to be the same story every couple of years or so. Believe it when it eventually happens...

Whilst I'm certainly no supporter of the so-called environmentalists, the reality is that noise levels have consistently come down in speedway and many other motor sports over the years. If there are ways of running the sport with the minimal of aggravation from outside parties, then those options should be explored. The noise for some is part-and-parcel of the sport, but equally the smell was once considered part of the sport and that's changed over the years. Fans will adapt if changes happen slowly over time.

The Polish restrictions are illegal anyway. Just threaten to take them to court...

I very much doubt they have a legal leg to stand on with that.

I think they're actually worse, because bankers at least try to create wealth whereas the lawyers just leech off it. As you say though, it's the system that allows such frivilous cases to be brought in the first place which has merely served to make both the plaintiff and defendants poorer.. On a more positive note though, there's now established case law in favour of long-standing motor sport venues, who are also getting better organised against the complainers.

Speedway is a professional sport though, and the SGP prize money would off-set some of the outgoings. Ice racing is an interesting one though as the prize money is very low, especially considering the travel expenses the riders must rack up. Do any riders actually make a living from the sport, or all they all part-timers who have to subsidise their own racing?

These cases can be successfully contested as happened down in Devon with Mansell's track, but unfortunately you need to have deep pockets. Most complaints turn out to be frivilous or even fraudlent, but the biggest problem is that councils have now unreasonable powers with respect to noise. Whilst they can also be contested, it takes time and money to do so, and even if you win you can't get compensation for any losses you've incurred in the meantime. If you happen to have an unsympathetic council, then they can make life very difficult regardless of the validity of the original complaint. With respect to Mildenhall though, it would seem not to be a terrible result for the track although the only winners are the lawyers..

Some teams are rumoured to have budgets of 100K per year now, which is ridiculous money to be spending on what's supposed to be the most basic form of motor sport. The only good thing is you can quick up decent kit quite cheaply from the people who burn pound notes for a hobby...

Would have thought it's merely "swann'ing" around in an already "flood'ed" market, but there you go... We all have our inadequacies, but mine at least aren't losing lots of money...

I'll post what I wish on a public forum. If you don't like people having a different opinion to you, then just ignore the comments.

Not in the slightest - I could moan all day about the stupid amounts of money being spent on a motor sport disciple with almost no prize money. However, whilst we get nothing from the MSA, they are at least trying to fund the grassroots of the sport in their own hamfisted way...

British speedway will linger on in some form or other, but the SGP wouldn't survive for long without the national leagues because the riders simply couldn't make a living out of what it pays. Looked like it was burning through a fortune from whatever angle you look at it. Nothing wrong in trying and things not working out, but it does put it all into perspective. Is running a clothes store really the next big thing though..?

Different sports and different set-ups. In other motor sports, the world championships are largely standalone and self-sustaining and not pulling competitors out of other professional competitions. The likes F1 and MotoGP also pay premium rates for the competitors, probably the most in those disciplines, whereas that's not the case in speedway. I don't blame BSI for it, but the setup is ridiculous. Sure the BSPA (and the PZM and SVEMO for that matter) are inept for allowing the situation to develop, but in virtually every other sport you can mention, the incumbent governing bodies financially benefit from the premier event in their sport. The FA benefits from the Football World Cup, the ECB benefits from the Cricket World Cup, yet how much does the BSPA or even ACU benefit from the SGP/SWC? As for how well BSI run matters, perhaps they do a better job than the BSPA, but how well they do with Reading when they actually had to pay market rates for the riders...?

We all choose our own poison, and it's certainly the case that the Elite League has daft rules and is poor value for money these days. However, watching the same riders over-and-over again bores me stupid, and a dull individual meeting can't even be enlivened with the tactical elements you have in team meetings. I did think the SGP circus was better last season, but 11 rounds is overkill. I also don't think it's that brilliantly run either - a 'rain-off' in an indoor stadium comes to mind.. They're leveraging the supposed prestige of the World Championship to get the competitors at a knock-down price, as well as using FIM prioritisation to get the optimal dates. Well done to IMG/BSI for exploiting this, but how the national speedway authorities allowed this state-of-affairs to pass is to their shame. 2-3 million quid going out the sport...

I suppose some might argue that riding in the SGP and SWC is a bit of showcase and helps you secure employment in national leagues. However, I certainly don't think riders should be expected to take all the risks for peanuts whilst others are making money off the back of them. Rather than squabbling amongst themselves, the BSPA would be better served questioning why so much money is disappearing out of the sport to third parties, and then trying to do something about it.

It's difficult to determine how profitable the SWC is compared to the SGP, but the one thing for certain is that it's not the riders who're profiting the most. BSI appear to pay the FIM just over GBP 1.4 million per year for the SGP and SWC rights. The FIM are responsible for paying the prize money which presumably comes out of this, but this amounted to just over USD 1 million per year for the SGP and SWC combined, which converts to about GBP 650K at the current exchange rate. Not sure whether the FIM pays some of the expenses of the officials (accommodation has to be covered by the event organisers), but it's probably not unreasonable to say the FIM are profiting to the tune of GBP 700K per year. BSI themselves recorded a profit of GBP 1.6 million in 2009, and a similar amount the year before. Profitability seemed to have been patchy in the preceding years though, although some of those losses may have been down to high staff costs and other ventures. The profitability also has to be put in the context of the parent company IMG(UK) losing GBP 15 million on other activities. With respect to the SWC, the winning team receives USD 25K (GBP 15.4K) with the lowest placed team receiving USD 8.5K (GBP 5.2K) from which all expenses have to be paid. Divide that between the 5 riders and the team manager, and you can see you're not going to get rich unless you can supplement that with sponsorship.

Croatia is hardly the back of beyond and enough people speak English that you can get around easily enough. I'd do it myself.

Thought this was a good issue. The article on team management was particularly good, and simply reinforces my belief that team racing is 'real speedway' rather than the one-dimensional individual stuff that seems to be in vogue nowadays.

If you fulfil the qualifying criteria (i.e. obtain a FIA Super Licence) then you almost certainly would find a drive. The requirements for entering your own F1 team are also laid down, even if they are quite stringent (and expensive). I might just pay a visit to the Speedway Star archive in the loft though, to dig out the editorials railing against a closed GP system...

I'd imagine the attempted re-opening of Norwich (Swaffham) a few years back possibly put the backs up of certain members of the BSPA. [Without passing comment on the rights and wrongs of that.]

I'm not a fan of recurring subscriptions, but I don't think it unreasonable to charge a one-off for something that's taken time, effort and undoubtedly has required the purchase of a programming environment to develop. At the end of the day, no-one is forcing anyone to buy it, and 2.99 is cheaper than a paper programme.

There are multiple GPs in Poland because they sell out and the locals are prepared to pay IMG/BSI their asking price. Sweden is an interesting one, but there were rumours going around a few years ago that they were awarded two GPs to resolve some sort of legal issue. With Denmark, one wonders if the award of a GP to Vojens was part of the deal to retire Olsen as SGP Race Director.

If you can't sell out one GP, why would you stage a second that would double your costs and may well split the crowd? The Cardiff GP is undoubtedly also the showcase round of the SGP, and another British GP would potentially dilute its impact.

I suspect another problem at the time, was the declared intention to take GPs to major venues. Of course, there's since been a bit of a backtracking on that score, but Gillman would be a bit of a struggle under any circumstances.

It was probably not just the travel costs. Stadium Australia is unlikely to have come cheap and was always going to be vastly too big for the GP, plus there was the track construction for a one-off event, and so on and so forth... What would be interesting to know though, is whether the World Pairs Final at Liverpool back in 1982 made money. The track is now long gone of course, but I've never seen any discussion about the costs of staging the event there. That was an ambitious year for speedway, what with the World Individual Final being held outside of Europe as well.