enotian

to be a success the series has to be profitable. I'm sure everyone would like to see a series held across the globe but at this point in time if you made that a stipulation there'd be no series. nobody could make it pay. of course you still have to manage the quality of the product and in that respect Gorzow wasn't too bad. certainly better than the previous two rounds. maybe there's a danger of the series being viewed as Polish centric but how many rounds does MotoGP have in Spain? Nobody calls it the Spanish championship. They go where they can sell tickets and attract sponsors/subsidy. the series does need to reach a wider market but it's also limited by the number of nationalities represented. with only 16 riders it's difficult to say promote a SGP round or the series in France with only one wildcard appearance for a French rider. at this point you can't really look beyond the core speedway territories. it looks like Discovery Sports have a desire to expand the series, which makes complete sense if you want to increase subscriptions and/or TV rights but how the do it is the trick. If only there was a Euro wide league in which the best tracks across Europe could stage meetings and build up some resources and infrastructure to be able to host GP rounds successfully??? Then during the winter they could transplant the whole thing to the southern hemisphere/USA.

After heat 12 at Gorzow in previous SGP's Red Gate has accumulated 30% of the points, Blue 27%, Yellow 23% and White 20%. Will it be replicated tonight?

Gorzow stats since 2015: Unsurprisingly the Zmarzlik show Most race points - Zmarzlik 90 pts (23 wins), Woffinden 86 pts (16 wins), Doyle 73 points (11 wins) Gate race points - Red 28%, Blue 25%, Yellow 26% and White 21% Gate race wins - Red 28%, Blue 26%, Yellow 26% and White 20% So nothing really from the gates and likewise starting positions Best line up position - #12 64 points then 2, 6 and 5. 63, 61 and 60 points respectively. Worst line up position - #15 (again) 27 points then 10 and 3, 32 and 36 points respectively. Semi appearances - Zmarzlik & Woffinden 6 out of 6, Lindgren, Doyle 4 each Final appearances - Zmarzlik 5 only 1 win, Doyle & Woffinden 4 with one win each. Other winners, Zagar, Lindgren and Vaculik.

Ive done no such thing (although admit to the prior bleeting my opinion and prediction). This is my only post on this thread. I take no pleasure in the demise of the Diamonds. I've spent too too long on the terraces at Brough not to be saddened by this. I've no interest in a post mortem or claiming some childish I told you so. You'd do well not to accuse me of something without sufficient evidence. My opinion is clear based on my previous posts but I've no intention of claiming some sort of victory in these sad circumstances. Truth is there are no winners here.

Hasn't someone clever with too much time on their hands worked out the the geographical centre of Great Britain (England, Scotland & Wales) is Blackburn. Which, incidentally apparently has the same number of holes as the Poole track Money is money right. It doesn't matter where it comes from. What would you prefer to receive, £20,000 from 1,000 spectators paying £20 at the gate or £30,000 from 3,000 people paying £10 for the live stream? The answer is both because we're all greedy capitalists. The truth is spectators are costly. From a promoter perspective you'd save quite a bit of money by excluding any attendees and only making the event available via subscription, however dystopian that might sound. Luckily there's a couple of factors stopping that from happening, the impact on the local economy from attendees, in particular travelling supporters and event atmosphere. An easy conclusion from watching pandemic events behind closed doors is that spectators should actually be paid to attend as they clearly enhance the TV product, until someone develops a digital crowd experience to rival it. That's the profit driven glimpse of the future. Virtual Reality viewing where everyone stays at home but experience being in the crowd with other viewers you can interact with. You'll get constant pop up reminders to place a bet or order junk food via deliveroo, unless you've paid a premium subscription to avoid adverts. There'd only need to be one track and maybe only 14 riders with both digitally altered to represent different stadiums and competitors. Hell why not just do the whole event digitally generated by computer programme, with 14 Chris Harris' guesting. Grim.

It is one of speedways problems and attractions. It's (or used to be) both an individual and team sport. Other sports like Darts and Snooker have international team events but there's no team work involved really. Whereas speedway does involve team work at least off track nowadays if not via team riding anymore and has affiliation to geographical area which other motorsports "teams" don't. To that extent it's difficult to formulate a pyramid structure for speedway that most other successful sports have. Is it SGP - SEC/SGPChallenge - SGP2 - SGP3 - SGP4? No. Is it SON/SWC - Domestic Top Flight - Domestic 2nd/3rd tier - Domestic Youth Leagues? No It's a bit of both and not very structured to the point it isn't a pyramid at all. SGP - Polish Extraliga - SGP Challenge/SON/SGP/SEC/Swedish Elite - Danish top division/SGP Premiership/Polish 2nd Division - Other domestic leagues. As I've posted before, it looks like Discovery Sports understand the need for a structure to ensure there is a sufficient supply chain of riders to develop the SGP product but would the FIM give them the power to structure domestic competitions to facilitate that??

You can definitely create a better atmosphere indoors, with better lighting (imagine all the lights turning red for an exclusion) and reverberated sound but the earlier poster is correct you'd need to compromise on track size at most indoor arena facilities. If you could find a large enough facility to include the right size and shape of track plus suitable spectator area's then it could be a game changer. Track preparation not subject to the elements, no rain offs. Better presentation. I think if you're talking about erecting a roof over a current speedway track I can only imagine it would be extremely difficult and expensive. I've been go-karting in such a converted warehouse but not to the scale needed to include a speedway track but there's a potential multi use of the 'centre green'. Let's watch some go karting while the tractors are on. Fantasy stuff unfortunately.

Presumably that's what Oxford have offered? So if that's the going rate then that's what you have to pay. I admit for a rider that is way past his best it seems a lot of money but what else can you do if you're serious about strengthening the team in a world where there are few other realistic opportunities. Mind, no wonder the sport is going down the pan if bog standard riders are on that sort of money.

That's the problem though isn't it. Next season they'll want to be free to ride in Poland on a Sunday even if they don't actually end up getting any matches. Also these new Dane's won't come in and and score like Kenni or Rene did (apart from Birkemose). They'll be 5 pointers which is decent and better than what we've got but won't hang about to become future heat leaders. If they do they'll deffo get rides in Poland. Again I'm not defending the promotion because Summers to Oxford tells you everything you need to know about how serious an effort has been made to improve the team.

He publicly stated he doesn't having previously said that was his plan. Of course he probably had to say that. But you're correct regardless. If you can find some council owned land it's probably earmarked for housing. If it isn't it'll be next to housing. Even if you did find a plot which is otherwise unused you'd need to persuade the local authority that having a speedway team will benefit the local economy. Good luck with that on the basis it attracts a handful of visiting supporters for about 15 weekends of the year. Alternatively you find a private plot of land and agree terms with the owner presuming they can't sell if for housing. Then you have to invest heavily in building the track and facilities. Interesting to see how the people behind the new Workington track have achieved what they have but I'm guessing the land owner has an interest in the sport?

Yes they will because they also have a quarter of the leagues top 12 riders. Although their reserves will not be as good as Edwards and Thompson. Surely.......

Foreign riders who don't ride in Poland. There's a couple of Swedes who've been and not done much. People will say move from a Sunday. The Diamonds can't. Plus how ridiculous is it that the amount of speedway operating on Saturdays and Sunday's in this country is so miniscule?? We know the top riders are accounted for elsewhere at weekends but there simply has to be a level where speedway supporters can spend their weekends following the sport in the UK.

Shouldn't have signed a quarter of the leagues top 12 riders then. You reap what you sow. Tbf the rules allowed it so why wouldn't they. It's such a shambles we're now saying that the winners lose out. Crazy but entirely believable.

I do know. Which is why I'm pointing out what should have been done rather than throwing all the blame at Rob Grant. Clearly he's not blameless and is at this point surely damaging his non speedway business either via funds or reputation but you hit the nail of the head. Self interest to win a competition which has become a joke that nobody is interested in. Simple measures could have been put in place to avoid this sort of scenario. Although I still fear the Diamonds would have been wooden spoon candidates with some of the other team building decisions but at least they would have been able to secure someone to carry the fight in heat 13 and 15.

So that proves my point. Even though Newcastle offered more money to heat leaders than Poole, who have 3 number 1's, they still choose to ride for less money because they were all able to obtain team places and presumably preferred the security of an established track or didn't like home matches on Sunday's or the track. However, had each team been restricted to 1 rider over 8 points then one of those riders would surely have signed for Newcastle on those better terms. Now Poole would still have signed the best team because they'd have signed the best under 8 point riders. That's entirely fair as they're a better run more knowledgeable club but at least all 11 teams would have had the opportunity to have at least one competitive rider in heats 13 and 15. The fact that Rob Grant had offered these heat leaders terms would suggest he realised that the team needed a number one so has he picked a poor team or has he just picked up the pieces of what was left over. Still nobody can come up with the name of a feasible number 1 rider he should have signed. I'm not here to defend Rob Grant as I do believe he's completely out of his depth and has been 'ill advised' and regardless of availability of heat leaders the team/club is a shambles. But the point remains. If the BSPL want an attractive league which retains all of its members then they needed to ensure each team could track a competitive team. They've failed miserably in that and I suspect will have 10 teams in their league next season. Maybe that's what they wanted? In which case job probably done.

Whilst I think that is probably true the point is, if the authorities want an evenly matched league or even just want to maintain then number of teams in the league, then they needed to give each of the 11 teams the opportunity to sign competitive teams. By allowing two teams to sign half of the league number 1 heat leaders that was never going to happen. We just don't know how much money Rob Grant was offering heat leaders during the winter but given 2021 it was never going to be anyones first choice. Regardless of the standard of teams it just makes no business sense to have a scarce resource able to dictate terms in the pursuit of 'sporting greatness' or whatever winning the CL gives you. From everyones perspective, apart from the riders, it makes entire sense to manufacture supply over demand as then everyone can benefit from the resulting more realistic terms.

If there are more heatleaders available than team places those going rates suddenly reduce if a rider wants a team place. Simple economics. Obviously they won't ride to make a loss but will have more realistic terms or sit on the side lines and wait for a better paid opportunity. The top riders will go to the better teams on better terms which is fair but they wouldn't be able to sign three of them when there are only about 12 available across 11 teams. Fair enough if Newcastle then didn't offer sufficient terms they'd deserve the criticism but the question nobody can answer is who else were Newcastle supposed to sign when everyone else was offering better terms for the limited number of heat leaders available.

Are Discovery Sports not the ideal organisation to take that control? Not just of the UK scene but internationally. 1. They seem to understand that the flag ship SGP needs a high quality field hence SGP2 and in particular SGP3 and SGP4 aimed at developing young talent. For all Greg Hancock was a great ambassador for the sport it's so much easier in a social media world to market young talents to the youth market. 2. They have the broadcast platform and need content to sell subscriptions. That only happens if the content is attractive enough. I doubt that the current offering of SGP/SON and British Premiership is. 3. They want to grow the sport globally, reignite old markets (USA, Australia) and expand into new ones (Asia, Middle East, maybe even Spain) for the purpose of attracting more subscriptions. To do that they need control over development. You either work with them to realise the vision or you rally against it in the wilderness.

Mathias Thornblom looked decent in the Swedish Elite league match last night. Mixing it with some top riders. Doesn't look to have a Polish place although someone will probably snap him up if that's the sort of form he's in. Failed at Berwick a good few seasons ago but looked CL heat leader standard last night. Albeit on a vastly different track to Newcastle. Swedes not riding in Poland would fit the bill for the CL as there are hardly any Tuesday fixtures and no Thursday fixtures but too expensive for the Diamonds??

Depends on what you're prepared to do with a pig

that's fair but as a new promoter I don't think there was anything Rob Grant could have done to get that sponsors licence any earlier. Unsure when he effectively became promoter? 2020 or 2021? Maybe a ball was dropped but as a Sunday track I don't think having access to sign foreign riders would make much different. Even young Aussies head to Poland now rather than learning their trade in the UK. what did happen to ease the problem was rising stars. whether you liked it or not it did create opportunities for more UK riders. Take Jordan Jenkins as an example he'd been knocking about for 3 or 4 years as a young prospect but was never able to hold down a team place for whatever reason. He and others, are now reaping the benefit from having an extended run in the CL. Now he might never become even a CL heat leader but he's developed into a CL standard rider capable of beating heat leaders on his day. I think the majority kept their places or got a team place elsewhere so it worked on that basis but then the pipeline has been closed with teams unsurprisingly reluctant to give the next level of youngsters an opportunity when opponents are not obliged to. So an opportunity to introduce another group of riders into the rider pool was lost in a pool that wasn't big enough in the first place. So what forward planning was put in place was then abandoned.

That's a sound assumption. To be honest it looks like the Diamonds team has been done on the cheap but in reality only the promoters and riders know if that's the case. Maybe Complin is on heat leader money? Whilst we might suspect everything has been done on the cheap that might not be the case. In reality there are probably other reasons it's been difficult to attract riders other than money. Sundays for a start, maybe the track, maybe the lack of stability around the club but certainly because there's not enough to go around. I agree that the new foreigner market is unlikely to solve the problems. You're effectively shopping at the not good enough to ride in Poland shop. So you'd do well to bring in anyone who'll be able to score much more than the assessed 5.00 or 4.00. Having said that they can't do any worse than the current reserves so if a couple of new riders average 4 or 5 and the guest for BWD is capable of scoring in heat 15 and 16 and the other 4 do their jobs that would be enough to win some matches. But not home to Leicester and Poole.

not sure but as I understand it the former promotion didn't have a sponsor license either. Just relied on being able to sign EU riders who at that time didn't need permits.

I don't know if it was bollocks or not and as someone has said it's how hard you try that matters. Offering low terms would never attract those riders but you'd still technically tried, however futile that attempt was. But to try and unpuzzle you, and I'm not an expert, but I think EU riders who have previously ridden in the UK were all able to continue to ride in the UK post Brexit. Either without a permit or are guaranteed a permit. Bjerre, Smolinski, Pedersen and Vissing all fall into that category. Not sure about non EU riders but the attempt to sign Batchelor was mid season when he already had a permit to ride in the PL. What Newcastle couldn't do is sign new foreign riders because the promoters didn't have a sponsors license. If you think about the 2020 line up that never happened it was possible to sign Skorja and Smetaka as EU riders at that point but not for 2021 without a sponsors license. Now even with a sponsors licence some riders Smetaka(?) might not be awarded a permit as they don't fit the criteria. Which is why he never got to be in the Poole team last season I think. In summary it was possible to sign those riders without a license last season, I think.

He tried to sign Batchelor before he decided to sign for Kent last season