What will 2026 UK speedway bring?

[TB1]

46 minutes ago, TTT said:

Grading system doesn't protect them either.

The best riders on 8+, 7+ and 6+ GSA's will still all be signed up by the PREM Clubs.

 

Just throwing something together as an example say 1 Rider on 8+, 7+ and 6+ Per Team.

KING'S LYNN We'll have Harris, Rowe and Kerr

IPSWICH We'll have King, Nicholls and Jenkins

LEICESTER We'll have D. Thompson, Howarth and N. Morris

 

That's the problem here, A handful of Teams will be struggling to put a side together that's anywhere near satisfactory.

Bottom line is.....Too Many Teams and Not Enough Good Riders to go around.

Whilst I agree I'm afraid we are going to have to bite the bullet on this one otherwise British Speedway has no future. One league with rookies is the only way forward.

[TB1]

Let's consider the situation logically. Why have no premiership clubs signed any riders?

The answer is simple 

Why be a sacrificial lamb when the numbers don't add up!

They don't want one league but I'm afraid it's hobsons choice.

[Falcon1983]

A suggestion i made on FB based on the prem scratching around for a side...

Instead of Northampton riding at Oxford 

Why not enter a side called British Lions and have Vatcher as team manager? Home track? They can be a touring side and can ride at any venue that can accomodate a Monday/Thursday as a one off

If British Speedway is too much of a commitment for Woffy and Lambert, allow them to share the no.1 spot 

Far from ideal but a fraction better than Northampton at Oxford to save the Prem

 

Or....

Help another nation develope their Speedway? Allow one of the French teams or German sides into the Prem to boost the numbers

After all alot of mentions of BSB being an example of how to run a series but they do go to Assen 

 

 

 

 

[Aries]

7 hours ago, TB1 said:

Whilst I agree I'm afraid we are going to have to bite the bullet on this one otherwise British Speedway has no future. One league with rookies is the only way forward.

No, it isn’t. 

[IainB]

31 minutes ago, Aries said:

No, it isn’t. 

Well argued 😂

[arnieg]

10 hours ago, IainB said:

Don't forget that riders are not employees though, I'm not sure how foreign riders visa requirements are met in that case, 

Riders are NOT EMPLOYEES FOR TAX PURPOSES.

That does not mean they can't be employees for other purposes. Similar confusion over categorisation exists with aspects of Company and Employment law. 

[norbold]

11 minutes ago, IainB said:

Well argued 😂

Hitchen's Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

[IainB]

5 minutes ago, arnieg said:

Riders are NOT EMPLOYEES FOR TAX PURPOSES.

That does not mean they can't be employees for other purposes. Similar confusion over categorisation exists with aspects of Company and Employment law. 

Are there any "employee" riders in British Speedway, other than by their own Limited Company's? Specifically speaking about foreign riders, do you know how they are paid, how they pay their tax and how their visa requirements are fulfilled?

[Aries]

20 minutes ago, IainB said:

Well argued 😂

To be fair Iain, I’ve argued against it to death on here to the point I can’t be bothered with it anymore. 
 

I’ll bow out of this one now and let you lot crack on with your doomsday scenarios. I’m not in denial because there’s clearly issues here, but let’s wait for the AGM when issues will hopefully be resolved. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Aries

[1 valve]

9 hours ago, TigerIain said:

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

No pictures needed, I would rather you realise that one (full time) league based on the current availability of riders can only work if doubling up was done away with and leaving sufficient number of riders for no more than 8 or at a squeeze 9 teams. 
For now,  It doesn’t matter if current Premier or championship clubs  make up the one league just that we all need to recognise the math & logistics which force the only possible outcome.
It is also why one league will not happen in 2026 because too many promoters cannot think beyond their own self interest and thus block progress. 

[mikebv]

Six teams? Five teams? Four teams?

Won't make much difference will it? 

If they go with six teams, as soon as the riders are confirmed on here, the two missing out on the play offs will be as clear as day for all to see...

Just like every season...

The top tier in its current guise simply doesn't work due to the lack of riders of the level required, and the money those who are top level, and ride over here, take out of fhe sport.  .

Ultimately, doing the sport no favours..

I would suggest £20 to sit, and £15 to stand, is the sweet spot for Speedway in the UK...

Away fans in for a tenner max, and free if travelling over 50 miles...

Start from that and build your cost budgets around it accordingly...

And get as many teams in one league as is possible to bring some variety...

[Arch Stanton]

There will be a top league, and there HAS to be a top league. Patience is required but progress is being made.

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

11 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

There will be a top league, and there HAS to be a top league. Patience is required but progress is being made.

No there doesn’t have to be a top league, fans want variety, something different, the arrogance of the top 5 teams says there needs to be a top league and it could be argued that arrogance is the reason the sport is in such a mess that it finds itself in 

[TTT]

One Big League is just mathematically impossible to work and I'll prove it with statistics.

 

Including the following Riders....

Nicolai Klindt (Missed so many Meeting's due to foreign commitments)

Craig Cook (Doesn't Turn Up)

Villads Nagel (Same as Nicolai Klindt)

Erik Riss (Said he's not Riding in the UK in 2026)

Steve Worrall (Retired)

Oskar Polis (Quit after a handful of Meetings in 2025)

 

No. of Clubs (14)

No. of Riders on 8+ GSA's (9)....After C. Cook and possibly Klindt (7)

No. of Riders on 7.00-7.99 GSA's (12).....After Nagel and Riss (10)

No. of Riders on 6.00-6.99 GSA's (11)....After Polis and S. Worrall (9)

 

Team Building Rules and a Grading System would be irrelevant because no matter what idea they think of, The Mathematics still won't add up due to too many Teams competing in the League.

Due to Rider Availability we will have no choice but to call out of depth NDL Riders up who don't even get a look in at CHAMP level in it's current format let alone PREM.

Rider Availability worsens in 2027 when Poland introduce the One More League Rule.

After all of thse problems, Clubs then have to convince fans to pay £20 to watch this stuff as they can't drop admission prices as they'll still be paying increased prices when it comes to rent costs and stuff because everything goes up in the world that we live in today.

Edited 3 hours ago by TTT

[heathen52]

5 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

There will be a top league, and there HAS to be a top league. Patience is required but progress is being made.

No there does not, if the so called top league folds then the what does the other league become ?., think back to the early 60's the National League became untenable which left the Provincial League that then became THE British League with National league teams joining, the difference between now and then is solely the number of riders or should i say where the riders come from, take away the Aussies and we would struggle to have the 2 leagues we have had for the last few years.

I believe Speedway in the UK has to take a step back before it can step forwards, at the very minimum NO doubling up/down which in itself will be a step forward, Poole are an example of NOT riding in the so called top league on a night the fans want to watch, somehow a way has to be found and struggling to maintain the status quo is not it.

[ouch]

12 hours 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.

Poole finished with one rider over 8 this year so aside from the decades used points limit, they will done nothing to share out league strength. 

The “big” five didn’t screw over Birmingham or Oxford. If the Brummies had won the league this season they would still have closed. Kings Lynn (one of the “big” five) screwed Oxford over last year and simultaneously finished below them in the table. 

It’s widely known that there are no assets any longer so how in a free market can teams screw over other teams? If offering better terms is screwing over, then people and companies are screwed over every day and this has gone on since commerce came to be. With the lack of riders for one big league I anticipate screwing over will become more prevalent - and costly. 

 

[Mumsie]

The 'top' league is clearly on borrowed time, one league will be the only solution at some stage. Some serious massaging will need to happen for the Prem league to happen in 2026.

[IainB]

57 minutes ago, Aries said:

To be fair Iain, I’ve argued against it to death on here to the point I can’t be bothered with it anymore. 
 

I’ll bow out of this one now and let you lot crack on with your doomsday scenarios. I’m not in denial because there’s clearly issues here, but let’s wait for the AGM when issues will hopefully be resolved. 

I'm with you there... @TTT seems pretty insistent and I've wanted to comment on a lot they've said... I can't be arsed though 😂. Like you say, just got to wait for it all to play out

[THE DEAN MACHINE]

Having a long chat with a former promoter yesterday at the speedway show, something he said made me laugh but his point was valid, he was saying speedway had changed and not for the better and he said it used to be after a meeting around midnight he would get the stadium manager calling him saying can you come and get your star rider out of the bar I want to close up and go home, his point was when that stopped speedway changed lol 

Edited 2 hours ago by THE DEAN MACHINE

[ouch]

9 minutes ago, Mumsie said:

The 'top' league is clearly on borrowed time, one league will be the only solution at some stage. Some serious massaging will need to happen for the Prem league to happen in 2026.

Looking forward to one big league and Sam Masters battles with Jack Shimelt, add in seeing Glasgow v Edinburgh 10 times makes for a mouth watering prospect.