SPEED in itself was a good product,
It was? It was all we had. Better than nothing but far from good.
Maybe I'm the only person who wasn't surprised and even thought "good riddance" when speed was announced to end.
Motorsport/racing more than three hours is not a viable broadcast product. Few sports can survive longer than that. Golf has some kind of religious following that gives it an odd exception (maybe its good background enjoyment for Sunday dinner). An endurance race over a few hours can't be a viable advertising product. So, that gets chopped up to use cheap ploys to maintain profit during odd hours. Then, consider how much Motorsport exists today. I've seen bikes racing on ice, lawnmower racing, boat racing, plane racing, and they do it in every way, shape and form. There aren't enough hours to show it all on one channel.
For me Speed had the money to hold rights to things that deserved better treatment. It also was often a higher tier channel, which prevented a chunk of the audience from watching. Racing needs a more accessible medium. But as long as Speed existed to hold rights to all the series it rarely happened.
Speed is dead. Good riddance. They forced me to go online to watch stuff they did show. Now I can just go online and not feel like I'm switching devices to watch one event. With Speed gone that opens the door to more choices to get the license to broadcast. Eventually online technology will be where everyone can enjoy streaming with full coverage.
Yes, we will have growing pains. FS1 will try to hold in to licenses and eventually screw it up with interruptions and/or delays. I figure for five years we will be in limbo and lament the loss of Speed.
After that, if things go right, we will look back and realize the only reason we liked Speed was because we suffered some variant of Stockholm Syndrome.