Humphrey Appleby

So nothing to do with sanctions then - glad we cleared that up. Funny also that One Sport managed to hold a round of the SEC in Russia, despite being a Polish company that would also be subject to sanctions if they applied. Stick to the facts, not fanciful storytelling - although that would be a first.

I thought you previously said plenty of venues were interested in hosting a GP? With respect to a Russian GP, I expect the reality was that the asking price was more than the locals were prepared to pay, and/or there were pay-offs that needed to be made. BSI is a UK-registered company, and in any case, I don't think the sanctions apply to sports and entertainment whether UK/EU or US. The fact that IMG are operating a office in Moscow suggests it can't be an issue even for a US-owned company, and after all, England recently competed in a World Cup held there.

Except it isn't the Speedway World Cup - it's a best pairs competition with an occasional Under 21 rider. Just call it the Speedway World Pairs (or Speedway World Triples if you like), then you won't contravene the trade description act.

I'd say the World Cup is now totally overblown, and will be even worse with 48 teams. I think the expansion has very little to do with who has or hasn't won the World Cup - there's generally more competitive teams than there were, simply because the best players in each country will nowadays often play in the best leagues in the world. But there's actually only been one new winner in the past 20 years (Spain), which was hardly a minnow nation and arguably well overdue for a win.

An historical county, county borough, or modern ceremonial or preserved county? I'd think many speedway teams over the years would have been situated in county boroughs.

Even more countries could put out one competitive rider, but at what point does it cease to become a team competition? Two riders is not a proper team competition in my book, however well it might have worked, and you also have the issue where 5 countries are sitting out each heat. The SWC was generally the best international competition over the years, and usually produced good racing. Absolutely ridiculous to be changing the format because one country happens to have a run of success. The Poles are far less dominant than Denmark were in the 80s, England/Britain were in the 70s, and Sweden were in the 60s, and they didn't radically change the World Team Cup format then. Did FIFA turn the World Cup into a 5-a-side competition after Brazil won it a few times?

Shame about the 'stadium' or actually being near to anywhere.

There's no point wringing one's hands about social changes and trying to turn back the clock - it's happened, and will continue to happen, and unless the entertainment adapts then it's not going to survive. I think stopped going to pubs for a variety of reasons unrelated to laziness. The sad reality is that despite all the claims about pubs having to diversity with food and satellite television and the like, most pubs were sustained by a hardcore of regular drinkers who now prefer to buy cheaper supermarket booze and watch on Sky on their own big screen televisions where they can smoke as well. The trend was already happening, but the smoking ban was the final nail in the coffin for a lot of pubs.

Most sports would be in trouble - they're all reliant on television and sponsorship these days. Not least because as revenue increases, the competitors not unreasonably expect a significant percentage of it, and as you always have to have winners and losers in sport, it becomes an arms race to sign them. Cricket would have to substantially scale back its expenses, but still gets significantly better crowds than speedway, especially at international level. But the point is surely that cricket is able to pull in decent television and sponsorship deals, it still get good media coverage, and it has high-level support that speedway can only dream of.

Cricket has its issues, but those issues pale into insignificance when compared with speedway. And despite appearing to be run by a bunch of old f**ts, it's always managed to revitalise itself - first with one day, then one afternoon and more recently T20 cricket - when interest appeared to be declining. And it certainly commands much better television and sponsorship deals than anything speedway can hope for.

I'd have thought the combined danger of bikes potentially hitting a concrete lip at 70 mph as the shale shifted, or falling onto a rock hard surface on the fastest part of the circuit, would have had substantial safety issues.

Supposedly to stop the top riders dominating, but possibly another cost cutting measures as fixed gates tended to reduce the scoring opportunities for the top riders who'd presumably on higher points money.

There was an indoor circuit in Washington DC...?

It's probably a condition of having a race licence, and although I doubt they can actually force you to take a test, you'll then be deemed to have refused one.

I'd rather see guests for heat leaders replaced with some sort of handicap system to balance up the disadvantage.

Well not necessarily. There's far less of a tolerance for drink and drugs in competition testing than what's legally acceptable to drive on the road.

I read Phillipe's comments as it being an idea popular amongst promoters. But frankly, the Premiership is down to its dregs and the Championship is hardly looking that healthy either. A bigger league will at least offer more fixture variety, because repetition, regardless of the number of local derbies you stage, just becomes boring and encourages fans to miss particular teams they've already seen. It doesn't appeal to purists, although they're a dying breed anyway, but you can keep interest alive throughout the season by having half the teams qualify for 'playoffs'. You give teams finishing higher up the table some advantage like byes and second chances and it can still be credible. For me there should be just a couple of leagues - a merged Premiership and Championship run at a cost-effective level with maybe 14-16 teams, and a National League featuring the rest. In terms of riders per team, it really needs to come down to practicalities and what sort of match/meeting format you adopt. 5 rider teams are largely impractical if you're running a 15-heat programme because not you'll not only end-up with riders having to routinely take 6 programmed rides, but it's impossible to devise a heat format where you can avoid some riders getting two programmed rides on the trot. That just induces unnecessary delays, even before you factor in tactical subs, R/R, reserve rides etc... You can devise a reasonable heat format with 6 rider teams, although they become farcical if teams are allowed to turn up with only 5 riders (a la R/R without an additional rider having to nominate). And the savings are not going to be all that great beyond the travel expenses of one rider, because you're still having to pay out money for 15 heats and 4 of the 6 riders will be routinely taking an extra ride compared to now.

So much for the claims it would alternate with the SWC then. So the World Team Championship is now formally reduced to a best pairs competition. Not sure how a joker can work where pairs have only ridden the same number of times at the end of Heats 7, 14 and 21?

It would save a lot of hassle if you actually didn't have the tapes any more. It's hardly beyond the bounds of technology to use a laser or transponders to detect whether riders have moved too early. And also no problems with the tapes going up unevenly either. Just go on the green light being turned off.

My recollection was there was a junior event and then some qualifying races for the Golden Helmet on the Saturday, but in fairness that may have been before 1997!

I think there's certainly a danger it would impact the crowd that normally goes to the Golden Helmet, which is arguably one of the most prestigious non-GP events. But it's probably also because a GP would divert financial and human resources from the organisation of that. As for a double header, doesn't the Golden Helmet get run over a couple of days anyway, so not sure how that would work with a GP in the mix?

Yes, because mainstream soccer in the UK is largely the preserve of Sky and BT who collectively pay GBP 1.15 billion per year for the privilege. The terrestrial channels can't justify the cost. NBC pays about GBP 125 million per year because 'soccer' is nothing like the attraction in the US, and the Premier League knows it can't get away with charging what it charges UK broadcasters. Different market, different valuation, despite there probably being more soccer fans in the US than UK.

The US is not the biggest global market for speedway though, and in fact, the sport is probably hardly known to the wider public there. BSI are not going to risk the substantial costs that a US-based GP would entail off their own bat, and certainly not a few years ago when they had other serious issues with other GPs. The Melbourne GP seems to have been a mates rates sort of arrangement, and the AFL didn't keep it around after they took ownership of the venue. IMG largely, although not exclusively, seems to build its business model around minor sports which don't have high overheads, where the commercial rights can be acquired cheaply, and which can be easily sold to television as filler content. Speedway is a bit of an oddity in that it has quite high overheads for a minor sport, but maybe the existing business arrangements whereby local promoters took much of the risk, and the FIM covered the prize money, were attractive. However, IMG is not much interested in improving the lot of the spectator, because their revenue primarily comes from television and sponsorship. They need one or two prestige events to impress sponsors, but why would they want to improve the wider portfolio of venues when it offers little benefit to them? That's undoubtedly one of the reasons why they're disinterested in how individual GPs are promoted.

Difference is they're the club, presumably know what it would cost to host a GP, and don't think it's worthwhile to risk the future of the club for. Maybe the local municipality is also not interested in supporting for the same reasons.

You know as well as I do that they don’t have to rubber stamp a local nomination, and as Bavarian as just pointed out, have done otherwise in the past.