mikebv Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago (edited) 1 hour ago, 1 valve said: Unfortunately, although you clearly mean well your suggestion just will not work due to a number of factors which are just not sustainable or deliverable. one being, a top league of eight teams will leave no riders to make up a second tier - thus at least no need to worry about the fixture chaos and the mass use of guests required. We have fixture chaos and dozens of guests now, so how will we spot the difference? A top league of eight teans will need forty riders with five to a team.. And, if all run on every night apart from Tuesday and Sunday all will be available for their HOME meeting and some/most aways... If there is common sense, then anyone 8 points and over from last seasons Prem should get their average capped at 12, so that team can keep a "top rider" if they so wish, and still build a decent five rider team... A couple of my mates retired before me and got bored... So now they do Amazon drops... 7am to 3pm, earning around £120 a day.. Meaning if they did five days they get £600.. Circa £30k a year. A Championship No1 will be on around £2k a night if the Championship was the top tier... Eight teams in a league home and away twice as a minimum is £56k... Add in an Amazon job, with decent hours to still do Speedway ,and that is circa £86k a year. (Other jobs are available).... Comfortably in the top 10% of UK earners.... Or they double up for around £1k a night in second tier at Champ/NDL level... Or ride in Sweden, Poland and Denmark. (For one season at least)... This obsession with high earning GP riders who restrict teams to Mondays and Thursdays baffle me... Especially as they don't generate crowds which justify their expense... They have, sadly, outgrown the UK version of the sport... Edited 4 hours ago by mikebv 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago 6 minutes ago, TTT said: I agree. Something has to give and a compromise has to be met between PREM & CHAMP Promoters. Unfortunately this situation has been predicted over the last 10-15 years and it has arrived.!Who knows what the powers at be will come up with. Many suggestions but who knows what the outcome will.Cant really see it being positive though unfortunately. Back to basics is my solution .The BSPA is secret society full of self interest .The sport has no credibility as a professional Sport which is a major problem in attracting new Fans (and keeping them) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dontforgetthefueltapsbruv Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago 31 minutes ago, mikebv said: An eight team "top league" racing on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday depending on what is their best night to deliver the biggest crowds... The level being very much Championship standard, but if a team wants to run on Monday and Thursday so they can use a GP rider with a "high average" then they do so and just build the rest of the team around them... Five riders per team, no rising stars, use the Danish model so plenty of rides per meeting for each rider... Anyone riding in Poland or Denmark may miss away meetings from time to time so just use a guest. Like happens ad nauseum now... As long as they ride at home then, "where the money is made", is protected... Second tier, six teams, seven riders per team ran at a hybrid Championship/NDL level, (the current stand alone clubs and the NORA ones may also be interested)... Riders can double up with, again, a high average for the better ones, with the rest of the team built around them.. Two, two point reserves in every 2nd tier team, a) to give those starting out track time, and b) to help offset the costs of a DU'ing No1... Each club to run at least a 9 heat second half of those needing development.... You would expect Ipswich,Belle Vue,Sheffield,Leicester and Kings Lynn to automatically be in the top league given they all actually want be in an even stronger league than you propose here You may imagine that the next 3 may be Glasgow,Poole and Redcar That then doesn't solve Glasgow's local rival issue - would they really want to be at NDL+ level which is your 2nd level For that matter how would Oxford,Berwick,Scunthorpe,Edinburgh, Workington and Plymouth feel about being at that same NDL+ level Doubling up could not work as they would be a significant number of clashes every week 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTT Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago The Rider Sharing Scheme is the key ingredient as to how British Speedway functions. The CHAMPIONSHIP is so heavily reliant on this scheme and we can use title challenging CHAMP Clubs like Glasgow, Poole and Redcar as prime examples where their entire 2025 spearheads consisted of PREM D/UP's. The real question Promoters have to ask themselves is......Can we afford to scrap the whole thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago (edited) 6 minutes ago, dontforgetthefueltapsbruv said: You would expect Ipswich,Belle Vue,Sheffield,Leicester and Kings Lynn to automatically be in the top league given they all actually want be in an even stronger league than you propose here You may imagine that the next 3 may be Glasgow,Poole and Redcar That then doesn't solve Glasgow's local rival issue - would they really want to be at NDL+ level which is your 2nd level For that matter how would Oxford,Berwick,Scunthorpe,Edinburgh, Workington and Plymouth feel about being at that same NDL+ level Doubling up could not work as they would be a significant number of clashes every week Then the Championship teams you mention just stay as is.... And the top league goes down the pan.... And as for clashes, just use the guest system like they do now for a myriad of reasons... The sport has very little credibility meaning any title also is tainted the same... So just put out Speedway, to a decent level, on any night that your punters feel is best. If their team wins then "Yay"!, and If they don't then "Frowny Face".... Edited 5 hours ago by mikebv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Normski Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago 41 minutes ago, Fromafar said: Don’t think that will happen though 9 teams in the Championship 4 ride on a Friday, 3 on a Saturday just leaves Oxford and Poole who ride on a Wednesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldPitGate Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago 28 minutes ago, Fromafar said: Unfortunately this situation has been predicted over the last 10-15 years and it has arrived.!Who knows what the powers at be will come up with. Many suggestions but who knows what the outcome will.Cant really see it being positive though unfortunately. Back to basics is my solution .The BSPA is secret society full of self interest .The sport has no credibility as a professional Sport which is a major problem in attracting new Fans (and keeping them) The signs were there when I went in the mid 80's after Penhall quit, the time Penhall was at his peak 80-85 was probably the peak time for speedway and Mike Lee who was another huge name started having his problems and declined massively mid 80's onwards. I had stopped going by the time Sky got involved and that slowed down the decline of the sport , the grand prix in my opinion hasn't helped and Poland taking advantage of the UK's long term poor planning and being asleep at the wheel for years didn't help either. You also have so much more to do these day than back in the 80's multi plex cinema's didn't exist outside huge cities, online gaming and dating wasn't a thing, Sky tv wasn't an issue, nor streaming services, youngsters live more indoors these days looking at screens for most of their leisure time. There have undoutably been some dreadful decisions over the years but given the changes in society I'm beginning to think the decline was probably inevitable the british pub industry is collapsing , nightclubs are virtually gone as a lot of the younger generation have no interest in face to face interaction. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aries Posted 5 hours ago Report Share Posted 5 hours ago (edited) 2 hours ago, IainB said: What you're not taking into account are the number of riders that have given the sport up over the last few years, many of them youngsters. If the costs could be kept under control there are still people out there that want to take the sport up. You're looking at a snapshot, you're also looking at the business as usual model 7 rider teams, what the sport needs imo is an amalgamation of all 3 leagues into 1 league with a race format meaning that Jack Smith (a capable Speedway rider at his level) isn't racing against the likes of Chris Harris/Richard Lawson all the time, it's maybe even time to introduce handicap racing which used to be the norm in the US, not sure if it still is. There was a big watering down of the CL a couple or 3 years back and nobody liked it, nobody even talks and probably remembers that now. I know from my own club that crowds are visibly lower in the PL on a Monday/Thursday than they were in the CL on a Saturday night... and that's a FACT 😁 Would you have been so vocal about the survival of the top flight when Ipswich were running in the 2nd tier from 2011 to 2018, would you have been so insistent that your club should be forced to have moved up to save the top tier? I'd also be intrigued to know why you think the BAU model will work when it's been proven not to work over the last 20 years... and that was WITH a tv contract? They pretty much were in effect! Louis was unsure it was viable so to help save the top flight, agreed to sell the club to Chapman but stay on as promoter. He could have easily taken the easy option and ran Ipswich comfortably in the second tier, but done what he thought was right to help the top flight and British Speedway as a whole. Chapman then backed out of that deal a mere weeks later (thank god) but by that time rules and structures were in place and Louis had no choice but to go through with it. It’s almost as if he’d been conned in to taking Ipswich up isn’t it?… But he got his head down, hired people to canvass around all the local businesses around the town and surrounding areas to bring in as many sponsors as he possibly could. He worked his @rse off to build the club up to make it financially viable to run a Premiership team to the point where we are today. He must have had his doubts like others probably do currently, but he’s proven to all the Championship promoters that with hard work, dedication and commitment you CAN make it work. Let’s not forget your club Leicester and Sheffield were also Championship clubs not too long ago, and both have made a good fist of running in the Premiership. Sadly, SOME in the Championship simply don’t want to bother even trying to make the same effort (I’m talking about a small minority that have the set up already in place to make a good fist of it), or in probably the majority of cases, just don’t want to take the risk and are happily plodding along where they are under their safety blanket. Is it THAT too much to ask for one, or two Championship clubs to give it a go for a solitary season to help the top flight be viable in the very short term, with the agreement that if their fears are realised and it doesn’t work, they can move back to the Championship in 2027? Just one season to help keep things moving in both divisions whilst a longer term plan for the sport on the whole can be put in place. Edited 4 hours ago by Aries 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 6 minutes ago, Aries said: They pretty much were in effect! Louis was unsure it was viable so to help save the top flight, agreed to sell the club to Chapman but stay on as promoter. He could have easily taken the easy option and ran Ipswich comfortably in the second tier, but done what he thought was right to help the top flight and British Speedway as a whole. Chapman then backed out of that deal a mere weeks later (thank god) but by that time rules and structures were in place and Louis had no choice but to go through with it. It’s almost as if he’d been conned in to taking Ipswich up isn’t it?… But he got his head down, hired people to canvass around all the local businesses around the town and surrounding areas to bring in as many sponsors as he possibly could. He worked his @rse off to build the club up to make it financially viable to run a Premiership team to the point where we are today. He must have had his doubts like others probably do currently, but he’s proven to all the Championship promoters that with hard work, dedication and commitment you CAN make it work. Sadly, SOME in the Championship simply don’t want to bother even trying to make the same effort (I’m talking about a small minority that have the set up already in place to make a good fist of it), or in probably the majority of cases, just don’t want to take the risk and are happily plodding along where they are under their safety blanket. Is it THAT too much to ask for one, or two Championship clubs to give it a go for a solitary season to help the top flight be viable in the very short term, with the agreement that if their fears are realised and it doesn’t work, they can move back to the Championship in 2027? Just one season to help keep things moving in both divisions whilst a longer term plan for the sport on the whole can be put in place. Why should a Championship take the risk though,all it is achieving is propping up an unsustainable Premiership for another season. There is no miracle recovery in sight for Top League.Top riders in the sport have no interest in riding in GB in the near future. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IainB Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 20 minutes ago, Aries said: Let’s not forget your club Leicester and Sheffield were also Championship clubs not too long ago, and both have made a good fist of running in the Premiership. Results wise maybe but Sheffield is currently up for sale because the owner's business can't cover the losses the club makes and if rumours are to be believed the Leicester owner also wants out and who can blame him as that same Sheffield owner took us up, moved us to Thursday nights, saw the crowds drop and sold up. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aries Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 1 minute ago, Fromafar said: Why should a Championship take the risk though,all it is achieving is propping up an unsustainable Premiership for another season. There is no miracle recovery in sight for Top League.Top riders in the sport have no interest in riding in GB in the near future. Why not? This isn’t an us and them, this is British speedway as a whole so I wish people wouldn’t see this as some big competition between the Premiership and the Championship. British speedway needs a top tier, and a second tier, and everyone should be working together. We should all be singing from the same hymn sheet. If things need to be put in place to minimise any risk for a Championship team to be ambitious and give it a go, then so be it. Make sure that club (or clubs) have a top rider to spearhead their team. Ipswich have already lost Emil, but maybe retain only one of Doyle or Brennan, Belle Vue retain only one of Kurtz or Bewley, and then the current top flight clubs help subsidise the financial outlay for that club to help them pay for them for the season until that club can look at their end of season accounts to see whether it is financially viable for them to continue running in the top flight. If it is, then that club(s) goes it alone in 2027 and beyond. It’s short term thinking, but that’s where we currently are. As I said previously, both Leicester and Sheffield made the jump not too long ago and have managed to stay in place and not only make up the numbers, but actually be very competitive and winning silverware. It CAN be done. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aries Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 9 minutes ago, IainB said: Results wise maybe but Sheffield is currently up for sale because the owner's business can't cover the losses the club makes and if rumours are to be believed the Leicester owner also wants out and who can blame him as that same Sheffield owner took us up, moved us to Thursday nights, saw the crowds drop and sold up. Was it the losses? Fair enough if that’s the case. I thought it was more to do with their other businesses and having the time to run the club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTT Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago (edited) 44 minutes ago, Fromafar said: Why should a Championship take the risk though,all it is achieving is propping up an unsustainable Premiership for another season. There is no miracle recovery in sight for Top League.Top riders in the sport have no interest in riding in GB in the near future. That's the exact reason as to why the BSPL can't afford to let the Rider Sharing Scheme collapse. Therefore that alone has effectively made the decision for them in regards to a Two Tier Structure in 2026. Edited 4 hours ago by TTT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dontforgetthefueltapsbruv Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 47 minutes ago, Fromafar said: Why should a Championship take the risk though,all it is achieving is propping up an unsustainable Premiership for another season. There is no miracle recovery in sight for Top League.Top riders in the sport have no interest in riding in GB in the near future. So the only option then is one big league with 5 man teams and a limit set around 24/25 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IainB Posted 4 hours ago Report Share Posted 4 hours ago 25 minutes ago, Aries said: Was it the losses? Fair enough if that’s the case. I thought it was more to do with their other businesses and having the time to run the club. To be fair we don't know, but if it was profitable you'd expect them to not be selling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTT Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago 1 minute ago, dontforgetthefueltapsbruv said: So the only option then is one big league with 5 man teams and a limit set around 24/25 Pretty much and barely anyone is going to turn up to watch it. The League won't even be to the same standard as the current CHAMPIONSHIP let alone PREMIERSHIP. As I've told Fans on here from Day 1, If the PREM Collapses then the CHAMP Collapses with it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikebv Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago (edited) I really don't understand why some teams should "move up" for the "good of the sport"... Which basically translates into "so my team can ride on Monday or Thursday meaning I can watch some GP riders".... Why don't the Prem teams "drop down for the good of the sport"? Not enough riders? Then run in a reduced level top tier, with five rider teams, at Championship level, "for the good of the sport"? They can still do it on Mondays and Thursdays if certain teams want to.. With GP riders too, using a Championship level team average... Edited 2 hours ago by mikebv 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTT Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago (edited) The only reasons as to why the CHAMPIONSHIP and CHAMP Clubs have been allowed to SUCCESSFULLY operate in the way that they do is because of the following. 1. Two Tier Structure.....2. Rider Sharing Scheme. Proof is in the pudding. Glasgow, Poole and Redcar's entire spearheads were full of PREM D/UP's. Time for CHAMP Promoters to wake up and smell the coffee because the state of play is very simple and it has severe consequences if nobody takes the plunge even if it's for 1 Year. Two Tier Structure Collapse = PREMIERSHIP and Rider Sharing Scheme Collapse PREMIERSHIP and Rider Sharing Scheme Collapse = CHAMPIONSHIP Collapse PREMIERSHIP and CHAMPIONSHIP Collapse = 1 Big League Featuring 5 Man Teams that are mostly propped up by 5.00 Pointers and an NDL Rider. 1 Big League Featurning 5 Man Teams that are mostly propped up by 5.00 Pointers and an NDL Rider = END GAME! Because barely anyone is paying £20 plus other expenses to watch that during a Cost of Living Crisis. Edited 3 hours ago by TTT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattB Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago 10 hours ago, THE DEAN MACHINE said: Be honest, if you had a couple of million to throw at sponsoring British speedway, with the current state of the sport and knowing all your doing is giving it too the bspl or speedway futures (same people) to jizz up the wall again would you ? I know I wouldn’t not in its current business model It would tbe equivalent of a millionaire finding a bonfire and tossing fifty pound notes onto it one by one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjcone44 Posted 3 hours ago Report Share Posted 3 hours ago all you are saying is lets do what we did last year. crowds are going down even with the top lads, as it will next year no different, 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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