RoundTheBoards

So you think Louis is staying on and is meeting with riders? Isn't Louis currently in Aussie with family?

To do a deal with which Ipswich? Louis' Ipswich? Mystery buyer's Ipswich? or former mystery buyer's Ipswich?

Tungate is 35, Wright 37, and Zagar 42. Belle Vue go mainly for young riders. I can see them going for one mid-30s rider with experience in the middle-order, but none of those three.

Indeed. Not exactly a secret that Louis said from an early stage that he wouldn't join a single league set-up, and that he didn't want a 5 team Premiership.

No. Louis was against one league. He wanted a Premiership with at least 6 teams. He threatened that he would rather put Ipswich up for sale rather than run in one big league or a 5-team Premiership. BV, Leicester, Lynn and Sheffield also wanted a 6-team league, but were happy to go with 5 if necessary. Louis spat his dummy at 5 teams, and felt he had to go ahead with his threat to sell.

I'm only getting post one day per week on either a Tuesday or Wednesday. It includes the previous week's Star

4.40 if you prefer him to Kemp

R Douglas 8.12 S Masters 7.28 N Morris 5.89 D Thompson 5.87 K Howarth 5.00 D Kemp 4.72 L Killeen R/S

Sounds like they've got 5, and it will be 6 if Ipswich is sorted. At least a bit of good news for Christmas.

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https://britishspeedway.co.uk/rowe-motor-oil-premiership/premiership-2026-update/

He has only been with the GBGB for 3 months

Has anyone closer to Ipswich got any information on the sale of the club and the prospect of Ipswich being able to come to the tapes in 2026? All I'm hearing is that there's still the same consortium (which involves at least one sponsor - but not Guy Nicholls) that is interested in buying it, with an offer they put in a while back, but Chris Louis is still pondering the next move. Is he putting an unrealistic value on the club because he doesn't want to quit? Companies House values the club balance sheet at £3,417, but rumour has it that Louis is asking for about 60 times this amount!

Absolutely. This is the question. Surely there are 2 ways to do this deal. 1. Speedway Futures pay a fee (say) £1m per year for commercial rights. They then go out and sell a TV deal, named league sponsorship, etc for whatever they can. If they get a £1.5m TV deal and a £500k league sponsor, they're quids in. If they only get a £250k TV deal and £50K league sponsor, they stand the loss. or 2. They have a non-exclusive deal as a broker. They pay nothing, and go out to find a TV deal and sponsor etc. They then charge a 20% finders fee on anything they bring in. (but this would be non-exclusive, so you, me, anyone, could do the same and collect a commission percentage). They can't possibly pay nothing but still claim all the exclusive rights and have no comeback on themselves if they fail. Only an idiot would grant that deal to them.

It's only a couple of months since he became Chairman of the Greyhound Racing Board. Before that he became Chairman of Star Bookmaking group. Now he's suddenly into Speedway. And he's also set to become non-executive director of The Racecourse Association in January https://racecourseassociation.co.uk/rca-confirms-appointments-of-new-chief-executive-officer-and-non-executive-director/ He certainly seems to like picking up these roles since losing his seat in Parliament. I guess you've got to replace the income from somewhere.

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I know it's being rebranded after the sale, but the last time I passed our local one I'm sure it still had WH Smith up. It's not a shop I go in really, so I wouldn't know. Like I say, I know they stopped stocking the Star many, many years ago, but it's easily found in the big supermarkets.

I know a good many years ago (10 years or more) WH Smith wanted a payment to stock Speedway Star in their shops, so the Star stopped stocking it there. (That was a long time ago, so it may well have changed, and the Star may be back on the WHS shelves - I don't know). But I do know it is stocked in Asda, Tesco and Morrisons. When my subscription copy is delayed in the post, I usually have a read through one in Asda when I'm shopping.

I agree, you have made a pathetic response. At least you agree that back in the day we had a one-off world final, and now we have G.P.s. Back then, the Star had photos from the world final in the following week, and now they have photos from the G.P.s in the following weeks. In the other weeks, we get a photo of whatever is being reported from that week, just as we always have. The only difference is that the internet makes it much quicker to get information these days, and we can now get rapid information from abroad, which we couldn't do back in the day. And of course, modern digital editing means they can produce much more striking cover photos. So really, no one knows what you were moaning about in the first place!

How do we tempt you? You seemed a decent guy in the brief time you were involved. You'd make a good Ipswich owner. If you don't fancy Ipswich, how about being the one to open Northampton?

Unfortunately your crowd wouldn't turn up either! . We all know that to include riders who also have contracts abroad, you can only have a Monday and Thursday league. The alternative of an "any day" league has to be without those with foreign contracts. Anyone in denial of those facts is starting from an impossible position.

If you look at all the responses, (some samples above), most, including me, have applauded the effort of trying to come up with something new, even though we have then pointed out that it is flawed and unworkable.

The @AlexBrady account on here seems to really be him. He reacted to a post as recently as last month.

Superb response. Thoroughly shows up all the flaws. Like you say, a good effort, but fatally flawed in many areas. The biggest flaw is there wouldn't be enough riders available for 14 seven man teams, so it falls down right there without the rest. AI just doesn't understand enough about speedway.

Who are Ipswich's 2nd biggest sponsor? I was told last weekend that there were 2 interested parties. One was a sponsor. I immediately jumped to Guy Nicholls, but was told definitely not him. So I was trying to think of Ipswich's 2nd biggest sponsor. But then my source didn't say an Ipswich sponsor, just a sponsor. So Alex Brady did come to my mind too. The other bidder, I'm led to believe has promoting experience but isn't Nigel Tolley. It sounded like they are only interested if there are no other bidders, just to keep the club going.