Amazon Prime’s debut night was aiming for continuity, as if you wouldn’t even notice them further monetising your love of footballOne of the lesser known but more frequently thumbed tomes on my bookshelf is something called The Premier League Handbook. Published in the summer of 1992 before the launch of a zippy new competition called the FA Premier League and competitively priced at £3.99, it’s a nostalgic and richly comic artefact, a sepia-tinted window into the hoopla and razzmatazz that greeted English football’s brave new dawn.And so in among the usual season previews (Dean Saunders and Jason Dozzell were among the “players to watch” that year) was a six-page feature on an upstart young broadcaster called Sky Sports, which was...
Japanese cliches, popular victors and a confusing tackle ‘demonstration area’ made for interesting viewing on day oneClose your eyes and design, in the realm of your imagination, a Japan-themed TV studio. Come back whenever you’re ready. Of course you’re probably not a professional studio designer, and you almost certainly won’t spend more than a few seconds on the task, so you might have accepted a few lazy cliches and tired stereotypes. I’m wagering there was a lot of cherry blossom involved, a bonsai tree or two, perhaps some paper lanterns and a view of Mount Fuji. Well that image in your head is the ITV World Cup studio. They gave the Great Wave a wide berth and shirked the sushi,...
The dazzling race on a floodlit cityscape circuit is a vital tool for selling the sport to potential fans when there is precious little free-to-air coverage available, particularly in the UKThe floodlit cityscape of Singapore will host Formula One again this weekend, a race the sport positively revels in promoting. The street circuit set amid the skyscrapers at night enjoys a backdrop like no other. The speed, spectacle and drama is accentuated by the walls that loom over the track, unforgiving of error. Singapore, a visual feast, is perhaps the most cinematic in its presentation of any race on the calendar.F1 knows how good Singapore looks and in its drive to encourage new, younger fans, the race that bears the...
For all the talk of social change in Saudi Arabia, the beneficiaries of a grand prix would be F1’s coffers and the country’s rulerWas it really only last year that Formula One’s owner, Liberty Media, was making its pious announcement that “grid girls” would no longer be a part of its stewardship of this most woke of all sports? “We feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values,” intoned F1’s managing director of commercial operations back then, “and clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms.”But which society? Formula One takes gazillions to race in so many different types of society. It feels difficult to apply any standard across the board. For instance, things that might be...
Gower is ‘being retired’ by Sky after the Ashes. His palpable kindness, making us feel safe in a sport that can be – especially to the uninitiated – a little intimidating, will be missedThe news that David Gower will be laying down his microphone – or, rather, unclipping the lapel mic from whatever elegant silk tie he happens to be wearing that day – caused a murmur of sadness in my family. He had retired from international cricket when I started watching the game, so my memories of him were never those of the golden-haired boy of summer. His batting was already being embalmed in nostalgia, a mosquito trapped in amber, its wings spread in an eternally stylish cover drive....