IainB

Although I did vote for him in RoTN how Bowes wasn't excluded for unfair riding I just don't understand, he completely baulked Worrall. 012.1.14 Foul, Unfair or Dangerous Riding The Referee shall immediately disqualify any rider who they consider indulges in foul, unfair or dangerous riding. If, in the opinion of the Referee, such conduct produces an advantage to the rider involved or affects the chances of one or more riders, the Referee may stop the heat and order a re-run. When was the last time this rule was used I wonder 🤔 I've given him stick on here in the past and I hate to admit it but Batch was absolute class tonight 🤮

Heat 7, no super stars, no passing, brilliant Speedway... just saying

No, that's what I've heard the WBD contract is paying. £100k per PL club, per year, circa £3.5m over 5 years

You were making the comparison to golf though and they're not really comparable, in fact Speedway is quite unique in its setup (no doubt folk will give me loads of examples) but it doesn't know what it is... is it an individual sport or a team sport? and if it is a team sport why are riders "playing" for more than one club? I've said it before and I'm going to say it again I believe Cricket is the closest comparison to Speedway, they're both heavily weather effected, players play for more than one team (franchise cricket, IPL, Big Bash etc), International's, what it does not have is an individual tournament... maybe it's time to ditch the SGP Series? It's all pie in the sky though as without the money that a decent TV contract provides other than 3 or 4 clubs the rest of British Speedway in its current state just can't afford the top riders, even Ippo couldn't replace Doyle or Emil when they got injured last season.

I've heard around £100k each per year

I do feel you're not comparing apples with apples here, The Open is the SGP series, PL Speedway is the tour matches that don't attract all of the top stars but only a few at a time. You do make a good point about the timings... like PL running in a Monday and Thursday

If everybody had the sponsors the model works, unfortunately not every club does, all PL clubs do have the TV money though (at the moment) but not all of them have the crowds, so some of that money would have to offset the lack of crowd numbers. If we say Sheffield, Ippo, BV & Leicester (I think) have decent sponsors, Lynn & Oxford also have sponsors but they're not synonymous with the club and Brum are sponsored by their owner! Brum are gone, we know that and we expect Spires to end... which other clubs in the UK have a sponsorship deal that allows them to fund these "best people"... there will always be "best people" at clubs even if they're NDL level. The only way to keep the "stars" and entice more, would be for Mr Morris & Co to approach one of the TV broadcasters with a proposal that blows the Poles out of the water, a £10m-£15m per season deal, you'd hope that with the end of the current deal fast approaching that this has already been done and the league structure for the span of the next deal, if there is one, is already being planned... now stop laughing! Taken from Google: Gathering precise and regularly updated viewing figures for sports like speedway in the UK can be challenging, as broadcasters and governing bodies don't always release granular data, especially for niche sports. However, we can glean some insights from historical data and current commentary: General Trends & Historical Context: * Modest but Passionate Audience: Speedway has a dedicated and passionate fanbase in the UK, but its overall viewership is significantly smaller than mainstream sports like football or rugby. * Decline from Peak: Historical BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) figures, particularly from the 2000s and early 2010s, indicate a decline in average live British speedway viewing figures from a peak around 2007-2009. For instance, the average audience on Sky Sports for Elite League speedway in 2011 was around 80,611, which was down significantly from 145,550 in 2008. By 2013, it had fallen to an all-time low of 62,615. * Lowest Figures: Before BT Sport (now TNT Sports) took over, the least popular live British speedway meetings on Sky Sports would sometimes hover around 40,000 viewers. Current Situation with TNT Sports / Discovery+ / DMAX: * Shift to Pay-TV/Streaming: The move of British Premiership Speedway and the FIM Speedway Grand Prix to TNT Sports (formerly Eurosport/BT Sport) and its streaming counterpart Discovery+ means that viewing figures are primarily within a subscription model. These platforms do not typically release specific per-event viewership numbers for individual sports in the same way free-to-air channels might. * "Millions of Viewers" (Platform Reach): When Discovery+ and Eurosport promote their speedway coverage, they often talk about making the action available to "millions of viewers" through their platforms. This refers to the potential reach of their subscriber base, not necessarily the number of people actively watching speedway. For example, TNT Sports 1 had monthly viewing figures of 5,864,000 in December, while Eurosport 1 had 2,035,000. Speedway is just one of many sports on these channels. * Free-to-Air Highlights: The inclusion of highlights on DMAX is crucial for broader exposure. While these figures are also not often broken down by sport, free-to-air channels generally have a much wider reach than subscription services. * Focus on Fan Engagement: The broadcasters emphasize attracting new viewers and delivering an engaging experience for passionate fans, using features like live data (rider heartbeat, reaction time) and additional editorial content. International Comparison (Poland): It's worth noting that speedway has a much larger following in some other countries, particularly Poland. For example, in May 2022, the Orlen FIM Speedway GP of Poland in Warsaw reached 6.6 million viewers over the weekend across TVN Group's channels and platforms in Poland, with an average live audience of 442,000 on the free-to-air channel TTV. This highlights the significant difference in popularity and viewing habits for speedway across different territories. In summary, while precise, recent UK viewing figures for speedway are hard to come by, it's understood to be a niche sport with a dedicated, but relatively small, linear TV audience on pay-TV channels. The focus for broadcasters like TNT Sports and Discovery+ is on serving that passionate fanbase within their subscription offerings, while using free-to-air highlights (DMAX) to attract a wider audience.

Okay, you've said what you don't want... what do you want? Realistically? Bearing in mind none of the current CL teams want to move up and it looks very likely that the Spires will be no more next season. You want a 5 team league? Home and away 3 times?

I don't think anybody is happy about it, but if you only have 5 teams that are willing to pay out for the privilege what is the answer? Run a 5 team league? Surely you can see that's not credible.

What about if they'd made it to the pay offs?

Classic Scott Nicholls to finish off the meeting with and probably the best I've ever seen Paco ride! 3 x 5-1's from Klindt & Nicholls bodes well for the Glads.

I'll give you 2... All 4 back or exclude Loftus for running into the back of Bowtell

What a crazy refereeing decision!

Great ride from Paco, Nicholls looks far from race fit, which is to be expected after so long out... I wonder how much testing/practising he's done

Yeah, but how silly are the Poles going to feel as we move to a 4 day working week and Thursday is the new Friday... haha! Up Yours Poland! Oh, Hang On a minute... we don't have Thursdays actually do we!

So bigger crowds on a Saturday and less to pay out for the "stars" hmm 🤔

I believe Plymouth's crowds are up since returning to Saturday's

By my eye Leicester in the PL on a Thursday are not getting as big crowds as they were on Saturday's in the CL.

Winds me up too! It's so by the numbers broadcasting... SGP qualifying, show each rider for 30 seconds, cut to man holding red flag when the end of session claxon sounds. During the event find somebody in the crowd who's carrying a specific nations flag and cut to them whenever that nations rider wins a race! How often when you're at a Speedway meeting do you start looking around at the crowd as soon as there's an incident or especially when a rider wins the meeting! BSN & TNT are better at this, probably because there's no crowd 😂 it's just so lazy though.

From what I've seen of the coverage from Belle Vue, what is it with these extreme close ups they do of a rider on turn 4? And it's not just Belle Vue, BSN do it, TNT do it and they do it in the GP's! Arrrrrgh!

Just caught up with this and considering Rowe's withdrawal was their main talking point during the first half of the meeting nobody at TNT thought (could be arsed) to show a replay of the incident from turn 1 of heat 1, I had to rewind myself to see what had happened, even Abbi when interviewing Stead didn't follow up on him saying Rowe had sustained an injury... it's absolutely bare minimum broadcasting and all for £30.99 a month! Brilliant stuff from Leon Flint though 👏

Yep... but to say the result was never in danger is a bit of a stretch, unless @SUPERACE meant the bonus point 🤔

He wasn't running bad lasts though and had a few good scraps with Zischke

Howarth is a quality rider though and you wouldn't have been surprised if he'd popped out of the start and won his final race.