MattK

New sponsor perhaps?

for example, my uncle and his wife go to Cardiff, but won't attend another speedway fixture all year. They also go to The Emirates, Twickenham etc. I don't think you'd ever get them to a league meeting on a regular basis. I also agree with what you say about spouses and family. I think a lot of wives will go to Cardiff, but would never go to a local stadium.

I'm sure it was stated somewhere that the majority of people who went were fans of other clubs, rather than new fans attracted by the free offer. I agree. I think the majority are fair-weather sports fans.

In this time of social media, it seems rather pointless blocking access to one site, when another can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Just like the authorities have singularly failed to reduce the popularity of P2P sharing, I can't see how they can possibly keep a lid on streaming sites.

As long as it's in Las Vegas, I don't mind when it is.

I always wonder if speedway would be better marketing itself at over 50s. They typically have more disposable income, more free time and there's no reasn why they wouldn't enjoy motorsports as much as the next person.

I don't think £17 is too much, if the meeting provides value for money. Now, I appreciate "value for money" is subjective and people have their own opinions, but for whatever reason the racing at Swindon this season has been generally quite poor, with most races won form the gate and very strung out. On the other hand, I would have no qualms about paying £17 every week to watch what was served up at Somerset last Tuesday, if the Rebels were my team.

I would say Cook is on par with the likes of King and Kennett in the pecking order, but a long way behind Tai, Harris and Nicholls. The likes Worrall and Auty are an order of magnitude behind Cook, King and Kennett.

But presumably BSI pay the FIM for the rights to promote the world individual championship, so why isn't that money trickling down from the FIM into youth speedway?

I don't understand the logic of dropping junior riders into the world cup to gain "experience". If they want experience there are plenty of foreign leagues they could be riding in every night of the week instead of the relative comfort of the Premier League in Britain. If Cook, Worrall and Auty have ambitions to represent their country and even ride in the GP series, then they should be doing the Polish and Swedish leagues on a regular basis.

No, not at all. But people say they "take money out of the sport". Well, my question is, what happened to all the money when British league meetings were packed to the rafters in the 60s, 70s, 80s etc? Did those promoters buy the stadiums and invest in youth facilities in order to give clubs a solid foundation or did they cream off the profits into their own pockets? BSI is a commercial organisation, but so is every individual club. The fact that BSI make a profit and the average British club doesn't, is up to the clubs. Maybe without Sky we can have the British Final on a Saturday night and get a decent crowd which can put some money back into the club's pockets?

What did the old one-off world final (before IMG and BSI got involved) bring to league speedway?

I can't see Sky bothering next season either. If they were really interested in speedway, why did they allow the GP contract to go to Eurosport?

Next season watching it live will be the only way to see British speedway. Whether this will be a positive or negative is yet to be decided.

Any number of reasons. Maybe he wants to cash out, maybe he has other debts, maybe he doesn't have the upfront cash required to build houses? I wouldn't put too much importance on historic planning outcomes. Nowadays, councils and locals have very little say in decisions and as long the plans meet the legal framework. Don't forget, both major political parties have emphasised house building as a way to boost the economy and to help ease the pressure on social housing. For a case in point, Swindon Council rejected plans to build 900 houses near a place called Coate Water, which is a local water park and beauty point. There was a petition with over 50,000 signatures (including Ant and Dec!) and yet permission was granted by the Planning Inspectorate.

In the same way F1 "owes" karting or even the driving test? If the leagues cannot exploit the SGP, then they only have themselves to blame.

But you have to compare the number of people who bought full prices tickets for their children (there were quite a few kids in the £90 section I was sitting in) compared to the number of people who either didn't bring their kids or even didn't come at all because there were only limited concession tickets available. I would suggest the difference is negligible.

Does a 5 year old get charged less for an apple in Sainsburys than an adult? No. Therefore why would a seat in a stadium for a one off event cost any less if a 5 year old is sitting in it than an adult?

Does your five year old get a discount in Sainsbrys on the food he eats? Does Sainsburys offer a discount on the food it sells which are eaten by five year olds?

Can't argue with that. But on the flip side, people say Brits need more international test meetings (which are also just glorified challenge matches), whereas these we have meetings like this, the European Championships and the European Junior Championships where British riders could get real experience against their peers, but they're not allowed to enter.

The pairs formula is a bit odd, although it usually encourages close racing. I thought the coverage was fine. I wonder what people expect for free? Yes it was annoying that the first five heats were missed, but at the same time Eurosport have a policy, which is fair enough and they stuck to it. There were a few gap and it wasn't as slick as Sky/the GPs, but I thought Scott Nicholls was decent enough, although he needs to iron out the ers and ums. The other guy, Steve Day, did OK given he is not a speedway person. Frankly, I don't think speedway needs commentary in the traditional sense, as the action is easy enough to follow. I much prefer the "chatty" style of commentary that your get with other motorsport coverage.

I wonder if this is other symptom of cost cutting? Less money spend on materials and preparation lead to a poorer quality surface and in turn a knock-on effect on the racing.

Swindon did this and they even used to send out a weekly email newsletter. It stopped a couple of seasons ago.

If you look at the numbers, I think there are a lot of casual supporters floating around. For example, lets assume around 30,000 people attend speedway on a weekly basis (EL 10*1500, PL 12*1000, NL 8*500). At Cardiff the attendance was around 40,000, so 10,000 additional casual supporters. However, of the people I work with who regularly attend league racing, half didn't go to the GP, which suggests there are even more casual supporters who attend the Millennium, but not league meetings. Then look at TV audiences. League racing gets around 75k and GP 100k viewers. This suggests that three or four times as many people watch speedway on TV than regularly attend meetings. This is a massive potential audience of casual or armchair fans that league clubs could be targeting, if they could be bothered (which they can't).

At least next season we won't have to worry about Sky making clubs race on a Monday.