enotian

Agreed but not every Championship fixture is being streamed. So you might get to see Berwick at Plymouth but not Berwick at Newcastle depending on what fixtures they choose to stream. If all teams feature equally (notwithstanding Play Offs/Finals etc) then each team will feature, on average, once every 5 meetings but you'll have subscribed/paid to watch them all. Still a positive innovation just not perhaps what people seem to be interpreting this as.

It says subscription.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but this sounds like a really positive move. It doesn't sound like every fixture will be streamed but rather "over 30 meetings from all 11 venues". So roughly three from each track with each team hopefully featuring about six times (3 home, 3 away) as a rough estimate. Also, it doesn't sound like a pay per view option but rather subscription based. Where you pay for the whole season or maybe monthly and have access to all content while you have a live subscription. If that's correct there shouldn't be a mass exodus from attending in person but the question is will enough people subscribe for content in which the team they support features in about 20%, i.e. once every 5 meetings streamed? No doubt it will need to evolve over time in terms of production standards, price and content but certainly sounds like a step in the right direction. Depending on price and guaranteed content (i.e. how many time the Diamonds will feature) I'd be tempted.

Vast improvement? Whilst most of the content is unchanged the visuals are a great improvement. If I was a layman looking for fixtures to attend the new site seems that much more vibrant. Hopefully they'll keep refreshing it with the latest action.

Nice. I'm still swaying towards the Collins' given that extra world finalist. Could there be a Lawson septet? Maybe a surnames 4TT would be competitive. Collins', Pedersen's, Jansson's, Williams'

Like it. Maybe not the top end strength of the Pedersen's but more strength in depth.

1 world Champion? How many were World Finalists? How many were top flight heatleaders? Pedersen's have 2 world champions and a GP winner as a heat leader trio,

I'm aware of Tommy and Bengt as World Final standard riders, who is the other? Who would be the 2nd strings and reserves? I recall the lad from Ipswich from recent history.

Which era were Eric and Mark?

Who would be the seven? Were there three brothers?

I was thinking off Brian Collins in the top five. Not related but decent top flight rider in the 70's? Wembley?

Could they field a 7 man team to rival the Collins' or Pedersen's?

Who wins? 15 heat 7 man team match between a team whose riders surname is Collins and a team whose riders surname is Pedersen. From any era in the sport. Are these the two most prominent surnames in speedway history or are there any others worthy of mention?

“Our final rider will, I can say now, be a rider with an average that will keep us close to the new points limit, and this also means we have a solid team with strength-in-depth the key that we believe will gain us success on track. They will be a team of entertainers, a team who all want to race for us and get us, and our fans triumphs to cheer from day one to the end of October. 2022 is going to be a year to remember at Brough Park!” You didn't dream it. Plus it was part of the same press release which announced Wilson Dean and Congreve so no arm twisting has occurred post the assertion of being close to the points limit. A couple of things could have happened post the press release. 1. Congreve as a 4.00 instead of a 2.00 or 2. the points limit is different to what was expected. At the time I thought the statement inferred that the 7th rider was signed. But with hindsight it sounds aspirational more than anything.

I recall the one season 1 to 7 home and 8 to 14 away (like Poland do) trial but i'm struggling to recall squad numbers? I'm sure it was a massive success.

In a world where merchandise can be a profitable income stream is it not only a matter of time that the riders insist on wearing their own 'unique' rider number? "And riding at number 1 it's number 505 Robert Lambert!!!". No different to when squad numbers were introduced in football and it doesn't seem to matter in SGP.

It's all relative to how the opposition lines up isn't it. Presuming that the away team gets to see how the home team has lined up. So if the home team line up with a 'traditional order' the comparison provided by Humphrey below is key. If the away team manager thinks his highest averaged rider is unlikely to defeat the home teams #1 (or their #5 as well) then you wouldn't select them in position #1 or #5, putting them up against the home #1 and #5 on 4 occasions, in the first 14 heats. Presuming that the away highest average rider can beat all the other home riders (2, 3, 4, 6 and 7) then placing him in position 4 would yield 10 from 4. Compared to 8 from 4 in the number 1 position. Of course that would mean lower averaged riders taking harder rides so their scores may drop by the equivalent or more so nothing is guaranteed. But if you knew that one of your lower averaged riders was going to struggle against any of the opposition you might as well put them up against the tougher opposition. Of course it does rob the paying public of seeing the top riders from each team locking horns as often as they do with the fixed line ups. Which is presumably why they're fixed. I'm not too fussed about seeing the opposing best riders up against each other three times during the meeting and would be more interested in the tactical nuances (I still wish every rider could take one TAC sub per meeting whenever a team is 6 down). However, there'll be others who want to see those top riders clashing more often.

It's relatively recently isn't it. Last 20 years or so. Done to appeal to the mass TV audiences.

Agree. Choice of R/R or handicap. Keep it simple. Missing riders average less the average of the no.8 replacing them (i.e. 9 pointer missing replaced by a 2 pointer, add 7 points to the team total at the end of the match), retaining 7 man teams and given opportunity to no.8 youngsters. Potentially for a missing no.1 or no.2 uplift the average to reflect 5 heats but you don't want to incentivise missing top men. If both teams are operating a no.8 replacement net off the handicaps so only the team with the highest handicap value has the net handicap added to the team total at the end of the match.

mid 80's when I first got into speedway Havelock, Dugard and Silver were the future of British/World speedway. All had great debut seasons in the old National League (Div 2 for newbies) averaging 7 ish in a fairly strong league with the likes of Kennett, Jessup and Collins in it you'd been World Finalists not to long before. I'd have said Dugard would have been the one to become a World Champ. World Final debut at Bradford in 1990? Must have been in his early 20's at most. Seemed to freeze in the spotlight and scored nothing or next to nothing. Don't ever recall him doing anything on an international stage thereafter apart from the wildcard (at Brandon?). Superb domestically for a long time, against all the top guys in the World.

The 15 heat format is pretty good in that it provides a min of 4 rides from 4 different programmed gates for each rider. Not sure if each rider faces every opponent? But you're never going to get the perfect formula in that respect, apart from a 16 heat 4TT. What the 15 heat formula has done is given an advantage to teams with two strong heat leaders over teams with strength in depth. Those teams have to be more than 8 ahead going into heat 13 to stand a chance of winning with heat 13 and 15 likely to yield an 8 point turnaround. It's all a bit predictable and stage managed I kind of understand placing the highest averaged rider at number 1 what with the top averaged rider naturally being referred to as the teams No.1 but I don't think it is that difficult a concept to grasp for the general public. I like the idea of different types of team (strength in depth vs strong heat leaders carrying a tail) and I think allowing teams to line up tactically to counter the oppositions strength would only add to the unpredictability. I don't see why a rider can't occupy any of the 7 positions. The lowest two averaged riders will still be the reserves regardless of which position they line up in. Whilst I like the idea of each rider having a start from each gate I think allowing a team that's trailing by 6 to choose the best gates is also a way of increasing the unpredictability of a match which has to be a good thing.

Another BSPL announcement that ends up generating more questions than providing answers.... ....not exactly great communication. No doubt vague enough to allow it to be made up on the hoof. I think we can all agree that young riders need more track time and in that respect the idea is a sound one. But what's the level? The fixed race nights would allow CL #7 standard riders to participate which could make it really competitive and challenging for the young riders. Or is it SGP4 250/125cc level? Those kids need track time to but it's not a natural progression from that standard to a PL Rising Star. No doubt all will be revealed when they've decided how it will work.

Track Cycling? Martial Arts? How many teams win a world championship after seven minutes of action? Not a fair comparison. If you compare to a team sport where matches last 80-90 minutes the world champs are held over a number of weeks. Relatively speaking, using the football FIFA world cup as an example, your country might get knocked out after three matches (the third may actually be a dead rubber but let's say three) those three matches equate to 5% of the entire tournament time (if all matches last 90 mins). If your country is knocked out of a 27 heat SON after two heats they've appeared in 7% of the entire tournament time.

The hope would be that the jeopardy of elimination for finishing last would alter the mindset and induce team riding. The 4,3,2,0 scoring didn't really do it in the round robin format whereby the leader rarely looked like risking the 4 points even if their opponents were accumulating 5.

Yeah, as I said above the seven team format does seem to generate the right number of heats but does that make it the most entertaining format? I'd prefer 16 counties in a knock out style competition rather than the round robin format. Fair enough all the countries don't face each other and some are eliminated after only two heats but that's fairly standard for world championships