| abstract
| - The Galactic Swoop League (GSL) is the largest professional Swoop Racing league in the known galaxy. It has a long history with many ups and downs. As with many sports its popularity in any given year is often defined by wider galactic politics, with war times off leading to great revivals in the sport and just as often leading the practical abandonment of the activity as luxury for better times. While the much of the history of the league has been lost too numerous galactic conflicts and political upheavals it has recently had a resurgence in part because of the changing political climate in the galaxy. Swooping had been in great decline since before the destruction of the Deralian Confederal Union in 18 ABY, but the loss of one of the sports premiere tracks, located on Wind Mountain on Deralian spurned the swoop enthusiasts in the galaxy to look for new options. This lead to many older swoop circuits making a comeback as local interests sponsoring non-sanctioned races on worlds such as Corellia, Corsin, Lok, Manaan, Naboo, Najiba, Nar Shaddaa, Onderon, Rori, Talus, Taris, Tatooine, and Telos IV. As the popularity of these races increased it lead to a number of businessmen, politicians, racers, and servicemen to take notice and soon the Galactic Swoop League was re-established with a new board. Things would move slowly for the new board as none of the initial members had seriously invested anytime into. After the blow out success of the first Tarisian Season Opener held in four thousand years, in spite of the fact it was unsanctioned, the board moved quickly to assert itself again within the sport. The GSL board elected Sadim Gnik, the former DCU Ambassador to the CSA as Chairman of the Board and Chairman Gnik set forth an impressive agenda for the board to get the sport relevant again in the galaxy. The board’s first move was to sanction an up coming race being held on The Wheel and hosted by Gulgoth the Hutt. After a coup on The Wheel, Gulgoth was replaced as host by Glaaki the Hutt. While preparing for the upcoming race the board also worked to choose tracks across the galaxy to sanction as official parts of GSL circuit to assert their authority as Swoop Racing’s official league. Soon tracks on Corellia, Empress Teta, Etti IV, Kuat, Manaan, Muunilinst, Naboo, Nar Shaddaa, Ord Mantell, Tatooine Thyferra, Trandosha, as well as The Wheel were now professional courses sanctioned as part of the GSL circuit. Chairman Gnik also began to move quickly to secure corporate sponsors both for the upcoming race and for the Galactic Swoop League itself. It was the hope of the Chairman that a more professional board which had full operational support from Galactic commerce would be able to better advertise and advocate the sport of Swoop Racing. On a more creative note Chairman Gnik began ordering the assembly of a holo-periodical to be called Swoop Illustrated. Swoop Illustrated would serve as an insider account of the sport of Swoop Racing including articles about recent races, profiles on legendary swoop racers, past and current, articles on the history of swoop racing, and technical information on swoops themselves. Naturally the plan also called for Swoop Illustrated to be a primary location to reward corporate sponsors with advertisement space and location to advertise the next race in circuit. For its first issue Swoop Illustrated planned to highlight the recent Tarisian Season Opener in hopes to use that as bridge between the unsanctioned races that had been occurring in the past months and the new sanctioned races about to occur.
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