marko

Trouble with having six team league and play offs, you would have to be really desperate to make sure you do not finish in the bottom two places, if it was a 10 team league then getting in the top four is a much bigger ask and a promoter is likely to risk paying out on a big gun to help the team in the hope it would pay off, all things being even you have a 68% chance of getting in the top four anyway. Six clubs, what's the point? you only need to be better than just two teams in the whole league and your in the play offs, putting it like that, its even more farcical.

Always seems like rinse and repeat with Lewis, maybe he believed his own hype too much when he was young and still has trouble accepting he is a decent rider but not much more than that. Always put the effort in but also maybe guilty of over trying and fighting the bike rather than riding it?

Some have mentioned it was inside line or nothing, sounds like Lakeside back in the Ronnie Russel days, water that type of track it does not produce grip, just makes it like an ice rink.

Would Pride bring new fans in? Would it alienate most of the current age range which lets face it is quite old with maybe old fashioned views? Two things to unpack there, speedway isn’t trendy enough but you can’t just go changing everything and risk losing the few fans you have left with no certainly you will get the numbers in to replace them yet along build on. Most clubs seem to be reporting good crowd numbers early on, classic novelty factor, but many will not come back once they are reminded of some of the reasons why they stopped going in the first place, we all know those.

Just one more reason to go back to the old upright style of bikes, back then meetings went ahead more often than not, the laydowns seem only capable of being ridden on a perfect track and the riders now have that notion cemented firmly in their subconscious. But there is some contradictions to what i have read on here, one point saying they could not get water on the track, whilst also reading the riders didnt want to ride because the track was too wet. If it was too dry, that's not an argument, most practice days are held in dust bowl conditions, far worse than you would ever likely see in a real time match.

True Rob, there is some initial cost with making sure you have the equipment. A lot of non league football clubs invested a bit of money so they could film matches and have the ability to connect everything up to a streaming service, so they would have the initial setup costs, providing they do not already have the equipment, then service fees to the streaming company, but overtime that would be paid back, not just over one season but many, this really would be a long term scheme for well beyond any pandemic situation, most non league football clubs seemed to be around a tenner, speedway is sort of on a level with that but £12 is ok, there is a balance, you don't want to price it too low so nobody goes to watch live, but not too high so the take up is so low it becomes unsustainable.

You could even say, even if they charged £5 that's five pounds more than they would have got without streaming because its about people who probably would not have gone even if they could. My nearest track is now Ipswich, I probably wont bother going to one of their meetings in person because of factors like time to get their and back, fuel costs etc but if they charged £10 streaming I might give a couple of meetings a go, that's £20 they got for no extra outlay.

Agree Steve and I don’t think Eurosport can complain unless they were going to show highlights or full coverage of every meeting, and I doubt they will show even 25% of PL meetings raced.

No team should be losing by that many points at home unless they had riders injured and the early part of the meeting and simply ran out of riders. But the Prem is a complete farce this season with only six teams, and retaining the play offs make it even more of a farce.

What I cannot get is that when TV show meetings, they place quite an emphasis on those watching at home and those attending live come second to the production. But how are those tv audiences supposed to get hooked if they only see one meeting every few weeks? they see one match and the league table and then when the next match comes around, all of a sudden all the teams have played several more times and there has been no reference to it.

Shame they cannot cover the 2nd division, they could have a meeting to show every week, things like this would be much better as a weekly show and quite frankly it’s not worth getting Eurosport if tv meetings are going to be sporadic.

its basically showmanship, and making it more than just four riders racing around, going back to pits and then rinse and repeat.

He probably had a downside agreement? nothing new in this sport, remember Peter Karlsson got axed by Lakeside for "costing them too much money" despite his form being poor and not scoring much at the time? I am pretty sure if a heat leader racing at the highest level scored 0-R-F-0 they will not be going home with just travelling expenses.

Adam Shields was a rider who almost never waved to the crowd at Lakeside but I think that maybe he was just very introverted and just wanted to ride his bike but didn't want the attention, we had plenty of riders though down the years that made up for that, for example Henning Bager. But in Belle Vue's case it was probably television insisting riders go straight back so they can be interviewed, Again its a live product that is catering for those at home rather than those that actually made the effort to pay to come and watch.

Yes have a good point and it will be interesting to see how many fans attend matches rather than watch it at home, even before the pandemic, televised meetings were always poorly attended, because people don't want to be hanging around for ages with nothing going on, I gave up going on Sky nights because I had already paid for sky so I was saving £20 plus petrol. 90 mins is about right for a 15 heat meeting, once you start going beyond that, natural boredom will start kicking in and people in general do not have threshold for long drawn out events now, whether its sport or a film or whatever unless there is always something keeping you invested and on the edge of your seat.

I either pick up the star from Smiths in Liverpool Street or the main Tesco in Chelmsford, Smiths has been very mixed, some weeks loads of copies, others nothing at all but Tesco always has them without fail. I had subbed to the star for many years, probably over 20 but I do prefer buying it off the shelf.

We have a thread on Eurosport in the Prem section but this question is more about speedway on the World scene but in particular Poland and Sweden which I understand Prem Sports covers. Since I have moved into a rented property I have axed Virgin Media, it was costing my a fortune every month and the cost of the Sports channels really hiked the price up. Decided I can live without SKY Sports and BT Sport, but I am tempted to do an online sub with Prem Sports as they show on the face of it, plenty of speedway and a few other sports I quite like and the cost is not much more than say a Netflix. What is everyone's opinion on this channel? not just its speedway coverage?

Its ok if your sat at home but I recall tv meetings at Lakeside, they dragged because of the advert breaks and very little going on for those who actually paid money to come and watch it live. And then you had those dodgy weather meetings where normally the promoters and the ref would do everything to get the meeting through, TV, they give it the "we want to get the meeting through" but then they cut to commercial breaks and waste time just like always trying to pad it all out, whilst those at the track and even at home are shouting "get on with it"

Hope it works out for Paul, I can still recall him making his debut as a 16 year old for Arena Essex. Shrewd move by Len who may attract some ex Hammers fans to attend?

It wasn't this instance but i recall Andre putting Brent Collyer in the fence and ending his meeting after just one attempted ride. Another rider always loathed at Arena was Sean Wilson, practically ended young Gary Corbett's career. What's the difference between a hard rider and a dirty one? the hard one will close the door, the dirty one will just put you in the fence to make sure.

Please let’s not this descend into political talk, we likely would have been in the same position no matter which party was in power, so it’s not a matter of who is in charge but just s**t happens. Its about how best to rise above it and make the best out of a crap situation.

8 rounds, no matter the scoring system, he deserves to be World Champion

They are not holding back, my heart has been in my mouth several times, more guts in their throttle hand than i have in my whole body.

Race of the entire 2020 season anywhere?

IMO the likes of Max Fricke and Jack Holder should be given wildcard places ahead of riders like Lindback and NKI who have been around for years and are realistically past their best now.