Paul's reply more or less confirms what I suspected. The ACU have realised there is a huge sum of money to be made out of the TT and want control of it, as they have done with every other sporting event, turning it from a sport to a business.

We will now see a major publicity campaign (hello Paul) selling "improved" facilities which people will pay handsomely for, increases in anything that was chargeable before and an obsession with control and management.

Arguably that formula delivered a successful slick commercial product in BSB but at the cost of astronomical price rises to riders and teams. At least the ACU don't now see the TT as a commercial competitor and we shouldn't see date clashes with BSB as we did before. One hopes they will invest some of their new-found riches back in the races - time will tell, though of course the profits will now be diverted away from local entrepreneurs and to the mainland ACU.

It is disappointing that IOMG clearly has so little faith in their own people and one must ask if the MMCC had been given the same carte blanche and budget as the ACU will have whether they could have achieved the same things. It comes as no surprise to me that a bunch of amateurs (however experienced and well-meaning people) did not fill their own bosses with confidence. There have been some spectacularly bad shows in recent years where the ACU have felt compelled to step in to drag the MMCC out of the mire, and the events have been rather run down in content and organisers' commitment.

I will be interested to see how this affects the MGP, and event that is already struggling. Either the MMCC will be able to focus its efforts on running it better or else it has been left to die. Watch this space.