SGB Championship explained

SGB Championship
Current Season:SGB Championship 2024
Sport:Speedway
Founded:2017
Teams:9
Continent:or
Continents:-->
Champion:Glasgow Tigers
Most Champs:Poole Pirates (2)
Tv:British Speedway Network
Sponsor:Cab Direct
Domestic Cup:SGB Championship Knockout Cup
Footnotes:League Above
SGB Premiership
League Below
National Development League

The Speedway Great Britain (SGB) Championship is the second division of speedway league competition in the United Kingdom, governed by the Speedway Control Bureau (SCB), in conjunction with the British Speedway Promoters' Association (BSPA). It was introduced for 2017 following a restructuring of British speedway.[1]

Teams

Current teams

Former teams

Champions

SeasonChampionsSecondThird
2017Sheffield TigersIpswich WitchesEdinburgh Monarchs / Glasgow Tigers
2018Workington CometsLakeside HammersPeterborough Panthers / Glasgow Tigers
2019Leicester LionsGlasgow TigersRedcar Bears / Somerset Rebels
2020Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2021Poole PiratesGlasgow TigersLeicester Lions / Edinburgh Monarchs
2022Poole PiratesLeicester LionsEdinburgh Monarchs / Glasgow Tigers
2023Glasgow TigersPoole PiratesOxford Cheetahs / Scunthorpe Scorpions

History

After the 2016 season, the Premier League was renamed to the SGB Championship for the 2017 season. The 2017 edition of the league contained ten teams who met each other twice (home and away). The top four teams at the end of the regular season qualified for the playoffs to decide the champions. All ten of the teams were from the previous season's Premier League.[2]

In 2017, there was a short-lived relegation and promotion race-off between the Championship and the new top tier, the SGB Premiership, with the bottom team from the Premiership going into a playoff with the Championship winners.[3] The following year in 2018, the promotion/relegation system was scrapped.[4]

Team building

At the start of the season, teams are built up to maximum points limit. The combined Calculated Match Average (CMA) of the riders declared in the team must not be higher than an agreed figure set at the British Speedway Promoters' Association (BSPA) Annual General Meeting.

See also

Notes and References

  1. "British Speedway Gets Major Revamp", speedwaygb.co, 3 November 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2016
  2. "Speedway: Promotion and relegation introduced to revamped competition", BBC, 3 November 2016. Retrieved 4 November 2016
  3. "British Speedway set for big revamp with promotion and relegation", Sky Sports, 3 November 2016. Retrieved 4 November 2016
  4. Web site: MAJOR MOVES ANNOUNCED - British Speedway Official Website.