RoundTheBoards

The original Sky deal was £5M over 5 years. Terry Russell took 20% finders fee. So a cool £1M over the 5 years. The remaining £4M (£800k per season) was split with each team getting £55k-ish each (which basically they used to pay for their No.1 rider) and then a couple of grand for staging each match. Some went to BSPA running costs. The current TV deal is worth very little to the clubs.

It's still one of the top rated TV programmes, still pulls in the viewing figures, and gets tens of thousands of applicants to go on each series, so full respect to Paul Bowen for what he's done in getting there. But the programme is now a parody of its former self. It used to be a semi-serious attempt to find a business brain, in the days of contestants like Tim Campbell and Ruth Badger. Alas now it's purely played for laughs and scripted and edited to make the candidates look like idiots. (And clearly some are chosen because they are idiots, like the one who clapped when told they'd had to give away 52% of their turnover in refunds). But you can guarantee that when other team used crumble mix instead of breadcrumbs, it was because that had been set up by the producers. It's definitely pre-produced and played for laughs these days and not to be taken seriously.

No harm in dropping him a line and asking him to investigate the goings on at Swindon. Oliver.Holt@dailymail.co.uk

Lindgen, Kylmakorpi, Fricke etc. all lived in Andorra. Not sure how many of them still do.

Yes. Unless you're a Non-Dom.

And how many British riders do you think are on a £500k deal with a Polish club?

Why would anyone choose to be a limited company and pay 25% corporation tax when they only pay 20% income tax as a sole trader? Like I said, you'd have to be making serious profits to gain anything, and how many riders finish a season with profits way over £50k? (probably would need to be profits approaching £100k to get any worthwhile benefit)

To what benefit? How many riders end the season having made a profit seriously in excess of £50k?

Not worth the extra hassle unless you're earning big and then the benefits aren't massive. I think it's only this year that Woffinden and Bewley started limited companies.

I doubt many riders are limited companies (I know Tai Woffinden, Rob Lambert and Dan Bewley are) but that's irrelevant anyway. Even as self-employed sole-traders they can still claim 45p per mile for business miles.

I'm hearing Mickie Simpson as the next name set to be announced by Scunthorpe/Sheffield

I don't get this point. Development and winning are not mutually exclusive. To a large extent they go hand in hand. Speedway is about winning. Being the first past the chequered flag. And development is learning to win. The league is about development and the league is about winning. I bet there's no one in the Polish U-24 league who thinks it's not about winning.

Because you can only have 7 rides in a team, and since everyone expects Will Cairns to come in once he turns 15, someone would have to make way.

Curious move. Will Sonny get the boot when Will Cairns turns 15? Thought Springer might have gone somewhere with a more secure team place.

Hope he googled "Minors & Brady Estate Agents" and not "Minors & Ian Brady"

Replace Dicken with Max Perry if you're just going to ignore the points limit like that!

Harry McGurk confirmed.

There's only 5 home NDL matches, and enough Saturdays in the season for his two clubs to avoid any clashes.

J Thompson 9.08 T Spencer 5.78 M James 5.70 A Butcher 4.69 V Foord 3.81 C King 3.39 W Cairns 3.00

Belle Vue have loaned him to Redcar for the 2024 Championship season. Doesn't look like he'll start the 2024 season in the Premiership, but could come in if a Rising Star or reserve gets injured.

3 NDL meetings at Edinburgh at the end of the 2021 season, is 3 NDL meetings at Edinburgh at the end of a season. Not enough to gain an average. A full season at Belle Vue is a full season at Belle Vue. As I said, the only full season he's had. A season where he went from 3.00 to 5.29 which is pretty decent. He crashed out in his first meeting of 2023, and made 1 guest appearance in the last match of the year.... So still only completed 1 full NDL season. It's not difficult to understand. I didn't say he'd become heat leader standard. In his only full season he increased his average by 2.29 which is very decent.

But you thought he'd never achieved a 4 average, when the reality is that in his one and only full season in the NDL he went from 3.00 to 5.29

And his average is 5.29 which isn't "yet to get above a 4 average"

Only if you wanted them to end up being called "Oxford Cheetah McCheetahface". With Oxford being synonymous with boating, it might have been better to honour the local river and called the team "Oxford Isis"

You asked the question on Saturday.... The day after the team had been announced. ...And you asked literally right in the middle of a discussion on what people thought of the announced team. Perhaps there is a need to get smart after all.