What will 2026 UK speedway bring?

[Son of Shaleman]

My guess now is that some top league teams will not run in 2026. Belle Vue and Leicester left looking for a league while Kings Lynn, Ipswich sit it out. Reckon KL might run NDL team as last year’s team grew in popularity and entertained. 

[TB1]

5 minutes ago, Son of Shaleman said:

My guess now is that some top league teams will not run in 2026. Belle Vue and Leicester left looking for a league while Kings Lynn, Ipswich sit it out. Reckon KL might run NDL team as last year’s team grew in popularity and entertained. 

I disagree, I think they'll all run but somehow they will fudge it through, presumably they are waiting on 1 or 2. Could Peterborough get up and running in a few months, I guess they could and hope they will.

[Fromafar]

9 minutes ago, Son of Shaleman said:

My guess now is that some top league teams will not run in 2026. Belle Vue and Leicester left looking for a league while Kings Lynn, Ipswich sit it out. Reckon KL might run NDL team as last year’s team grew in popularity and entertained. 

That’s what it is guesswork.!!

[Fortythirtyeight]

1 hour ago, YeOldPitGate said:

I'm not in the know by any stretch Steve but plenty on here who are reasonably well connected hinted last deal was roughly 100k per club.

Try 6 grand for Premiership, 3 grand for championship which they did NOT receive as it’s deducted from the fees owed to the BSPA to be allowed to function.

[mikebv]

5 hours ago, TB1 said:

Everyone is talking about different permutations and this that and the other. My question is this. For non UK riders, what exactly are the visa requirements.

I ask the question because presumably if we to need to populate 14 sides for example and just say we need to get riders who may be well down the pecking order in say any EU country or even Denmark or Sweden for example.

Would they demand top dollar as British Speedway would have a begging bowl?

 

When I used to sponsor workers,  for "some" overseas workers they now have to show they are guaranteed to earn £41k a year as a minimum..

There are EU and Commonwealth differences, plus different tiers...

£41k will be "there or thereabouts" for a fair few overseas riders if only riding in Div 2 I would think...

Maybe sone clubs will need to up their deals by a few quid? 

[mikebv]

1 hour ago, Steve Irving said:

It’s not going to happen for many many reasons, but talking hypothetically if they went with one league then any deals currently done would be null and void. There is absolutely no way you could have all the current Championship clubs practically sorted, and then five clubs joining them having basically nothing to pick up. That just won’t happen and anyone thinking it would, are completely delusional.

You would also have a potential issue with which teams promoter has sponsored the overseas riders visa..

Some double up but one team will be the sponsor...

You can imagine that the team sponsoring the visa would claim the rider...

Edited 3 hours ago by mikebv

[mikebv]

46 minutes ago, Sir Sidney said:

BSPL Sponsored Migrant policy - as is 

https://britishspeedway.co.uk/docs/2024-25_BSP_Ltd_GBE_Criteria.pdf

 

Is there a "guest migrant" policy.   ?

[TigerIain]

Interesting how so many Premiership team fans on here are convinced that if it went to one league, the Premiership teams would royally screw the Championship teams by hoovering up all the top riders and leaving the dregs for the Championship teams. 

And they wonder why no-one wants to join their failing league!

The 9 Championship teams this year agreed to share out league strength by having only 1 rider over 8 points. This was to ensure that all teams had done strength after last seasons disparity. In one league of 14 teams, why would 9 teams vote to allow 5 teams to screw them over? Just to clarify, as I question the intelligence of some, 9 is bigger than 5.

For 2 years the 5 "big" teams screwed the Spires and Brummies, and no longer have them in the league. The Championship promoters chose not to go down that route. Yes Poole, Glasgow and Redcar will be relatively weaker next season, but they chose the intelligent option of making sure that the didn't kill off the 'weaker' teams.

If Chris Louis is the messiah like promoter some are holding him up to be, why didn't he and his cronies take their foot off the throat of Oxford and Birmingham before they killed them off? (Yes I know Brummies lost their track but for all the plans to keep the Premiership going, not one has been keep the Brummies going at another venue as the promoter walked away from the Premiership and the fans didn't support an obviously canon fodder team).

IF the Premiership fails and joins the Championship, to make it one league, then the points limit and team building rules would be set at a level where the Premiership teams could not do that to the Championship teams because the bullying majority would be the minority.

[IainB]

1 hour ago, mikebv said:

When I used to sponsor workers,  for "some" overseas workers they now have to show they are guaranteed to earn £41k a year as a minimum..

There are EU and Commonwealth differences, plus different tiers...

£41k will be "there or thereabouts" for a fair few overseas riders if only riding in Div 2 I would think...

Maybe sone clubs will need to up their deals by a few quid? 

Don't forget that riders are not employees though, I'm not sure how foreign riders visa requirements are met in that case, do they work under/for an umbrella company. 

12 minutes ago, TigerIain said:

Interesting how so many Premiership team fans on here are convinced that if it went to one league, the Premiership teams would royally screw the Championship teams by hoovering up all the top riders and leaving the dregs for the Championship teams. 

And they wonder why no-one wants to join their failing league!

The 9 Championship teams this year agreed to share out league strength by having only 1 rider over 8 points. This was to ensure that all teams had done strength after last seasons disparity. In one league of 14 teams, why would 9 teams vote to allow 5 teams to screw them over? Just to clarify, as I question the intelligence of some, 9 is bigger than 5.

For 2 years the 5 "big" teams screwed the Spires and Brummies, and no longer have them in the league. The Championship promoters chose not to go down that route. Yes Poole, Glasgow and Redcar will be relatively weaker next season, but they chose the intelligent option of making sure that the didn't kill off the 'weaker' teams.

If Chris Louis is the messiah like promoter some are holding him up to be, why didn't he and his cronies take their foot off the throat of Oxford and Birmingham before they killed them off? (Yes I know Brummies lost their track but for all the plans to keep the Premiership going, not one has been keep the Brummies going at another venue as the promoter walked away from the Premiership and the fans didn't support an obviously canon fodder team).

IF the Premiership fails and joins the Championship, to make it one league, then the points limit and team building rules would be set at a level where the Premiership teams could not do that to the Championship teams because the bullying majority would be the minority.

I'm not sure Brum were screwed over by the PL though but the setup as a whole, they should surely have been allowed to ride CL on a Monday much in the way that Swindon were allowed to run Thursday's when the PL switched to Monday/Wednesday originally, to force Brum to run PL was utter madness. 

Edited 1 hour ago by IainB

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

After a few chats over the last few days I really hope now that the premier league fails and all 5 teams and Peterborough if they run have no choice but to join the championship and as much as they will kick and scream maybe after a year of it they will think well actually it’s pretty good and a bit more sustainable than the premier league, it’s been mentioned before on here but a betting deal could be the premier’s saviour 

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

Speedway has a lot of “if only’s” floating around at the moment and if only those “if onlys”would materialise things would look a little different 

[1 valve]

56 minutes ago, TigerIain said:

Interesting how so many Premiership team fans on here are convinced that if it went to one league, the Premiership teams would royally screw the Championship teams by hoovering up all the top riders and leaving the dregs for the Championship teams. 

And they wonder why no-one wants to join their failing league!

The 9 Championship teams this year agreed to share out league strength by having only 1 rider over 8 points. This was to ensure that all teams had done strength after last seasons disparity. In one league of 14 teams, why would 9 teams vote to allow 5 teams to screw them over? Just to clarify, as I question the intelligence of some, 9 is bigger than 5.

For 2 years the 5 "big" teams screwed the Spires and Brummies, and no longer have them in the league. The Championship promoters chose not to go down that route. Yes Poole, Glasgow and Redcar will be relatively weaker next season, but they chose the intelligent option of making sure that the didn't kill off the 'weaker' teams.

If Chris Louis is the messiah like promoter some are holding him up to be, why didn't he and his cronies take their foot off the throat of Oxford and Birmingham before they killed them off? (Yes I know Brummies lost their track but for all the plans to keep the Premiership going, not one has been keep the Brummies going at another venue as the promoter walked away from the Premiership and the fans didn't support an obviously canon fodder team).

IF the Premiership fails and joins the Championship, to make it one league, then the points limit and team building rules would be set at a level where the Premiership teams could not do that to the Championship teams because the bullying majority would be the minority.

This is one hell of a post length wise - but please realign you’re thinking cap and recognise one league means that there will be only eight teams, who will have to ride on Mondays & Thursdays. 
Start your thinking there and decide which clubs will make the cut!
BTW  To save you further contemplating “what about the other clubs” the answer is part time development league (maybe individual meetings featuring top flight riders) or close.

[TTT]

52 minutes ago, TigerIain said:

Interesting how so many Premiership team fans on here are convinced that if it went to one league, the Premiership teams would royally screw the Championship teams by hoovering up all the top riders and leaving the dregs for the Championship teams. 

And they wonder why no-one wants to join their failing league!

The 9 Championship teams this year agreed to share out league strength by having only 1 rider over 8 points. This was to ensure that all teams had done strength after last seasons disparity. In one league of 14 teams, why would 9 teams vote to allow 5 teams to screw them over? Just to clarify, as I question the intelligence of some, 9 is bigger than 5.

For 2 years the 5 "big" teams screwed the Spires and Brummies, and no longer have them in the league. The Championship promoters chose not to go down that route. Yes Poole, Glasgow and Redcar will be relatively weaker next season, but they chose the intelligent option of making sure that the didn't kill off the 'weaker' teams.

If Chris Louis is the messiah like promoter some are holding him up to be, why didn't he and his cronies take their foot off the throat of Oxford and Birmingham before they killed them off? (Yes I know Brummies lost their track but for all the plans to keep the Premiership going, not one has been keep the Brummies going at another venue as the promoter walked away from the Premiership and the fans didn't support an obviously canon fodder team).

IF the Premiership fails and joins the Championship, to make it one league, then the points limit and team building rules would be set at a level where the Premiership teams could not do that to the Championship teams because the bullying majority would be the minority.

Wouldn't be a vote as their won't be 14 Riders on 8+ GSA's to share around anyway so some teams will have to go without.

That still doesn't protect CHAMP Clubs when it comes to Riders like Jake Mulford, Jordan Jenkins, Jason Edwards and co. as they're all on nice GSA's for the PREM Clubs like Belle Vue and Ipswich.

[1 valve]

7 minutes ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said:

After a few chats over the last few days I really hope now that the premier league fails and all 5 teams and Peterborough if they run have no choice but to join the championship and as much as they will kick and scream maybe after a year of it they will think well actually it’s pretty good and a bit more sustainable than the premier league, it’s been mentioned before on here but a betting deal could be the premier’s saviour 

Not enough riders will be available to make one league unless of course the joke of doubling up is allowed to expand to allow riders to ride for two teams in the same division week in week out. 

Remember one league equals eight teams unless of course the totally ministering 6 man teams is adopted as the first ring of the UK death bells. 

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

4 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Not enough riders will be available to make one league unless of course the joke of doubling up is allowed to expand to allow riders to ride for two teams in the same division week in week out. 

Remember one league equals eight teams unless of course the totally ministering 6 man teams is adopted as the first ring of the UK death bells. 

Glass half full and all that, there is always a way if you really want something 

Edited 48 minutes ago by THE DEAN MACHINE

[TigerIain]

35 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

This is one hell of a post length wise - but please realign you’re thinking cap and recognise one league means that there will be only eight teams, who will have to ride on Mondays & Thursdays. 
Start your thinking there and decide which clubs will make the cut!
BTW  To save you further contemplating “what about the other clubs” the answer is part time development league (maybe individual meetings featuring top flight riders) or close.

Would you rather I used pictures next time?

And 5 clubs telling 9 clubs we're are all having a league with only 8 teams and only on the nights we want you to ride and we're having 5 of the 8 spots is the same staggering arrogance that caused your Premiership to get to the brink of  failure in the first place

[TTT]

24 minutes ago, 1 valve said:

Not enough riders will be available to make one league unless of course the joke of doubling up is allowed to expand to allow riders to ride for two teams in the same division week in week out. 

Remember one league equals eight teams unless of course the totally ministering 6 man teams is adopted as the first ring of the UK death bells. 

They'll have to use out of depth NDL Riders who don't even get a look in when it comes to the CHAMP in it's current format let alone PREM.

[TigerIain]

35 minutes ago, TTT said:

Wouldn't be a vote as their won't be 14 Riders on 8+ GSA's to share around anyway so some teams will have to go without.

That still doesn't protect CHAMP Clubs when it comes to Riders like Jake Mulford, Jordan Jenkins, Jason Edwards and co. as they're all on nice GSA's for the PREM Clubs like Belle Vue and Ipswich.

Do you think it's pure coincidence that there were 9 riders on 8+ and a rule was brought in saying each club can only sign 1 rider on 8+?? The actual number would be adjusted so that it so worked out at 1 per club, or you go to rider grading, possibly right through the 1-7.

The negotiations would not be done just so that Ipswich and Belle Vue can ruin the Championship clubs the way they ruined the Premiership. Intelligent promoters in the Championship would see right through that and ensure that all clubs had a chance at signing a competitive team to protect the league itself, just like they have done/proposed with the 2026 Championship 

[YeOldPitGate]

3 hours ago, Fortythirtyeight said:

Try 6 grand for Premiership, 3 grand for championship which they did NOT receive as it’s deducted from the fees owed to the BSPA to be allowed to function.

Seriously as low as that or are you on a wind up ? and is that per meeting shown on tv or the entire season payout ?