Steve Shovlar

Linus riding far better than Grazonek. Nicholls certainly strengthens Belle Vue at Poole. A fixture. Rohan Tungate- R, 2, 0, 1=3 A fixture. 5. Scott Nicholls 3, 3, 2, 3, 2' = 13+1 Swings the balance to Belle Vue.

Yes there’s a lot more to it than that. For starters just because it’s streamed doesn’t mean you have to watch it on a laptop, ipad or anything in between. I watch internet streamed Polish speedway on a sunday afternoon in HD on a 55 inch TV. You can either do this directly through a smart tv, or you could use a laptop or ipad, or iphone, or android phone, to stream via Google Chromecast for a 30 quid outlay. I use Chromecast to watch youtube on tv. All extremely simple to use.

Two Poles at reserve? Tungate is not good at Poole. Has he ever had a really good meeting? Nicholls carries far more threat.

What money? £3000 doesn’t go anywhere near covering the shortfall left by stayaway fans watching on the box. The experiment of charging a tenner never worked either as clubs didn’t make up the shortfall with fans coming in.

I am also a fan of broadcast speedway. I like the coverage on BT as I enjoyed the coverage previously on Sky. But these multi billion pound companies should not be dictating that they can have British speedway for nothing. By doing so we have now seen the collapse of one club and many others are struggling. If they want the product on their screens they should darn well pay for it. They pay millions of pounds per football match. Crystal Palace v WBA costs something like 9.3 million to screen. 9.3 million for a whole season of speedway would be good vfm. And yet they pay a club 3000 pounds to screen a live speedway meeting which takes up similar air time. Even if the excuse that more people watch the football, how many £3000 go into £9.3 million? There isn’t THAT many more fans watching (x3,100) Ten times more perhaps.

But so what? BT are the ones to benefit, not speedway. They have a unique product, and they can sell advertising. By all accounts viewing figures are favourable. So a win for them. What does speedway get out of it? Lower gates at the televised meeting. Time for speedway to take control of their product and make some money through streaming. Other sports do it alreading including ice hockey. If it works for them there’s no reason why it can’t bring money into uk clubs.

Having incorrect captions is down to their crew, not the equipment. No, the standard will not be “broadcast quality”. Having broadcast quality would be overkill for an online stream. Subscribers would expect, “good enough” but wouldn’t expect broadcast quality with fancy graphics and Pearson and Tatum. They could have a good dvd commentator like the guy from Belle Vue. Plus a guy doing interviews from a fixed position in the pits. Four cameras would do a decent job. BT bring nothing to the sport. They pay nothing and take away fans from the stadium. No benefits. Unless they are prepared to pay a good price the contract should be terminated imo.

Hearing a statement is due any day. Bad news. The cackers have had the prefab stands away to the scrappers. Osborne, with sad look on face, says there’s no more to be said and is offering a couple of tins of b&q paint for the back straight bogs. ’I received a call this morning, informing me that the stands have vanished, said a distraught Osborne. ‘I immediately headed over to the storage in South Wales, and discovered all our stands, which were about to be shipped down the M4 to Blunsdon, had mysteriously disappeared. We are disappointed. We will now have to start from scratch and unfortunately this will lead to a lengthy delay before any work gets underway’.

Not even half of one of those stacks. We are not talking broadcast setup. No cafe bus. No producer, scaffolder, satellite links etc. really is cheap to do. Sabmar in Poland do exactly this. If you have seen their internet broadcasts you will see what can be done on a budget and its free from them. The advertising pays for everything.

Much, much cheaper than you would think. There’s a lot of companies manufacturing completely affordable equipment. Several thousand would have a very pro setup. The studio mixer is a laptop. A quality internet connection is the main requirement but nearly everywhere has fibre broadband nowdays. Certainly good enough for this. Any of the video boys could have a setup running in no time. All revenue to speedway for minimal outlay plus wages for the guys.

Fair enough the price I gave was just an opinion. Didn’t think £2.50 a meeting was too expensive.

The deal that the BSPA have with BT is not worth it. A few promoters argued this at the time and I was one who thought it was imperative that speedway in the UK had a tv deal. Now I have changed my mind and believe BSPA should pull out of the deal and get a streaming channel up and running for next season. The BT deal brings in no money. In fact it costs clubs as the hosting club loses revenue when BT are in town. Unless BT come in with a deal similar to what Sky were paying, then time to say goodbye. In its place, a monthly subscription to a streaming service. £20 a month for 2 live meetings a week, one from the Prem and one from the Championship, as well as behind the scenes shows, interviews, q&a sessions live where fans can ask questions to riders/promoters etc, which are being produced by companies such as speedway portal. The money is then divided up between clubs. This will bring in far more than BT are offering. Promoters may think they would lose money as fans would watch online and not attend. But I wouldn't’ attend Belle Vue v Swindon but would pay a subscription to watch it. And then clubs would benefit. There would be no problem having video companies do the streaming. I bet Pete Ballinger or Speedway Portal would be keen as mustard to get the chance. Thoughts?

Great meeting. Thought Leszno had that sewn up. What do I know. Great comeback.

1.Frederik Jakobsen - 1,1,0,1,1 = 4

Never rode over here. Belle Vue in the 90th anniversary, that’s about it. Rode at the Poole P&P in March. Looked quite good.

The problem is clearly Worrall and Grazonek. Neither have done anything of note this year.

What the hell happened there? Taking grass track to a new level!

I don’t. He spent 95% of his time on here being abusive to nearly all and sundry. Puts himself on some kind of pedestal when in fact he is nothing more than a speedway fan, like the rest of us. Calling people names in virtually every post that are brimming with venom. Not a nice person.

Spanner seemed to lose his bottle in recent weeks. Bit lightweight and moved our easily. Looks the same in Poland. From a ride topping the averages last season to where he is now is quite startling. But no wonder he has been moved out the team. We can’t really lose with Jackobsen. He should score no less than Spanner but could possibly score more. Looks the part. But there’s plenty of riders about with all the gear, no idea. Time will tell.

A decent race and yep, Nicki does his dying swan. So bloody typical.

This is absolute, utter *ollocks.

There may well be other teams who can put together more impressive teams under a no limit system. At least this way we are not pandering to the weakest link.

Dire first 5 heats. Will the footy take over at 7?

It might have with the first sentence, but you soon put the boot in.

Didn’t see Steve0 moaning much on here last season when Museliak signed for Swindon. He was the biggest ringer in the sports recent history.