Is It Finally Time For One League?

[The White Knight]

13 minutes ago, cowboy cookie returns? said:

However with all the cost cutting & watering down of the product has done nothing to improve the sport.

The fundamentals are broken & until the foundations on which the sport are changed nothing will work.

In fairness some of the best racing I’ve seen at Foxhall was in the old NL days 80/90 With out the super stars of the day.

There is so much wrong doubling up, guests, poorly prepared tracks, lack of investment, self interest, rocket ship equipment. All this detracts from the product & the credibility. 

How right you are. 1928 tracks with 2025 rocket ship bikes racing on them will not end well.

There are more and more injuries these days.

Is it any wonder?

 

[Diamonds85]

1 hour ago, cowboy cookie returns? said:

However with all the cost cutting & watering down of the product has done nothing to improve the sport.

The fundamentals are broken & until the foundations on which the sport are changed nothing will work.

In fairness some of the best racing I’ve seen at Foxhall was in the old NL days 80/90 With out the super stars of the day.

There is so much wrong doubling up, guests, poorly prepared tracks, lack of investment, self interest, rocket ship equipment. All this detracts from the product & the credibility. 

Too right. The whole make up of the sport needs a complete overhaul.

[1 valve]

On 7/12/2025 at 5:59 PM, PhilTheAce said:

Steachman said on BSN last night that it looks like it will be going 1 league next season. But 2 clubs are refusing that. 

Two clubs may not want one league for what ever their reasons, but if one league did come to pass (it wont) there will be more than two clubs required to drop out of the concept simply because of an insufficient number of riders available to make up teams for the current existing clubs.
That is of course unless the sport is absolutely dumbed down beyond all recognition to have teams of 5 riders, with no English, Australian, Swedish, Danish & Polish riders from the Ekstraliga and final numbers topped up by riders from NDL level and similar. 

[singy13]

28 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

unless the sport is absolutely dumbed down beyond all recognition to have teams of 5 riders,

That would work.......and have enough heats to allow all riders 5 rides each (instead of 4 as now)to make extra cash.

[ouch]

Maybe we could adopt the same thinking the health service used during Covid and entice retirees back. 

Heat 15

Morton

Lyons

Dugard

Loram

I’m sure there is dafter ideas circulating around Rugby. 

[Eagle77]

3 hours ago, singy13 said:

That would work.......and have enough heats to allow all riders 5 rides each (instead of 4 as now)to make extra cash.

I would have thought that with 5 rider teams each rider would need to have 6 rides each to make up a 15 heat match... 5 riders x 6 rides = 30 rides divided by 2 = 15 heats...

[singy13]

1 hour ago, Eagle77 said:

I would have thought that with 5 rider teams each rider would need to have 6 rides each to make up a 15 heat match... 5 riders x 6 rides = 30 rides divided by 2 = 15 heats...

Better at maths than me marra.

[marko]

Lots of mention of 1996 and how it was a failure and it was, not helped for me personally by the fact I was watching London Lions in that league and that was a disaster in itself.

But let’s talk about the gaps in class between merging two divisions, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as it was in 96 because so many riders in the prem still ride in the second division.

At London you had Leigh Adam’s as the top rider and a very young David Mason as the number 7, David would have struggled to average 3 in a stand alone second division.

From memory some clubs struggled to field a genuine number one, the Scottish Monarchs I think was one of them.

[PhilTheAce]

Well the spiers are building a team for next season. 
 

and we all thought the cheetahs would stay and not the spiers. 
 

so does that mean if one league Oxford will be called the spiers. 
 

or will there be a top league of 6 teams again 

[1 valve]

12 hours ago, singy13 said:

That would work.......and have enough heats to allow all riders 5 rides each (instead of 4 as now)to make extra cash.

And how much do you think would be a reasonable charge for an adult ticket for an event made up of 5 man teams from current championship (mostly second string or riders at the end of their career) & NDL riders?

[mikebv]

19 hours ago, Eagle77 said:

I would have thought that with 5 rider teams each rider would need to have 6 rides each to make up a 15 heat match... 5 riders x 6 rides = 30 rides divided by 2 = 15 heats...

The Danish model has 14 heats with several riders taking six rides.....

Five man teams can work over here, just as long as the fifth best riders in the teams are competitive, and not out of their depth makeweights to fit a team average...

Keep the development aspect in Div 2 and Div 3, and only let "juniors" ride in the top tier if they are clearly good enough to do so...

[1 valve]

2 hours ago, mikebv said:

The Danish model has 14 heats with several riders taking six rides.....

Five man teams can work over here, just as long as the fifth best riders in the teams are competitive, and not out of their depth makeweights to fit a team average...

Keep the development aspect in Div 2 and Div 3, and only let "juniors" ride in the top tier if they are clearly good enough to do so...

Currently there are 17 teams across the Premier & Championship leagues. This will be reduced to 16 next year with the loss of Birmingham. So on the basis that all other clubs will run next year, for team of five 80 riders will be required

Remove doubling up, riders contracted to Ekstraliga and Danish/Swedish nationals with contracts to race in their domestic leagues that clash with UK "race nights" simply means there will be insufficient availability of riders for sixteen teams - not counting loss of riders through injury. 

Given the above considerations and as well as ensuring "Juniors not good enough" are not unmercifully thrown into the deep end, there would be an available pool of riders next year to make up no more than 10 teams but more likely nine.

So rather than just discuss the merits of one league, maybe the discussion should consider which eight or nine team would take part - and what admission price would be considered appropriate. 
 

Edited 14 hours ago by 1 valve

[mikebv]

Just now, 1 valve said:

Currently there are 17 teams across the Premier & Championship leagues. This will be reduced to 16 next year with the loss of Birmingham. So on the basis that all other clubs will run next year 80 riders will be required.
Remove doubling up, riders contracted to Ekstraliga and Danish/Swedish nationals with contracts to race in their domestic leagues that clash with UK "race nights" simply means there will be insufficient availability of riders for sixteen teams - not counting loss of riders through injury. 

Given the above considerations and as well as ensuring "Juniors not good enough" are not unmercifully thrown into the deep end, there would be an available pool of riders next year to make up no more than 10 teams but more likely nine.

So rather than just discuss the merits of one league, maybe the discussion should consider which eight or nine team would take part - and what admission price would be considered appropriate. 
 

For me, a six team, five man team league would work...

You would end up with far too many "wobblers" for one league, even with five rider teams...

A "knockout cup" of two x three team groups with the top two of each league riding a semi final (1st of one group v 2nd in the other)...

Home and Away twice in the league would mean a total of 12 guaranteed home matches without the KO Cup Semi's and Final and the play offs..

Any team going all the way in both comps get 16 home meetings..

People talk about "more variety" but watching completely out of their depth riders each week wouldn't deliver much entertainment I would suggest...

[IainB]

22 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Currently there are 17 teams across the Premier & Championship leagues. This will be reduced to 16 next year with the loss of Birmingham. So on the basis that all other clubs will run next year, for team of five 80 riders will be required

Remove doubling up, riders contracted to Ekstraliga and Danish/Swedish nationals with contracts to race in their domestic leagues that clash with UK "race nights" simply means there will be insufficient availability of riders for sixteen teams - not counting loss of riders through injury. 

Given the above considerations and as well as ensuring "Juniors not good enough" are not unmercifully thrown into the deep end, there would be an available pool of riders next year to make up no more than 10 teams but more likely nine.

So rather than just discuss the merits of one league, maybe the discussion should consider which eight or nine team would take part - and what admission price would be considered appropriate. 
 

There will be 14 tracks in operation next season, assuming we don't lose any more before then, meaning 70 riders and not 80 and I don't see why any riders should be excluded as long as they can fulfil all of their British League fixtures on whatever night their club decides to ride (home and away).

Edited 14 hours ago by IainB

[singy13]

46 minutes ago, IainB said:

There will be 14 tracks in operation next season, assuming we don't lose any more before then,

Yeah Oxford will only run one team.

[singy13]

1 hour ago, 1 valve said:

This will be reduced to 16 next year

Nope.....Oxford would only have one team in a one league set up.

[1 valve]

1 minute ago, singy13 said:

Nope.....Oxford would only have one team in a one league set up.

Thanks for the correction. 

[1 valve]

54 minutes ago, IainB said:

There will be 14 tracks in operation next season, assuming we don't lose any more before then, meaning 70 riders and not 80 and I don't see why any riders should be excluded as long as they can fulfil all of their British League fixtures on whatever night their club decides to ride (home and away).

You're right - 14 tracks with Oxford running one team.
No rider would be excluded, just not available through either choice or contract restrictions elsewhere.
But when UK clubs choose  their desired desired race nights and their riders, they would need to consider,
Tuesdays - No riders with Swedish contracts
Wednesdays -  No riders with Danish contracts
Friday/Saturday/Sunday No riders with Polish contracts
Also no doubling up

Using Leicester as an example, From Mondays meeting lineup with the Tigers, should one league have run this year only one main body rider and the two reserves would have been able to commit to ride throughout the season for the Lions. 

I'm not against one league at all, just that if it does go ahead restricted race nights would still be required which by and large would remain as Monday & Thursday and that there will be a finite number of capable riders available to fill line ups of a much smaller number of teams (five, six or seven riders) in total than the combined Premier & Championship clubs. 

Its not an opinion, its just the math of the situation.

[singy13]

1 hour ago, mikebv said:

People talk about "more variety" but watching completely out of their depth riders each week wouldn't deliver much entertainment I would suggest...

Well every race would have a winner. And back in 1970 a packed Derwent Park cheered every winner a 'wobbler' or otherwise - really unpredictable stuff so therefore entertaining. 

[mikebv]

22 minutes ago, singy13 said:

Well every race would have a winner. And back in 1970 a packed Derwent Park cheered every winner a 'wobbler' or otherwise - really unpredictable stuff so therefore entertaining. 

Back in the 70's was fifty years ago...

Lifestyles and challenges to disposable income have moved on considerably since then...

As have massively inflation busting admission costs...

A major part of Speedways problem is thinking what was fit for purpose 50 years ago, is still going to work today...

A unique idea in modern days sports administration....