West Ham v Newcastle, a 560-mile round trip, has been mooted for a Super Sleigh Bell Sunday on the night before Christmas, along with Arsenal v LiverpoolThe almost total lack of regard in which broadcasters hold football fans is no secret, so it should have come as no surprise to learn Sky Sports is proposing to reschedule Arsenal’s home match against Liverpool for Christmas Eve in what the Football Supporters’ Federation has described as “a new low point in putting the interests of football broadcasters over those of match-going fans”. And yet somehow it did come as a surprise. Even by the notoriously cut-throat standards of TV networks scrambling for subscriptions, this seems unnecessarily grasping.With an already hectic festive grind...
Twenty-five years ago the station unleashed a new age – and Richard Keys – on the nation but it may now be time for some fresh thinking about football TVA quarter of a century has passed since ITV offered the new-fangled Premier League an outlandish £262m for the rights to continue producing Elton Welsby vehicle The Match. At which point agitated Spurs owner and set-top-box mogul Alan Sugar nipped out of the negotiating room, bellowed “Blow them aht the water!” into a nearby payphone, a Sky apparatchik appeared in a puff of smoke carrying an extra £42m, and Super Sunday became a thing. All together now: “Here we go! Hee-ee-eere we go! Here we go, here we go, here we...
State broadcaster’s deal to show more than 100 hours of live cricket each summer from 2020 is well merited and long overdue, according to a former director of BBC SportIt is unalloyed good news that live cricket is coming back to BBC television. One of the great national sports is reunited with the one broadcaster that can make big events bigger – and get the whole of the country talking about what they watch. The story of the falling-out between the England and Wales Cricket Board and the BBC feels, happily, to be in the far distant past.It was two decades ago that live test cricket moved from the corporation to Channel 4 – which, by common consent, did an...
The All Black coach was not buying TV’s relentless pre-match excitement but at the end the New Zealand audience seemed to get what it was yearning forIn the moments before the action got under way Scott Quinnell, prowling the touchline, tried to sum up the emotion of the occasion. “New Zealand will never have seen this kind of thing before,” he roared. “It’s not only going to be 15, it’s not only going to be 23, there’s going to be 30,000 British and Irish Lions. Tonight – tonight – our Lions – our Lions– will roar. The Lions are here for victory. And I believe, you should believe too: this is going to be epic!” Related: New Zealand and Rieko...
This weekend’s GolfSixes tournament is a worthy venture for the European Tour which is at least attempting to broaden the game’s reach with a fresh approachScottish football fans can occasionally be heard to bemoan the loss of the Tennents’ Sixes, an event staged between 1984 and 1993 when, as the name suggests, six-a-side was the order of the day. It was quick, competitive, fun, the attendances were good and terrestrial television stepped forward to provide plentiful coverage. This was at a time, moreover, when football in general wasn’t renowned for breathtaking innovation.This weekend, golf’s latest attempt to retain relevance in an ever-changing landscape where many fear the sport is being left behind will resonate over two days at the Centurion...