flagrag
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Everything posted by flagrag
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Let’s just say No Comment at present lots of ideas but need to wait and see if any of these promises get fulfilled
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Yes a plan was put into place to broadcast one meeting Live for free on You Tube on Monday evenings to try and raise the appeal of the sport and could sell some sponsorship as well. This was decided against as clubs would have had to pay for this so as usual looked at the negatives instead of thinking let’s try it cost wise probably less for a full season than £25,00
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Just isn’t the money for the role but hopefully Phil will still be involved in a more advisory role and possibly on a pay as you go basis . If the TV deal had come off he would have been very involved. i still do not agree that clubs didn’t take the initiative of broadcasting one meeting a week free on You Tube to satisfy sponsors and try to attract more new fans all they had to do was pay the production costs which were minimal compared to the full tv production costs. The best way would have been to pay BSN to produce one meeting a week for free YT broadcast as that would then give them the opportunity to upsell their subscription service of people want to see more and could have sold race sponsorship for the season
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Even for 2026, Phil has been a great advocate for British Speedway Premiership and has done lots of work behind the scenes which most people simply do not see. Always knowing that his role of Chief executive wasn’t to continue this year due to lack of money He was instrumental in keeping Ipswich going including being part of a consortium that made an offer to keep it going if Mayfield deal had fallen through. Has also had a a lot to do with the opening of Northampton giving guidance of what was required to get Speedway running along with being involved in the negotiations with stadium owners and management . There has been some failures previously maybe the loss of TV deal being the greatest but he did explore various options but none could be got over the line for various reasons. It has not been helped by some promotions not backing him fully. He wanted to modernise the product to try to get in new fans and sponsors some of which cost money like for tv meetings having a set presentation team and DJ, Lights and fire cannons on centre field but certain promotions wouldn’t back this and could even be objective like refusing to move advertising A boards for tv meetings and not even keeping the league sponsorship ones clean. Phil was also key to a number of top names returning to the UK like Woofy , Janowski and Lindgren along with brokering deals for Lambert and Dudek to ride for clubs to then back down on the deals
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It’s quite possible that this could cause issues in a few weeks. Ryanair have announced that they have been assured that fuel will be available until May and they have hedged their purchases already. Other airlines and holiday companies may need to invoke a clause in many travel contracts with regards to operating costs increasing and add 20% onto flights
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The protected properties legalisation is only applicable in the area of that you protect which in Northamptonshire is Rugby and unsure if football have even done that.
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You would have thought the Leicester owner may have said no fellow consortium members this is not a great thing to call Northampton The Foxes . It should have been The Saints or Dons if you want my opinion the other suggestion was Racers which again would have been better
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Asked to remove post
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Speedway On Tv And The Internet In 2026
flagrag replied to racers and royals's topic in Speedway News and Discussions
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SGP coverage in UK for 2026
flagrag replied to ozsat58's topic in Speedway Grand Prix and Speedway World Cup
Unless there is any last minute changes in the ownership of WBD before the GP season starts . Speedway will continue to be on HBO Max coverage is changing hence Abi no longer required as Marcella is going to be the main tv anchor and will likely be less build up. It remain to be confirmed if ALL GPs will be shown Live some may be reduced down to highlights depending on viewing figures and other schedules -
What about Northampton?
flagrag replied to RoundTheBoards's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
The people whom I mentioned about opening Northampton are not the people behind it this year however they remain interested if proves to a success in making an offer. They felt that it was a financial gamble that they were not prepared to do with the setup costs involved and no proven sign that fans will attend -
Problem is the play offs are at the wrong time for mainstream broadcasters as in September and October the Premier League and EFL is in full flow and the European Champions, Europa and Conference League has just started so they have plenty of content. I did make the suggestion back in December when it became clear they had no Premiership broadcast to BSPL that maybe they would be better to look at running a short separate SuperLiga series of matches just one Home and Away . This needs to take place late May until end of July then Sky and Others would be interested in broadcasting it Maybe also may attract more GP stars for a short period season. This needs to be a more modern format with DJs, lights , smoke , Cheerleaders etc However this suggestion was turned down as promotions didn’t want to clash with Euro football games as thought attendance will be down but they will whichever way and also had concerns that fans would not attend the Premiership fixtures at start and end of season instead just going for SuperLiga matches . This is exactly how Cricket has moved forward clubs make big money and attendance for 20-20 and the Hundred during peak summer which purest supporters don’t like but they can get their traditional cricket early and later on the year
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What about Northampton?
flagrag replied to RoundTheBoards's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
No the other side of the world I understand and the new promoters have very deep pockets along with some great sponsors lined up -
What about Northampton?
flagrag replied to RoundTheBoards's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
The GP Number 1 has I believe fallen through due to the continued delays and not being offered what they originally thought was being given. I obviously want Mayfield to make a great success of Ipswich just hope that they up their organisational skills. Getting the thread back on track Chris Holder lives only 20 mins away from the Northampton track so they were probably just passing by and thought they would go and have a look . The info I am hearing is that construction wise plans are in place and the work required to build the Speedway facilities is being done by a construction company but being overseen by Phil Morris and Andy Meredith to ensure it’s done the right way. -
What about Northampton?
flagrag replied to RoundTheBoards's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
Unfortunately Mayfield don’t have a great record with Speedway organisational skills. The GPs that they promoted operationally were a disaster with a number of important things that they forgot to arrange and in the end Discovery got them out of a mess by arranging the missing bits and bringing their operations team in. Even on the day little things were not arranged like buffet and food for officials , sponsors not getting their pit walks and badge allocation with track marshals names not on lists for practice just for the event etc -
A decent offer was made by Two Premiership promotors in conjunction with Phil Morris to buy the Witches but this was turned down by Chris Louis as he felt it was worth more and had private interest . The latest I heard early this week was the proposed new owners were waiting on signing a number 1 before completing the payment for the sale transaction but do have most of the team signed
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What average would James Pearson come in on ?
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Unless he drops his rates considerably I can’t see anyone paying Rew what he was on at Birmingham. He was on more than nearly all the GP riders to ride in the UK and my understanding he has the same view this year pay what I want or I won’t ride in UK as lives in Poland anyway
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Pretty much what has been discussed openly on here by various posters Belle Vue - Will have their usual side with couple of riders that need to up their game to be title contenders Leicester- Will have a a real strength in depth feel to them with hopefully strong Rising star( Northampton pending ) will need all the team to be on it to be in with a chance in play offs Kings Lynn- Finally have their No1 and have built a strong team which could be title challengers but have weakest reserves but one could be a future British or world champion given time Ipswich- All change from title winning team with just a couple staying with a familiar face or two returning but will have a great new No1 won’t can master the track may push him on further in the GPs Sheffield- New part owner a very successful businessman but is well known in Speedway especially at Sheffield with strong family connections to the sport . Team wise they will be strong just trying to sort their top end at the moment but will be clear once a rider or two make up their mind about riding in UK. Again expect a couple of familiar faces to return to the Tigers
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Dan will not be a Ipswich and Cooper will be in another part of East Anglia
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Not sure it will affect many of the Big Stars of the Premiership last year Fricke- Already has a house and is currently living in Andorra (Tax reasons ) Jack Holder - Looking to relocate to Poland Jason Doyle- Already has British citizenship Brady Kurtz- Is a more complicated one as owns house in Warrington and partner with good job in UK Ryan Douglas- Already committed to UK regardless of league format Chris Holder- Is I process of getting British citizenship already which should have by start of season
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What will 2026 UK speedway bring?
flagrag replied to Lionsman66's topic in SGB Premiership Speedway League
TNT have not gone broke but are in transition they will likely end up being online only as DMax like the rest of Europe. The Sky sports announcement this evening was meant to be in the morning but as usual UK newspapers couldn’t wait to break the news . As others have said it may be worth Future Speedway ventures going back to TNT to see if they are interested in broadcasting Speedway if the sport part funded the production costs . The CL announcement is a shock we were confident at Sky that we had the lower European competitions which actually features more UK clubs than the CL. However it was thought that TNT would retain the CL as there offer was a substantial increase on the last deal but Paramount have gone even higher -
The Paramount deal has come as a great surprise to Everyone in the broadcast industry. WBD were already planning an exit from UK satellite broadcasting and move just to Dmax online but with no CL subscribers will be lost and need to review pricing. i wouldn’t be surprised if there is some commercial bulk deal for Paramount CBS Sport to be included in Sky Sports subscription as realistically cannot see consumers paying for Sky Sports Paramount Netflix Disney + Prime Discovery/Dmax You would be looking at £200 a month which is out of reach for most people
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More likely they would be the club owners than Team Sponsors but could do both as very successful business men who are expanding into new markets like offering deluxe yacht charters out of Marbella, Purchasing an aircraft for hire