IainB

Was Masarna vs Lejonen the final? Because the way Masarna were celebrating at the end of the match was completely over the top, the most over the top celebrations I've ever seen from a team winning a semi-final!

I'm not calling Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe non-cricketing nations... Sri Lanka were in the first world cup. I would call: Canada, Kenya, UAE, Kenya, Scotland, Namibia, Holland, Ireland, Bermuda & Afghanistan non-cricketing countries often made up of players on passports of convenience not good enough to make their own national team A similar thing has happened with Rugby Union

I think if Eurosport want to break into untapped markets they maybe should have gone for a longer deal, 20 years because as things currently stand it's highly unlikely they're going to successfully break into a market that requires a crowd to make it pay. Under a 20 year plan they could have been offering "Speedway Scholarships" to promising motorbike riders from countries like Spain, Japan, Brazil, Argentina etc. to fund a riders development to a certain level in the European leagues to get to a standard where they could be included and promoted in their local country.

They don't need to, the manager can "work from home". I know I always do the Team Managers job sat on my sofa at home when watching Speedway on TV... and I've never made a bad decision Cricket diluted their World Cup tournament with the inclusion of loads of "non-cricketing" nations and for the most part they're non-events and just fill up TV air time

As a matter of interest and obviously you don't have to answer but why haven't you been for 10 years and why did you stream the British Final I don't think you can compare streaming coverage of Speedway to what was on offer on Bet365 a few years back, from what I saw of it, it had no commentary and you couldn't watch it full screen and a lot of people don't want to sign up to a betting website to watch it. Obviously I don't know for sure but I think you'd probably find that the vast silent majority do subscribe to BT Sport or Premier Sports to watch their Speedway rather than watching some ropey stream with Polish of Swedish commentary, I certainly do. I don't think you can tar all Speedway fans with the I'll watch it for free brush. I don't think streaming will be the saviour of the sport but it's certainly an untapped revenue stream (pun)

You're obviously entitled to your opinion but I don't know why you'd cut your nose off to spite your face, I can't see how wearing a face mask and standing 2m away from somebody effects your ability to socialise and watch Speedway... do you like touching people? Rules on things change all the time and you obviously weigh up the pros and cons on whether to keep doing whatever it is that the new rules effect. I don't understand why you can't separate your enjoyment of Speedway and socialising and punish Speedway for it. If you felt that strongly about it you should be organising a revolution and not taking the easy way out of spitting your dummy out and complaining about it on a Speedway forum where nobody is going to see it and do anything about it

Yes it's a big risk, I understand they've repainted the TV Licence detector vans to catch people not obeying quarantine

You'd hope they've learnt their lesson from the TV contracts, the value of the Sky contracts balanced off playing in front of empty stadiums and by the time a lot of clubs cottoned on that the value of the TV contracts were going down along with the paying punter it was too late, Sky were gone and so were the paying punters. You could sit at home on a cold wet night and watch your team... and then watch any other world class sport for a month or lump out £15-£18 to watch a load of rubbish

For me, the streaming should be the icing on the cake, an attempt to "mop up" those punters that aren't going to watch an event live (in normal times). You'd have to price/market the stream so as not to effect the live attendance.

When I tuned in and saw the rain I thought here we go, we're in for a night of high farce and what is the stream rain off policy? In the end it turned out to be quite an entertaining meeting. I do hope the price point for the behind closed doors meetings is not going to reflect the pricing policy for when crowds are eventually allowed back. And you have to wonder why they've gone down the SportCentralTV route when their "broadcast partner" already have a streaming setup available on the market. Maybe it's because the Eurosport deal has been put on hold, I'm not sure as this seems to be a bit of a grey area. But Chris Louis did mention last night that Eurosport have many ideas for British Speedway, we'll see in the fullness of time no doubt. Eurosport charge around £5 a month for Eurosport player... which I'd happily pay to watch some British Speedway, in fact I'd happily pay £5 a week

Just heard on the radio this morning that Poland is to be added to the quarantine list at the weekend

I've been busy watching some grass grow during the summer and now autumn/winter is here I've got some paint that needs to be watched drying

I'd be very surprised if the FIM & BSI were that forward thinking.

No villageidiot, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit

come on racers and royals, don't be so rude not just you

He posted that he was on a wind up... after getting piled on though

I think the "Bfitish final" is hopefully a one off in these current circumstances, I think the wider topic under normal circumstances is an interesting one

One wonders if British Speedway actually knows who their demographic is, I know it likes to think of itself as a "family sport" but from what I see on the terraces it seems to be an old persons sport even though the competitors probably see it as an extreme sport, so who do you aim your stream and pricing at? I don't agree that "the stream needs to be aimed at those who dont attend Speedway regularly but know it exists and maybe used to follow it" or the neutral... I consider myself a fan of F1 but have never been to a race, having said that I do subscribe to the F1 channel, I also quite like to watch the odd Football match but would never pay to attend one or watch one on PPV TV... it's really quite complex when you start to think about it. Maybe they could/should be looking to team up with their "broadcast partner" to see how this can be made financially viable, maybe using the Eurosport Player

That's why charging a one off event fee will not work in my opinion. Boxing does PPV for one off title fights that the public will pay, although I never have, but I have watched them down the pub. But then they've also got a Box Nation subscription channel on Sky. I'd perhaps pay for a season ticket but not one off events at over a tenner a pop

Any advertising during the streams?

A tenner for the British Final is probably around the right price, not so sure for a league match though, it'll be interesting to see what the "behind the scenes" coverage is like, it'll need some buy in from the riders, interviews during the meeting etc. they need to be offering something on the stream that you can't get at the live meeting. Also they'll need to come up with some refund policy if the meeting is abandoned etc.

As there's a few comments on a few different threads, I thought I'd set a new topic up as streaming seems to be the future. I will be purchasing my first stream for Saturday's British Final... assuming a host of riders don't drop out at the last minute! But it will be a one off, as BSPL have been done up like a kipper by the government on this. It'll be a one off for me because of the pricing, what should the pricing model be? BSPL seem to be wanting to recoup all of their outlay in the first season instead of spreading the cost over the next 10 years... as it's clearly the future. It's tricky to price, as charge too much and people won't pay it and charge too cheaply and people will just watch it from home. Maybe it needs some out of the box thinking and selling it as a part of a season ticket package, attend home matches and get discounted streaming passes. Does anybody know how other sports price their streaming offerings?

Fake news

For me you just can't beat being there live, there's absolutely no comparison. It'll be interesting to see how the new streaming takes off for the BSPL, at the moment they seem to think that £13 is a fair price, I suppose market forces will decide what the price should be. For me that's far too much and only around a £5 saving on actually being there and having the "live" experience. I know there's other costs associated with attending a meeting but for me I'd often make a day of attending meetings further away from home and pull in some other local attraction. As a one off I will be re-investing my £20 to watch this weekend's British Final as I've paid it out already and want to help them covering their costs as they've been done up like a kipper but in the future I think £5 - £7.50 would be my limit for a streamed match, compare this to Eurosport, BT Sport or Premier Sports and it's poor value, and before anybody comes back to me explaining the costs involved, I know this and all I'm really interested in is the cost to myself.

Don't forget it's only Nigel Pearson saying this... Do we know that this is still actually the case now transponders have been brought in?