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According to Media Guardian, Setanta is broadcasting free-to-air highlights of Croatia v England later this evening on its own channel!

This is very odd. They're reported to have turned down an offer of £500,000 from ITV. And now, at the very last minute, they offer these free highlights.

The story on Media Guardian was published just before 6.00pm this evening, and I can't see many outlets* advertising that fact now. So basically aside from a few people reading various forums and websites, nobody will know.

And I think it's fair to assume that we'll be bombarded by ads for subscriptions. Still, something is better than nothing, although I can see that something being the goals on the respective Ten O'Clock newses.

[*UPDATE] Well my employer's mentioning it in the 7.00pm news in fact!

"We always intended to make highlights available, and were disappointed that we were unable to reach agreement with any of the terrestrial broadcasters," said the Setanta director of sport, Trevor East.

Hmmm.

[UPDATE 2] Roger Mosey talks about both the Setanta situation and Paralympics coverage over at the BBC Sport blog.

Here's a stat for you:

Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Olympics on US television: 3,600 (2,900 of which was live)

Number of hours of coverage of the Beijing Paralympics on US television: 1.5 (0 of which is live)

That's right. Of all the US TV channels, there is a single 90 minute highlights in the middle of next month. That's it.

The BBC, incidentally, is showing 5-6 hours live a day (albeit on digital) alongside a nightly one hour highlights package on BBC2, with more live action at the weekend.

In the 2012 London Paralympics, I think it's a fair assumption that the US team will probably include a significant number of athletes who are ex-military and have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the Setanta issue rumbles on with no terrestrial highlights likely to be available for a terrestrial service for the Croatia away game for England on Wednesday, I've just had a scary thought.

Essentially Setanta purchased both live coverage and highlights of the fixture. But they've declined to sell on those highlight rights. The radio rights were sold separately and the match will be on BBC Radio Five Live (I don't think that Talksport is also covering it, but I'm happy to be corrected).

The radio rights are obviously significantly cheaper than television rights. But what's to stop Setanta buying up those rights as well? Is there any reason they could buy them and not use them? Or perhaps just put the "radio" out on their own subscription TV channel to show that they're using them.

That'd incur even more wrath of the fans, but they could do it. Of course we might see the return of the old Talksport trick of reporting what's going on from a television.

Just a thought!

Neilsen Media Research - a fine media research company who I have contracts with via my employer - has released details of a story suggesting that 4.7bn people watched at least some of the Olympic coverage last month. That's out of a rough estimate of 6.6bn for the planet's population.

I'm always deeply suspicious of stories like that unless you have some really strong material to back it up.

As ever, there's no obvious detail on their website.

Let's try to break down the data a little. In China, the most populous nation on earth, we're told that 94% of their 1.4bn people watched at least some. That's high, but not unfeasible since these Olympics were in China, and the state TV company pretty much carried nothing but Olympics for the duration. If you watched TV in China, then you watched the Olympics. Perhaps that missing 6% don't actually own or even have access to a TV?

The next most populous country in the world is India with around 1.1bn living there. But the Olympics are not popular in that country, and it seems unlikely that even with India achieving its first ever individual gold, that the Olympics will have had strong viewing figures.

The next biggest countries are the US, which had strong viewership, and Indonesia.

Viewing was said to be strong in South Korea and Mexico. But how many of Pakistan's 165m or Bangladesh's 147m were watching?

The population of the entire African continent is just under 1bn. What proportion were watching the Olympics?

I'm always suspicious when global audiences are guestimated - 1bn for a domestic football cup, 1bn for a sport not widely played outside North America, etc. So I'd just like to see some detail to determine how these figures were derived. Apparently 37 markets were used. But which 37, and more importantly, which countries with large populations were excluded?

The 2008 edition of the Tour of Britain kicked off today with a 10 lap circuit of London running down the Embankment from Big Ben to the Tower of London and back.

So if you don't have Setanta, and can't make it to a pub that's showing Setanta, the only coverage you're going to have of England's World Cup qualifiers against Andorra on Saturday, and Croatia next week is going to be goal clips on the news. There is, of course, radio coverage too.

Media Guardian reports this morning that Setanta still hasn't sold terrestrial highlights of the games to either ITV or the BBC. They're fulminating that the offers they're getting don't exceed what the stations paid for Champions' League qualifiers. Last week BBC Three showed Arsenal's game against FC Twente (effectively a dead rubber since Arsenal were a comfortable 2-0 from the first leg, and they won on the night 4-0 to go through 6-0 overall), while ITV had the more attractive proposition of Liverpool's must-win game against Standard Liege which ended with a last minute extra-time goal. But these were live games and thus more valuable.

I would have previously said that Setanta will come to a last minute deal to sell on terrestrial coverage, but with the bigger of the two games being next Wednesday's Croatia fixture, I'm not so sure. Setanta desperately need those subscribers - it's never clear how many they really have, and what price they're paying. So I don't think that this time we're going to see the games on terrestrial.

I would hope that the FA are a little embarrassed about this. They've just entered into a big new deal with ITV and Setanta, and yet here are one of their partners effectively denying much of the football viewing public the chance to see even highlights. Of course Setanta are perfectly within their rights to do what they like, but I think using phrases like "emotional blackmail" makes it obvious that we're not going to see any capitulation from them.

A sorry state of affairs for the national game...

Well - as things stand, England's World Cup qualifying games against Croatia and Andora will not have so much as highlights coverage on either BBC or ITV according to a piece in The Times.

It comes down to the fact that while England's home games were sold to ITV as part of a larger deal that ITV and Setanta signed with the FA which included coverage of FA Cup fixtures, away fixtures are sold by the various overseas rights holders. In this instance, Setanta purchased the majority of those rights last year following the draw for the qualification groups for the 2010 World Cup. In reality, they were probably bundled together by a rights organisation and sold on behalf of the Croatian, Andorran and other football associations.

Anyway, Setanta paid top dollar for those fixtures and they're now in a position where they want to use them as a big driver for subscriptions. Arguably, this is Setanta's make or break season. With those rights, the FA rights previously mentioned, and their Premier League rights, Setanta needs to reach a critical mass of subscribers.

There was talk about Setanta being sold - perhaps to BT or ESPN. But the market isn't right for that, and with a recent rise from £9.99 to £12.99 a month for the Setanta package, they need to start earning some of the money that they've paid out.

So the question is this: can they hold ITV or the BBC to ransom to pay something for highlights. Or do they consider it worthwhile to keep the price out of reach and try to gain subscribers. England's been looking a little lacklustre of late - friendlies are not being sold out. Would you pay £30 to see England play Kazakhstan for goodness' sake?

But on the other hand it's embarrassing for the FA to see the majority of the interested population only able to catch goals from news highlights. I suspect that a deal will be done at the eleventh hour, but you can't be too certain.

This morning saw three more British golds, particularly a pair in the sprints at the Velodrome with Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy winning.

But I'm now beginning to get concerned about the logisitics of 2012. No, I'm not thinking about how we can possibly top the Chinese opening ceremony, it's more to do with the timing of the events.

As has been widely pointed out, US network NBC got the IOC to move the swimming finals into mornings local Beijing time, so that they'd be able to broadcast events live in the US primetime (8pm - 11pm eastern time).

But 8pm eastern time is 1am UK time, and 2am for most of Europe.

A short piece in today's Guardian speculates that NBC might put the IOC under similar pressure in the UK to reschedule events into a post midnight slot. The Olympics have been phenominally successful for NBC so far, and all the more important given that they spend $1 billion for the rights to the summer games. But they do things like not broadcasting the mens' 100m final live, but holding off several hours to show it in the much more lucrative post 8pm timeslot.

Could the 100m or swimming finals be scheduled for post midnight or 1am? I just can't see it. It would screw up the athletes' body-clocks for starters. And, as I say, it wouldn't just inconvenience British viewers, but also the rest of Europe and Africa, all of whom have had to do without live evening coverage of the games this time around.

I know that boxing takes place in the UK at incredibly unsociable hours, but the blue riband events of a UK sport in stadia full to capacity in the small hours? It doesn't bear thinking about.

I think atheltics finals are likely to be scheduled for around 9pm local time in 2012, with key events like the 100m and 200m taking place on Saturday or Sundays. That allows US broadcasters to carry them in late afternoon slots when sports viewing is traditionally strong. And if they want to delay coverage for a few hours then so be it. It seems likely that the 2016 games will be in a timezone more suited to the US anyway (and I'm guessing Chicago will get it one way or another), so they'll just have to make do. There'll be an incredible outcry if they do otherwise.

While NBC might be spending $1bn on the 2012 games for coverage the UK government is spending £9.3bn ($18bn) on putting on the games. So let's keep things into perspective.

Once upon a time, the Olympics were broadcast on both ITV and the BBC. For a lot of the time, they'd show the same events, and if you were interested in a minority sport, you could probably forget it unless a Brit had a chance of a medal.

Now coverage might be "limited" to the BBC, but because of digital television, just about anything you want to watch is available to see. On satellite and cable, the BBC is offering six different streams of video (in addition to whatever their main services are showing), and there are a choice of three streams on Freeview. So we can all hit that red button and watch pretty much what we like.

But while it's great, there are a few issues that need to be overcome that are brought about largely because the Olympics are taking place in Beijing and therefore many events will be taking place in the small hours of the morning and through into the daytime. Primetime coverage will largely be highlights of what took place earlier that day.

And this means that digital video recorders come into their own if you want to watch full coverage of an event that took place earlier that day. But if you have Sky+ then that's not going to help you. Because you enter the Open TV environment of interactive red-button technology, you're not able to record video. As a result, you can't set a Sky+ device to record in advance a sub-channel like those Olympic video channels.

Remote Record is another excellent Sky feature, but even there we have problems. It certainly isn't a workaround for recording an interactive channel, but if I look at Saturday the BBC simply shows a programme called Olympics 2008 from 1.55am to 6.00am, followed by Olympic Breakfast from 6.00am to 11.00am, further followed by Olympics 2008, and so on. That doesn't help me record individual sports, yet the BBC has already decided the broad running order if you look at the detail they display on their site. So it's either record five hours at a time of BBC1, or watch live.

While Freeview might have fewer streams (although the temporary closure of BBC Parliament does mean three streams rather than two), you can at least choose programmes to record in advance on a Freeview digital video recorder - something Sky+ is unable to cope with. And that's one area where a Freeview digital video recorder can trump Sky+.

Under a new deal announced today by the ECB... precisely nothing changes. Sky has retained live rights to... well... everything. And Five has a highlights package.

Sky undoubtedly does a superb job. They've got lots of resources and they've innovated with new technology high-definition coverage, and super-slomo cameras (Although I did laugh on Saturday when it seemed as though play might continue through to the Sunday and David "Bumble" Lloyd told us details about how people in the ground on the Saturday could buy reduced price tickets on the Sunday "for those of you listening on earpieces." With the best will in the world, nobody listening via earpiece in a cricket ground is hearing the Sky audio feed - they're listening to Test Match Special on Radio 4 LW and Five Live Sports Xtra (not that the BBC admit that it's on R4 LW). Listening to a feed available only via satellite is not technically possible without some clever wizardry perhaps involving a laptop and a slingbox).

But the sad fact is that a 45 minute highlight package is not going energise the next generation of young cricketers. When England won the Ashes in 2005 there was a ticker-tape parade with a massive celebration in Trafalgar Square. That simply wouldn't happen again because the majority of the population would see, at best, highlights.

There will be no live cricket on terrestrial free-to-air television until 2013 at the earliest.

Now the ECB has admonished the BBC for not bidding this time around. Undoubtedly it's disappointing, and it's simply not true that the BBC couldn't accommodate a Test Series. One-day cricket - in particular Twenty20 - could easily be scheduled.

That said, the BBC has countered the ECB's accusations by declaring that "We have always said that any bid for live test cricket is subject to value for money and ability to schedule. In our view neither of these criteria were met."

I suspect that it's less scheduling issues than a value for money test that has kept the BBC out of the fray. The fact of the matter is that if the ECB is simply trying to maximise its revenues, then the BBC is never going to be able to outbid Sky. Sports is Sky's raison d'etre and it's simply not good value to pay over the odds. But the ECB could surely have adopted some kind of strategy that essentially meant that subject to some kind of minimum, at least some tests would be available to terrestrial broadcasters.

No form of cricket is accorded Full Live Protected Coverage, so if Sky wants to outbid all and sundry then it's able to.

It's interesting that several other broadcasters including ITV, Channel 4 and Setanta were interested in one-day coverage but none bid. They all knew that they'd be trumped by Sky.

If the ECB was serious about wanting to broaden the coverage of cricket, they should have put at least some rights out to tender to terrestrial broadcasters only. And in the long run, while they're undoubtedly generating more cash than ever before, they're still the losers.

Cricket is in a mess in any case, with all sorts of tournaments setting up left right and centre. Players are likely to be torn between club and country with some incredible riches seemingly available in the various Twenty20 leagues that are popping up. I'd love to see some impartial attendance figures because while Twenty20 is undoubtedly selling out, I wonder if it's not getting harder and harder to fill grounds as cricket fans essentially die out.

This won't end with cricket by the way. Both FIFA and UEFA are keen to remove fixtures from their finals tournament from the Listed Events. Currently the whole tournaments have to be screened terrestrially, but they argue that we only need to see games involving the home nations and perhaps the final on terrestrial television. That'd allow them to sell those other games to satellite broadcasters. It's something we really need to look out for.

So today is the start of Wimbledon, and as ever, the BBC has enormously comprehensive coverage. On digital TV they have the exceptional service that allows you to pick and choose which game you watch, and this is all replicated online (for UK users). Five Live and Five Live Sports Xtra have commentaries available throughout the fortnight - the main service hosted by the estimable Simon Mayo.

Then there's the official site which is run by IBM. There too you can listen to commentaries from Radio Wimbledon. It has three services this year (as previously noted, since they're broadcast locally on FM too) which are free to listen to online. You're also offered an even more comprehensive video service than that offered by the BBC (not that any significant match won't be broadcast by the Beeb), which costs subscribers £12.90 for an "all access" pass. Only a diehard would pay up for this surely, although the catch-up service might be worthwhile for some (at this stage it's not clear how many BBC games will be later available via the iPlayer).

All well and good. But then I had my weekly email from ITV.com with the following subject line: "Listen to Wimbledon live on itv.com!"

What? The BBC has a long-term deal in place, so what's ITV up to?

The HTML email that ITV.com send out doesn't render properly in Gmail, so I had to go exploring on ITV's website, and sure enough, if you click through to the Sport section you get this:

"Listen now to live Radio Wimbledon coverage direct from the Championships

"Remember to turn your speakers on, turn them up - and enjoy!"

Essentially ITV.com is rebroadcasting the official Radio Wimbledon coverage. It doesn't launch neatly in a player like it does from the official Wimbledon site, but it's certainly there.

It's curious that ITV should enter into this arrangement. Tennis quite evidently isn't core to them - indeed it's impossible to actually think of a sport that's "more" BBC and "less" ITV than tennis, and Wimbledon in particular.

Of course there'll be a financial arrangement in place, and I'm sure that ITV.com will be happy with any additional pageviews. But you can't help think that the BBC might be a little miffed, and it's still an odd move.

[UPDATE] Media Guardain has the full story about this, seemingly last minute, deal struck between IMG on behalf of Wimbledon and ITV.com. I still find it slightly odd that non-exclusive audio that can also be found via the official Wimbledon website would generate such interest.

But the news release does explain one thing. It struck me that Wimbledon was putting an awful lot of effort into its radio offering by producing three radio streams seemingly for the website and some local RSLs. It seems that these are syndicated offerings made available to English language broadcasters throughout the world. Radio anorak that I am, I'd love to know where these services are being rebroadcast.

So I thought that I'd head down to see the Olympic Torch Relay - the multi-country tour of the Olympic torch as it wends it way towards Beijing for this summer's Olympic Games.

It was obvious from the outset that following recent increased violence inside Tibet, that this was also going to be used to make a political point with demonstrators making themselves (rightly) heard all along the route. I thought that the nascent photojournalist in me might be able to catch some of the sights and sounds of this.

I must admit that personally I'm not sure that the Olympic Games are the right vehicle for making political protests, at least in as far as I don't think we should be boycotting them. I'm somehow hopeful that some of the concessions that the Chinese government is going to have to make will extend beyond the games this summer.

That said, the Free Tibet campaign has every right to make itself heard. And I'm in no way condoning the Olympic organisation itself which seems to be beset by greed and corruption. Things are probably cleaner than they once were, but until it's a fully democratic organisation itself (giving the UK, for example, the right to pick its own representatives) then it has to remain questionable. I've always said that I think that sporting fiefdoms like the Olympics or FIFA, are the last "acceptable" faces of dictatorship.

But anyway, on to today's events. It was snowy day in London with a few centimetres of snow having fallen across the capital. The streets were clear though, and I decided to head to Chinatown to begin with. As I approached from Covent Garden, it became obvious that there were an awful lot of police on the streets. They were mostly good natured, but as I entered the heart of Chinatown, I had to pass a bag search. On the radio I had heard that a protester had tried to snatch the flame from a Blue Peter presenter who was running with it, and others had tried to put the flame out with a fire extinguisher.

I stood on the corner of Gerrard Street, where the largely Chinese crowd were entertained by dragon dancing and inflatable Fuwa - the five characters who are the official Beijing mascots.

The spectators were largely jovial, and many were carrying dual-language banners and signs wishing all the best for the games in the summer. As I say, this was in the heart of Chinatown, and if anywhere was going to give the games a good reception, it was here.

Finally the police activity notably increased and the torch arrived. Through most of London, there'd been a convoy of vehicles leading the way, including double-decker buses and police vehicles. But in the narrow confines of Chinatown, it was just a police escort and the runners themselves.

I don't know who was carrying the torch as they arrived [UPDATE: I believe that this was actually the Chinese ambassador, who had been scheduled to run with the torch elsewhere but changed at the last minute]. He was flanked by Chinese securitymen in tracksuits, who were themselves flanked by more police in luminous jackets. Finally, there was a further layer of police dressed in black outside them.

Add to that the crowds, and you've got an enormous mass of people surrounding the flame. Seeing the flame itself was not easy and I'm 6'2"!

The runner handed over to the next runner in the relay - seemingly another athlete of Chinese origin, and she ran the length of Gerrard Street. There was not a lot to do now the procession had passed, and I began to drift on with the crowds around me.

Then a middle-aged man started shouting, "China out" quite loudly and repeatedly. This raised the hackles of several Chinese men standing nearby, but he wasn't to be dissuaded. So they had a loud and very confrontational shouting match which very nearly came to blows. The language used wasn't especially suitable for the young children who were also out in the cold to see the torch relay.

Ironically, there were now no police around to wade into the crowd and calm down the passions - they'd all moved on to protect the torch as it continued its journey. Finally common sense prevailed and nobody came to any blows.

I moved on to Trafalgar Square, where the Free Tibet protesters were really out in force. I didn't see the torch pass through as the crowds were too deep but we got an explosion of blue paper alongside a trumpet voluntary. I saw plenty more Tibetan flags, and you might almost think that the police had decided to keep things moving faster than they might otherwise have done.

Next it was down to Embankment. The torch had headed off to Downing Street where it was going to remain for a while. I walked to Waterloo Bridge expecting the torch to arrive by river. If it did arrive that way, I completely missed it. There was plenty of evidence of police out in force on the water, and large crowds had gathered in front of the Royal Festival Hall, but they had other entertainment to keep their minds off the snow that had now begun to come down again.

I waited on the bridge where the convoy of supporting vehicles had gathered. A Chinese camera crew interviewed one of the relay's forthcoming runners - a fencer I believe. Then some people had their photos taken with another sportsman I didn't recognise. I'm not sure they knew who he was either.

Again there were many Free Tibet protesters on top of the bridge, and the whole relay was now becoming a 31 mile rolling "Free Tibet" protest.

When the torch finally arrived, it was hard to make it out with the sheer number of police and security men protecting it. It seems somehow pointless getting people to come out to see something and then surround it by dozens of running men (my mind kept drifting back to that Clint Eastwood film In The Line of Fire, where Clint played a secret service man who's job was to run alongside the Presidential cavalcade). In London, the relay runners were regularly replaced, but I'm not sure that the police had much let-up. Still, it'll have been good practice for anyone running the London Marathon next weekend.

Aside from the quite scary events in Chinatown when it felt as though it might kick off at any minute, the day was interesting - if cold. I suspect that much of the rest of the route is going to see similar protests. I notice that the torch is due to pass through San Francisco, a notably liberal city. That'll be worth looking out for.

(More photos here if you're interested.)

Media Guardian are reporting that Sky has won the majority of the Champions' League games for the three years beginning in 2009. It's thought that they offered more than £240m representing nearly a 50% increase over what they had previously paid.

For that sum, they get all the games bar one - a single Wednesday night game.

It's not surprising that Sky have launched a blockbuster bid, as with Setanta and ITV getting the FA Cup and England rights, and Setanta slowly becoming a force in televised sport in the UK (albeit, a force that's probably still losing money), Sky just had to win this package.

But where does that leave coverage of the Champions' League for the average viewer? What's really worrying is the single match package which is still up for grabs could also be won by Sky.

That'd be terrible for the competition, and terrible for the British viewing public. The Champions' League Final is not a Listed Event. It's actually conceivable that none of the tournament, including the European Cup Final itself, will not appear on terrestrial television.

Uefa president Michel Platini is said to be keen to keep at least one fixture on terrestrial TV, but will the lure of Sky's lucre be too much?

It's ironic that in the run up to this round of bidding that concerns were voiced by rivals of a potential BBC bid about how the Champions' League sponsors would be catered for on the BBC; they get the sponsorship bumpers on Sky and ITV. Well now the big risk to sponsors must surely be the lack of a big audience seeing their names and association at all. Sony, Heineken, Mastercard et al have paid tens of millions for their sponsorship packages. The value to them is much reduced if the majority of the UK population don't see their brands.

It'd be hard to argue that the competition will suffer in the short term if it disappeared completely from terrestrial television - undoubtedly the BBC or ITV would pick up a highlights package. But you only have to look at cricket to see how a sport can shift from gaining a ticker-tape parade in London when the Ashes were won, to a vague "are England playing?" when the game moved completely off terrestrial.

So who will win that final match? Well, I can't see them giving it to Sky. In some ways, it's more valuable to Sky not to have that game - it acts as something to remind you that they have all the other games. And that's something that's especially important in the knockout phases when terrestrial viewers will only see one half of a two-legged fixture.

ITV will want to retain the rights, but not at any cost. If the lone match that's available is to only be on a Wednesday, then arguably shifting Coronation Street is not something that ITV will really want to do. They used to, but it didn't please their legions of fans. On the other hand, the competition undoubtedly draws viewers to the channel who wouldn't otherwise come - young men in particular.

The BBC would love to win the matches. They must be furious that they've lost FA Cup and England rights - especially since they've done so much to reinvigorate the FA Cup in recent seasons. And they're now without any live top-flight football (the Championship isn't enough). Eastenders doesn't get in the way on Wednesday nights!

Five are the dark horse, but will RTL bid?

It's worth remembering that OnDigital once had the Champions' League rights and it wasn't enough to keep that platform running, so I'll assume that there won't be any mad fools at BT Vision or similar gunning for the games.

What is clear is that you can expect an awful lot more Man Utd on your TV. Given the choice of a Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal fixture, TV bosses will pick Man Utd every time. Supporters of the other teams might as well start saving for Sky now.

Yesterday the news broke that the Premier League is considering giving everyone an extra fixture which will be played in one of five cities internationally.

I'll leave others to debate the pros and cons of such a scheme - or "brand extension".

But plenty of reports claim that "an estimated 1bn people watched the Premier League game between Arsenal and Manchester United in November 2007."

I don't know who was doing the estimating, but they're wrong.

The reason for the billion estimate was because the game was airing in primetime in the Far East. Everyone knows that countries like China are finding English football ever more popular. Except, that of course, while the population of the country is roughly 1.3bn, comparatively few of them can watch football. It's a premium commodity!

But as of the end of last year, WinTV which bought the rights to Premier League games for three seasons from the start of this one, only had 20,000 subscribers.

Curiously, depending where you read, reports suggest that previously between 30m and 300m were watching Premier League football regularly.

I tend to believe the former number rather than the latter, since the most popular single show on Chinese TV is the CCTV New Year's Gala which is estimated to achieve audiences of up to 700m (this year's Gala was on Wednesday).

Obviously there are many more places that show "EPL football" as it's known internationally. But in a recent report from Initiative Sports Futures, it placed the Superbowl as the biggest single event, with an average audience of 97m in January 2007, and a total audience (reach) of 142m. This shouldn't be confused with this year's Superbowl which achieved an average audience of 97.5m in the US alone, making it the second biggest broadcast ever in that country, only behind the final episode of *MASH* which achieved 106m. And that figure excludes people who watched in clubs and bars.

As Initiative's report says:

Initiative Sports Futures' league table of the most popular televised sporting events of the year is very different from that which would be produced if based on typically reported audiences.

Initiative Sports Futures believes that it is vital to draw these differences between actual and reported TV audiences to the attention of sponsors. Reported audiences often reflect the potential number of viewers, or include news clips within the total audience figures.

Here's the full list of sports:

My favourite over-used phrase comes from tennis. Whenever a Brit is knocked out of a tennis tournament, they aren't defeated - they crash out.

Andy Murray lost earlier this morning and Google News tells me that there are already 171 articles about Murray that include the phrases "crashes out."

Glad to see that sub-editors remain as original as ever.

I was genuinely surprised today, to learn that the rally once known as the RAC Rally, had been run this weekend. Now I'm not an especially big rallying fan, but since it became "WRC" branded, it seems that it's becoming harder for the passive fan to see.

Once upon a time it ran for the better part of a week, and the BBC would have lots of coverage on a nightly basis with round-ups of the day's action etc. Then there was a "big money" transfer to Channel 4 where rallying fans could catch action as long as they remember to get up early or stay up late.

More recently, the coverage has moved to ITV - and ITV4 in particular. I didn't spot any coverage at all over the weekend, so I've just rifled through this week's Radio Times to see where it had all gone, and all I could find was a solitary programme on ITV4 at 6.40pm on Sunday evening reprising the whole weekend's action. Earlier in the day I could have watched, not live coverage, but "WRC: Greatest Stages" and "WRC: Craziest Moments" which were no doubt thrilling, but not really the same. I'm sure I used to see some live "special stages" action on a Sunday afternoon. And didn't they used to be on Fridays too?

According the WRC website:

"...in recent years, the World Rally Championship has undergone a revolution. Thanks to technological improvements in TV and network coverage, the sport is raising its profile and is attracting the attention of a greater dedicated worldwide audience."

Well they've certainly done a good job in Britain. One hour and ten minute's coverage on ITV4. Hmm.

I know that rallying is not a perfect TV sport - it's technically complicated to film and edit, even with digital advances. But it seems to me that there was better coverage in the UK at least, in the 90s than there is today. And that's got to be hurting the sport.

Here's an interesting little tale about something happening over on the other side of the pond.

We all know how premium TV works in the UK. If you take either Sky or Virgin Media services, you have to pay extra for premium sports. If you don't, the best you might get is Eurosport, Motors TV and the odd racing channel. Now I quite Eurosport, if only for its excellent cycling coverage.

But the fact is that if you want any major sport that's not being covered by either the BBC or ITV, you're going to need to pay up for Sky, and now, Setanta.

In the US it doesn't quite work like that. The nearest US equivalent of Sky Sports is ESPN, owned by Disney like the network ABC. It has a sister station in ESPN2 and there are further ESPNs around the world. It shows Monday Night Football - the NFL variety - as well as a variety of other sports including baseball and college football. It's probably true to say that it doesn't get quite the exclusive deals that someone like Sky might get - rights tend to be more divided between different markets and networks in the US. So there may be a local television station that shows baseball as well as ESPN. But it's undoubtedly the premier sports TV brand in the country.

Beyond that there are other stations like TNT that show a lot of basketball while the Fox network shows a good quantity of baseball. But a sports fan is likely to have ESPN. But here's thing - if you get cable, you almost certainly get ESPN as part of your basic cable package. A broad analogy might be getting Sky or Virgin Media in the UK and you'd expect to find UK Gold.

ESPN (like UK Gold) gets a small amount of every subscriber's basic subscription. This is something that channel owners negotiate with cable operators. ESPN has the whip hand in the sense that subscribers expect to get the channel, so a cable operator will need to come to an agreement with ESPN. There are a few channels that are in this powerful position - perhaps including Discovery. Beyond that, like the UK, you either have to rely purely on advertising revenue, or you can try to sell yourself as a premium brand like HBO or Showtime.

Anyway, so much for the history lesson. The NFL in the US recently created its own channel - the NFL Network. NFL games are already sold to ESPN as mentioned. They also sell games to CBS and Fox who between them broadcast Sunday afternoon games - usually a total of three in any market, although what games you actually see might vary according to local interests and whether or not a ground has sold out. Finally, there's NBC which shows a game on Sunday night. Between these four channels, the NFL earns a lot of cash. But it still wanted a bit more.

The NFL Network broadcasts repeats and profile shows for the most part. But for four Thursdays a year, it broadcasts a live and exclusive game on its nascent channel.

Cable channel operators looked at the network and decided that they didn't want to bundle it with their basic channels. If they do they, they'd have to pay - say $1 - for each of their subscribers, which effectively means increasing their subscription packages. So they instead put it into premium bundles - either on its own or with other premium sports networks such as the Fox Soccer Channel and the Outdoor channel. Subscribers can choose if they want it.

That seems fair, but the NFL Network is not happy. They don't get nearly as much cash if they're not included in the basic package, since many subscribers will choose not to pay that premium. This has now reached the point that the network has been sent a 'cease and desist' letter by US cable operator Comcast demanding that it stops inciting Comcast subscribers to switch providers.

The network is also trying to get legislators involved, getting them to try to force cable operators to take their network in their basic packages.

From this outsider's point of view, this whole thing is ridiculous. The NFL Network should surely stand or fall on the basis of whether viewers want to pay for the service or not. The reason Sky or Setanta can command premium prices in the UK is because you can't see live Premier League football anyway else. But that's because the free alternative is simply highlights. The average US viewer can watch three games back to back on a Sunday across the various networks on free-to-air television. They then can see a further game on Mondays if they have a basic cable package. The NFL Network is offering a paltry eight further games, and frankly the four most viewers can already see is probably enough. Only the real die-hards are likely to subscribe further.

Like anything else, it's surely a question of pricing a product right on the basis of the market it's operating in.

Soccer Scene in Carnaby Street has two main windows which are regularly handed over to major football kit suppliers. So you'll regularly see one window given over to Nike's kit deal with Man Utd or Liverpool's new Adidas away kit.

This morning, there was a new window display for Puma featuring a red shirt I didn't recognise. Then I read the wording accompanying it: "Show your support with the new Poland away shirt."

What?

A last minute display of the Israeli support might have been amusing. But Poland?

Obviously, I know the answer. The UK is undoubtedly now the second largest market for Polish shirts in the world. And I bet they cost a fair bit more in Carnaby Street than they do in ulica Marszalkowska in Warsaw, so Puma are probably earning a nice pound or two. With up to 700,000 Poles in London, it's not really a minority group. And there was Pro-Celebrity game between England and Poland at Selhurst Park over the weekend. I'm just surprised the sign wasn't actually in Polish.

Not this again.

Today's Telegraph has a banner at the top of the front page proclaiming that one billion people will be watching today's Arsenal v Man Utd game.

What on earth are they on about. One person in six is watching a UK club match? I think not. As I've said time and again, these figures are ridiculously over-inflated and have to be treated with a pinch of salt.

Just think about the UK for a moment. Out of a population of sixty million, a maximum of three million will watch on Sky, and about the same again on Match of the Day. And that's it. One in ten. Perhaps a few more. And that's in a country that has the most to care about.

"It is not an exaggeration to say it could be watched by one billion people," said a Premier League spokesman.

Yes it is, even if it is going out in Asia on a Saturday evening.

So what are we meant to think about the proceedings at The Tour de France this year? To re-cap, we first had T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone from a test during the beginning of June.

He was immediately kicked out of the Tour, but in Germany things went a little further. The two state broadcasters who cover the Tour also pulled out leaving Germans with no coverage of the event. I'm not sure if I entirely agreed with their position, although it sends a very stark message to German sponsors - particularly T-Mobile who are behind the team with probably the most funding in cycling.

Then more news came out about Tour leader Michael Rasmussen. The maillot jeune had been dropped by Danish Cycling from events including the World Championships and next year's Olympics.

At the moment the situation remains complicated but it seems that he's missed a series of random drug tests. Like many athletes, he has to inform the authorities where he'll be at given times so that they can come to him to test him. There's a three strikes rule, and he'd missed two Danish cycling appointments as well as two UCI appointments. Normally three together would have been enough, but two pairs of two was suspicious in many eyes.

However the rules did not mean that he could be withdrawn, and despite the Tour organisers' obvious distaste, they wanted to abide by the rules and weren't going to kick him out. They made him do a press conference however which he clearly didn't enjoy.

But the biggest shocks were to come. On Saturday it was the first time-trial of the tour since the prologue in London. Alexandre Vinokourov stormed to victory minutes ahead of the rest of the field. This was all the more amazing since he'd been having a very hit and miss Tour. He started as favourite, but a crash on stage 5 left him with multiple stitches in both legs, and it was then touch and go whether or not he'd be able to continue at all - never mind continue to be a contender.

On the big stage in the Pyranees on Sunday he seemed to have used it all up on the previous day, but then on Monday he was resurgent and stormed to another stage victory. Although overall victory remained unlikely, the Tour's hard man was showing what he was made of and fans cheered him on.

That made it all the more terrible when on the rest day on Tuesday, news came out that he'd failed a doping test after the time-trial and a blood test had indicated that he had someone else's blood in his body. His team, Astana, immediately pulled out of the Tour, and everyone was left reeling.

Then on Wednesday, another rider was found to be positive - Cofidis rider Cristian Moreni tested positive for testosterone.

He owned up immediately and his French team, including British rider Bradley Wiggins, pulled out. This was a particular shame because Wiggins is certainly clean, and obviously still had high hopes for the time-trial this coming Saturday before entering Paris.

But that was small beer compared to what happened next. Wednesday's stage saw Michael Rasmussen win another stage, blowing everyone away on the famed Col d'Aubisque.

But behind the scenes, Rasmussen's claims about his whereabouts during some of those missing were seemingly falling apart. He had claimed to be in Mexico yet had apparently been spotted in Italy at the time. Finally Rasmussen's team, and undoubtedly their main sponsor, Rabobank, decided enough was enough, and even though Rasmussen was leading the race, wearing the famed yellow jersey, he was pulled from the Tour.

So is the Tour dead? Should it have been stopped this year? Is professional cycling over?

I'd answer no to all those questions. It's certainly going through its darkest moment since the infamous 1998 Tour when doping first really hit the big time. But I genuinely believe that these cheats are actually far fewer than they once were, and cycling is washing its laundry very publicly in getting rid of these people now.

It's likely that more big sponsors will pull out in the short term, but cycling will come out the better for it in the long term. It'd be unfair to those clean riders to cancel this year's race now. Everyone's hoping that nobody else is found guilty, but better we find the cheats than we pretend that they're not there.

I wonder if every other sport can really claim to be as clean as it might be?

Finally this weekend, the Tour de France arrived in London.

I love cycling, and I love the Tour, which has become an important part of my summer of sport for many years now starting when Channel 4 used to cover it. Channel 4 long gave up on showing much over the summer except reality trash. So we're still in that unlikely state of affairs where ITV carries the mantle with the continued exceptional commentary of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin.

An aside, there was a good piece about Sunset + Vine's coverage of the Tour in this week's broadcast magazine, written by Brian Venner who has been working on the race for twenty years now. They have fifteen people in France and another fifteen in the UK. And between them, reporters Matt Rendell and Ned Boulting speak nine languages, which is better than Katie Derham who struggled when Vinokourov answered her English language question in French at the presentation on Friday.

But for me, the commentaries were something to catch later, as I was going to hit the course. Aside from managing to forget to bring my large memory card for my camera (I stopped by John Lewis to right this wrong), I was soon on the course.

It struck me that most people would place themselves near the major sights of the city. And wandering down from Green Park to Buckingham Palace, revealed that to be very much the case. I didn't want to watch the race from behind six other people, so I headed out towards Hyde Park, and in particular, The Serpentine. Although I was planning on taking plenty of photos, it was the cyclists I was looking to see, not necessarily the sights of London.

Just an aside to say that the people running the concession stands were some of the most stupid people I've ever met in a position that requires them to collect money. There was no issue with communication - they were from Birmingham rather than Boulogne - but they were clueless, and I had to look elsewhere for a t-shirt.

But otherwise, the organisation was exceptional, with barriers everywhere, a people's village in Hyde Park, and plenty of big screens scattered around the course. I'd specifically avoided arriving by bike because I wasn't sure where I could leave it and I was planning to move around a bit.

In the end I needn't have worried, with massive bike parks in Green Park and Hyde Park - if only they were there all the time.

(Yet another aside - I didn't mention that I got a free bike from Orange on Wednesday did I? Orange is an official sponsor, and on Tuesday night I read that on Wednesday morning, Orange would give 500 mountain bikes away at Covent Garden. I decided that if I got up early I'd see what the queue was like. Arriving at around 7.30am I found a decently long queue and saw the bikes all being laid out. I reckoned that there were a maximum of 300 people in front of me, so I got in the queue. In the event, there were actually about 495 people in front of me. Nonetheless, Chris Hoy handed me a bike. Since Orange is French owned, I was hopeful that the bikes might be some good. They weren't really. Suspension on a cheap bike is just something to make the handlebars move when you break heavily. And the bike was tiny. I felt like I was riding a BMX as I took it into work. Still, I've got a spare bike for any small people who visit.)

I found a really good spot where the road widened, affording good views as riders came around the corner. As a consequence, I ended up with pictures of all the riders. You can see the set here.

On Sunday, I traveled down to Kent to my brother's home village, where we waited in the sun for the caravan to again appear, and swiftly followed by the bike riders.

We got a bigger haul of tour freebies this time around including copious Skoda hats, some Haribo sweets, and a Kent t-shirt.

There was a breakaway group through first, which included David Millar amongst its number. I tried to explain as much to all and sundry who were suffering a lack of information. BBC Radio Kent was "covering" the race, but nobody at the studio seemed to have tuned into ITV4's coverage, so we were left fairly much in the dark about what was going on. Instead, we were left with lots of interviews with people who had turned out to watch, regardless of whether or not they actually knew what they were seeing.

When the peleton finally arrived, it swept through in a few seconds, and that was it. I was burnt more than every, although I did at least have a hat to keep the sun off my head this time.

After watching more of the action on TV, I headed off home and Five Live gave live coverage of Robbie McEwan's incredible victory.

More photos from Stage 1 can be found here.

A good weekend. Let's hope we don't have to wait another thirteen years before the the Tour returns again.

Before I head off into town, I thought I'd share this, which I made to watch riders as they go past. It's a list of start times, rider numbers and names. I could find names and start times, and names and numbers, but not all three together. So a quick bit of Excel has left me with this. A handy print-out guide for roadside viewing.

Hope it helps at least someone. More on today's stage later.

Wow - finally football clubs are doing the decent thing, and withdrawing alcohol sponsors' logos from their kids size football strips. Other sports including cricket clubs are doing the same thing.

Well - I say "football clubs" and "cricket clubs" when I actually mean the Portman Group is doing it (they're the people who are sort of responsible for the Drinkaware website you see linked to on many alcohol ads - it's complicated). The Portman Group is run by the major alcohol manufacturers and exists to keep its members in check. A cynic might say that when they see the writing's on the wall for something, they make the first move; taking the initiative.

Anyway, the agreement suggests that from January next year, all sponsorship contracts will exclude kids shirts. Except that as The Times reports, Liverpool has just resigned with Carlsberg for three years, so the contract won't fall under the new rules until it expires. That's in the spirit of the agreement isn't it?

And then there's the small matter of gambling companies...

To Arsenal to see the final game of the season. A draw meant that Man Utd deprived Chelsea of the Premiership title.

But isn't it just typical of Mourinho that when the steadicam operator was circling him as he want onto the pitch he swears at the cameraman. The BBC's highlights carefully cutaway in time. But it was obvious what he was saying - and it was less Portuguese than Anglo-Saxon in origin.

I truly believe that England does indeed have the best domestic football in the world. We laugh at countries like the US and their Major League Soccer "franchises." Premiership football is now sold at a big premium throughout the world - why else is the FA going to court against YouTube if not to protect those rights?

But we really do need to become more professional in our attitudes towards the media. That means players too. No swearing. No mouthing of swearing. No failures to give broadcasters interviews. These are basics. At Arsenal today, the latest Nike advert promoting the forthcoming new Arsenal away kit uses the genius of pre-war Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman. Would he have stood for some of the things that still pass in the English game?

Yesterday Australia won the cricket world cup final - or as the organisers would have us call it, the ICC CWC 2007. It just trips off the tongue doesn't it?

It was a complete farce of a final, coming after a long and dull tournament that had its own tragedy. The Aussies got to celebrate winning the final twice by virtue of some inept umpiring that forced the Sri Lankans back onto the pitch in complete darkness to face three pointless overs that nobody could see. Even the TV cameras, which normally do a great job of hiding the gloom, were struggling with even basic things such as keeping in focus. The Sky commentators, normally to be relied upon to take a pro-tournament view, didn't hold back in letting us know that they knew, like we did, that it was a complete farce.

Anyway, Australia duly won the rain interrupted final, while most of the rest of the world carried on in complete obliviousness.

You could argue that after England's dismal Ashes losing tour to Australia earlier in the winter, and then complete failure in this tournament, what with pedalo incidents the only things to keep us entertained, it's the public that's at fault, but I really don't think that's the case.

Everybody, and I really mean everybody, knows that the tournament was way too long. The format allows for dead rubbers and completely one-sided fixtures. Yes Ireland and Bangladesh did very well in the early stages, but that's really not enough. The Football World Cup lasts a month and it's worth reminding ourselves that when the Olympics finally hit these shores in 2012, they'll be finished in just over a fortnight.

We hear that it's TV's fault that the tournament lasts so long; TV needs lots of fixtures, and doesn't want more than one match at a time. I don't buy this for a second. It's making for exceptionally dull TV in the current format.

And then there's the fact that the locals seemingly can't afford to watch cricket in their own country. There's simply nothing worse in a major sporting than seeing row upon row of empty seats - the only spectators seeming to be white in a country where the locals are mainly black.

But then as I've always argued, sports authorities are the most venal and corrupt in the world. It's the one area of power left where presidencies are elected in dubious manners and backhanders are the way things work. If you want to be a tyrannical despot in the 21st century, don't muck around trying to gain control of a small country - get involved in the organisational body of a major international sport. If you happen to have a major tournament to bestow upon different nations every few years, then you can be expected to be treated like royalty. And once you've got to the top, use the funds of your organisation to "buy" votes from smaller countries to keep you in place.

Back to cricket specifically though. How should the Cricket World Cup be improved? Well fewer games for a start. Make sure locals can afford to watch matches - if your stadia aren't full for every game, then you've got the pricing wrong. Sell the TV rights to free to air stations. I've no problem with Sky bidding for World Cup rights, but I do have a problem with the ICC selling them. If the nation can't watch a tournament, then they don't care about it. Of course the same is true for the stupid fools in charge of the ECC who also took Sky cash against the sport's greater interest. Even the crassly commercial F1 realises that without widespread coverage, the "sport" has no real future.

And don't make excuses. This was a terrible event with a humiliating final. Learn from the many mistakes, and do better next time.

Some Observer journalists make these points far more eloquently than I can in today's paper.

So thick and fast after the Boat Race came ITV's coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix this morning. Now I make no secret of my disinterest in the engineering competition sport. There's little to no overtaking, and new rules are introduced and dropped on a whim. This season there seems to be something about different types of tyres that have to be used. I'd look it up, but you know what? I just don't care.

But if it's on, and I'm in, and there's nothing else to watch, well...

Anyway, as I tuned in this morning after 9.00am, there was a potential McLaren one-two finish on the cards with new British driver (and F1's first black competitor) looking to finish second after his third place podium finish at the first race of the season. This he duly did in a tense finish holding off Raikkonen for the last few laps. Truth be told, it was only because my clock radio came on with coverage that my interest was piqued.

After F1 races there's always a farcical "news conference" where a nameless Brit asks questions in English to each of the drivers in turn. Since he's F1 approved, there's never anything too controversial. The drivers have all dutifully put on their sponsored baseball caps and wear their sponsored watches - an attendant is on hand to make sure. Then they say nothing too extraordinary or contentious to the waiting millions.

It is nonsense, but you might hope we could at least hear what young Lewis Hamilton had to say. Not on ITV though.

It was getting closer to 10am so we left the "press conference" (surely a true press conference allows various members of the press to ask the questions? Otherwise isn't it a "press statement"?) to get a brief interview with Hamilton's father with the uber-bland Steve Rider. All very well, except we left mid-conversation with Lewis Hamilton himself!

It was quite abysmal timing.

They only had to hang on another three minutes to get the full interview. Fortunately Five Live was covering it much more fully, and were prepared to delay the 10am news by a couple of minutes to let us hear what he had to say. He told us, for example, that he'd run out of onboard water about halfway through the race in the extreme conditions, leaving a very uncomfortable race to the finish.

I suppose the only thing to be said for ITV ending their coverage on time was the fact that it was to make way for 55 minutes of cartoons - it's rare, after all, for them to carry any children's programming these days. Of course even that's not the full story. As the race started around 7am, it ate into valuable GMTV airtime, and that's airtime that has to be made up by ITV plc - a separate company. So this was GMTV make-weight airtime.

(By the way, it must be said that overall, the race direction was pretty atrocious with processions of cars at the front of the race being shown in favour of anything interesting occuring towards the back of the field).

An article in this week's Broadcast (behind a paywall I'm afraid) explained the broadcast complexities with covering something like the annual Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race. It takes 38 cameras, two helicopters and and goodness knows how many other people to cover it.

Last year there was an issue with open microphones when ITV cut to the audio of one of the coxes who chose that moment to swear as they urged their crew on. This year they seem to have put some kind of delay on it, as the sound cut and times when they cut to them, yet even my feeble lip-reading got a good idea what she was saying.

However, who was the person who at the precise moment the race started, managed to cutaway to a disinterested looking person sitting in a portakabin studio somewhere? Very poor.

For the rest it was good coverage, and until Cambridge took a firm lead, it was a very open race.

I really don't know why I care who wins the Boat Race not having been to either University. But somehow I do - a bit. Cambridge won.

An update on Wembley again. One thing that I forgot to talk about was the hand-dryers in the bathrooms. As everybody picked up upon by The Londonist noted, the dryers are rocket powered. Normally they're half-hearted affairs that blow out mildly warm air, failing to dry your hands, yet running up the premises' electricity bill in a double whammy of failure. Not the Wembley ones. As you walk down the concourses, it sounds like some remedial repair work is still going on in the toilet. Then you realise that it's someone drying their hands.

These things are so powerful that I doubt that small children will actually be able to keep their hands under the machine. You know those videos you see of astronauts or fighter pilots being spun around at highspeed to simulate Mach 5 or whatever? You know how their faces distort under the pressure? Well that's what happens to your hands while they're under one of these bad boys.

Back in 2000/2001 I went to the old Wembley Stadium for a lunch there. The stadium had closed and Sports.com (who at the time were trying to create a proper sports portal rather than today's gambling-fixated effort) had invited a group of us to meet the 1966 England team. I wasn't due to go, but someone dropped out at the last minute, and I leapt at the chance. I had a picture taken with the surviving team members, and then we sat at the top table opposite the players - I was across from Jack Charlton. It was a wonderful day.

My first experience of Wembley came on FA Cup final day in 1978. It was Arsenal v Ipswich, and as an Arsenal fan, dad drove me and my brother up the road to Wembley. We didn't have tickets, and parked nearby in Brent. We walked up Wembley way around lunchtime, soaking up the atmosphere, dad filming us on his cine camera, and we bought programmes, before setting off back home to watch the match on TV. Arsenal lost that game, but we'd repeat the process for the next couple of years as Arsenal played first Man Utd (a classic game) and then West Ham (another defeat).

My first actual game at Wembley was an England match - England v Romania - it must have been the 1981 World Cup Qualifier. We were at one of the corners, standing. There may have been benches in our section but they were next to useless with no tiering to speak of and everyone else standing anyway. The corners of the old Wembley were set back a long way - there was a dog track around the edge of the pitch don't forget - and I was "lucky" enough to be right next to someone with a fog-horn. The match was a dull 0-0.

Over the years I've seen many other fixtures at Wembley including league and non-league cup finals, largely irrelevant England games against poor opposition, and an unsuccessful spell of Arsenal playing Champions' League games there.

So I was keen to see what the new Wembley would look like.

I'd seen the arch from afar quite a lot. It's been up a while now, and I've also been to Wembley Arena a couple of times since much of the work was completed. Yesterday's event was called a Community Day, and was largely for the residents of Brent. I'm not a resident, but know someone who works there... Around 60,000 people had been invited along, and had been told to arrive at the stadium between 11.00 and 12.00 when events would begin. It'd all be over by 3.00.

We were supposed to enter via gate K, but there was a massive queue there. Gate J had far shorter queues. Couldn't we just walk in there and walk around? I gave it a go and we got in with minimal difficulty.

It's got to be said that the interior of any new stadium is much the same as the other. Concession stands - invariably much busier near the entrances than if you walk a little further around - and toilets. We started looking for our block and then noticed that they were all one hundred and something. We wanted five hundred and something. The first digit in the block number referred to the floor.

No problem, we'd walk up. Most stadia allow you to move around inside. It's not uncommon, for example, for you to have friends in other areas. You can still meet up before the game, or for the brave, at half-time. But seemingly not here. There were no signs leading to stairs, although there were mysterious grey doors that were unmarked. Eventually a steward showed us through a set of such doors and we reached the escalators and stairs up. Needless to say, the second escalator was broken already.

Up at the top you get good views across north-west London from most parts of the stadium, and when we reached our seats the views of the pitch were great.

Inside, and you could tell that this was a trial event. None of the staff had ever sold anything from the catering areas before, indeed the chap who served me had never really used a till before, worked a Coke machine, or have an especially strong grasp of the UK currency (incidentally, those new £20 notes are very different aren't they?). But we struggled through manfully.

I doubt that there were 60,000 people in attendance, and the celebrity games that were planned weren't utterly enthralling, which meant that by the time that Soccer AM had won the mini tournament, most seats were empty. A rumoured fire alarm test didn't take place - probably because there were too few people at this point to run one.

Those who were still there largely wanted to explore - just what the stewards didn't want doing.

On the way out, one of the senior managers was giving press interviews. Some of the members of the crowd started to berate him over some issues they'd experienced: Coke machines failing (everyone had been offered a free soft drink), lack of food, tea and coffee running out.

None of them were major issues, and you'd expect them to be righted for full events. The only sympathy I had was for people who claimed that the stadium isn't signposted very well, and I'd say that's right. You can find your seats and block number easily enough, but finding your way out is a little hit and miss. And I do think you should be able to find your way between levels.

As a stadium, it's taken a long time to finish, but it's a fine building in the end. I reckon that the acoustics are going to make it sound great when a proper game's being played there, and I can't wait to see a real game.

See a full set of photos at Flickr.

And here's a brief, very low quality video that I also made.

OK. Not quite. But I have signed up for the British Cyclosportive which follows the route of Stage 1 of the Tour De France from London to Canterbury. We ride the route a week before the main event.

It's 187 km (120 miles) and your're expected to ride at a minimum average speed of 20 km/h (12.5 mph) so I've got a bit of getting fit to do before July 1st.

Up bright and early to head off to Cardiff to see Arsenal v Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium. The traffic was awful, and it took far longer to get there than it did a few years back when we drove up for the FA Cup Final (also against Chelsea). Leaving a short time later can get you into Cardiff a lot later than you might hope.

Anyway, unlike many poor souls including those stuck on trains, we did at least make it to the game on time, where we discovered our tickets were in the second row level with the edge of the penalty area behind one of the goals. Apologies for some of these photos - I didn't take my good camera on the basis that they might not have let me in with it (I'm getting quite fussy about the quality of my photos now).

Arsenal's kids were completely dominant in the first half with Walcott scoring his first club goal.

You can read match reports elsewhere, but there was a bit of a scare with John Terry who was stretchered off to hospital but proved to be OK. Shortly after that Drogba scored and leveled the game. He then took the lead, and with lots of injury time to play, it all kicked off.

Here's my record of the incident. You can see Mourinho lead his people onto the pitch:

And here's the melée a few seconds later:

Anyway, it all upset Alan Green terribly. We made a bid for a quick escape, and it was a painful journey out of Wales until the motorway cleared up and we could head home.

He live blogs 24 each week, and boy is he a prolific blogger by the way...

But there's a great quote from him about the Superbowl which is being held in Miami this Sunday:

"[The Superbowl is] the biggest sporting event in the world, unless you include other parts of the world."

(via Mediaguardian)

If it weren't for the fact that I'm going to be at the match, I'd be tuning in to BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra this Sunday to hear an alternate version of the commentary.

As this piece explains, back in 1927 from the first radio commentaries, each week's Radio Times would publish a chart of a football pitch which was divided into eight squares. The commentator would describe the action, while a second voice called out the grid numbers so listeners at home could appreciate where the ball was. The phrase "back to square one" is famously said to come from this system, although a ball played back could equally have ended up in square two.

This week's Radio Times has reproduced a version of the said chart, but it and the accompanying article are also available online.

(I may record the coverage anyway, radio anorak that I am.)

We went to watch this epic third round FA Cup tie yesterday afternoon. I'd not been to Selhurst Park before. It's obviously a ground (and a club) that's seen better days. When we got to the visiting fans ticket booth there was a largish queue and not a lot happening. It seemed that there was a shortage of tickets. Not a shortage of actual space - there were only just over 10,000 people in a ground with a capacity of over 26,000. No, they hadn't actually printed enough tickets to sell to people. In other words, they'd underestimated the number of Swindonians who'd actually bother to show up.

Sadly, the game was disappointing, with Palace quickly going a goal up. Swindon had a few opportunities, but by now the heavens had really opened and the game was becoming literally bogged down, although the pitch did hold up well.

Palace got a second and it looked unlikely that Swindon could mount a comeback. But with less then ten minutes to go, they got one, and there was a bit of a scramble to try and find an equaliser.

It wasn't to come, but the performance hadn't been bad and fans around me, who'd been in good voice throughout, were relatively upbeat.

We went on to a pub to watch the Liverpool v Arsenal game, featuring two great goals from Tomas Rosicky and a fabulous individual effort from Thierry Henry.

I see that I'm not alone in thinking that perhaps putting gambling sponsors on football shirts mightn't be the smartest idea.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Middlesborough and Spurs all feature gambling advertisers on their shirts. I'm not the only person to notice that gambling appeals enormously to kids, and make the observation that having the sponsors' names on the child sizes is really not a smart idea.

Now, it seems, the Gambling Commission is investigating the issue, and the shirt sponsorships could be deemed illegal. One possibility might be the removal of logos on kids shirts (although I'd like to think that any self-respecting club would do that anyway), but let's face it, kids watch the players who are their heroes, in the full strip.

The shortlist for this year's Sports Personality of the Year is in, with the winner to be decided by a phone and text vote on Sunday night, live during the programme.

First things first: David Walliams isn't on the list. It was thought that he might make it for his charity swim across the English Channel. Whilst this was a fine achievement and raised lots of money for charity, it was not "sports" in the same way that me finishing the London Marathon (not for some years) or the Great North Run (never) should be considered sport. If I'd won a competition (and winning one of those races would count), then I might be in with a shot. But like sailing, walking or cycling around the world, it's just an achievement to be proud of.

But back to the shortlist. Here are the entrants and my thoughts:

Jenson Button (Formula One) - won his first Grand Prix this year, which is awfully nice for him, but I think we should wait until he's won the Drivers' Championship before getting it
Joe Calzaghe (Boxing) - he might be in with a shout with two belts, were it not for the fact that nobody really watches championship boxing anymore because it's not on mainstream TV
Darren Clarke (Golf) - yes he was part of a winning Ryder Cup team, but other team members did better on the European Order of Merit. No, if Clarke won, it'd be a sympathy vote since he lost his wife to cancer - a tragedy certainly, but not something that should really come into his winning sports personality of the year. He's odds on favourite which actually really annoys me.
Nicole Cooke - (Cycling) - my choice of winner. Nicole has had a spectacular year winning the World Cup with a race to spare, and also La Grand Boucle (the women's Tour de France), as well as many others. I seriously doubt that she will win because so few people know who she is or what she's achieved.
Ricky Hatton - (Boxing) - lots of stepping up and down divisions to take and lose belts. I'd imagine that he'll split the boxing vote, so I can't see him winning, and in any case, others are more deserving.
Andy Murray - (Tennis) - a great future bet for British tennis, but remind me again what he won this year? A single ATP tour event. Not to be sniffed at, but if he can win Wimbledon then the award is his.
Monty Panesar - (Cricket) - a fine cricketer; matchwinning even. It's a shame that he hasn't been selected for either of the first Ashes tests. If he manages to demolish the Australian attack, then he can go up for consideration, but as things stand he's a promising newcomer for whom the future is beckoning.
Zara Phillips - (Equestrianism) - well we all know her mum won the competition in 1971, but is that enough? She's undoubtedly outstanding at her sport, and deserves consideration. But like motor racing, you get the feeling that the rider or driver is only part of the "package" (I hate that word in F1). Second favourite to Clarke.
Phil Taylor - (Darts) - an outstanding darts player (thrower?), but the problem for me comes from the fact that he plays in a split sport. The PDC has some very strong players, but there are all the rest that are in the BDO. Until there's a unified competition, it's hard to be certain of his achievement. This year's PDC final was incredibly one-sided anyway, with Taylor winning 7-0.
Beth Tweddle - (Gymnastics) - our finest gymnast for years, and has won golds in both the World and European championships this year. I guess she could win in other events, aside from the uneven bars, but her achievement is not to be knocked and she should be a strong contender.

So I'd say that the winner should come from Nicole Cooke, Beth Tweddle and Zara Phillips. But the latest Ladbrokes betting is as follows:

Darren Clarke 1/5
Zara Phillips 10/3
Joe Calzaghe 16/1
Nicole Cook 25/1
Monty Panesar 30/1
Andrew Murray 33/1
Beth Tweddle 33/1
Phil Taylor 50/1
Jenson Button 66/1
Ricky Hatton 100/1

Long odds for anyone other than Darren Clarke and Zara Phillips. Perhaps the BBC should use a system that works something like Strictly Come Dancing, and only let the public part of the vote count towards half the marks. Then have a BBC Sport editorial team make up the other half of the points. That'd ensure that minor sports would get a fair shout, and sympathy votes would count less. Obviously, I'm making the judgment that a BBC Sport editorial team would be less prone to human interest stories, but there's a place for them in the Unsung Hero award.

A disappointing 0-0 draw. But I did take my camera...

Five Live had a report today about how gambling, and to a lesser extent porn, are becoming quite serious addictions amongst some young footballers. You can listen to the report here. It's ironic, then, that so many shirt sponsors in the British leagues are now tacky internet gambling companies. Step forward Aston Villa, Blackburn, Middlesborough and Spurs. And of course, pretty much every club has their own "gambling partner".

It's not unusual for sponsors to supply products to the players in their teams, so do the players at Villa et al get free lines of credit at their internet casinos?

And of course then there's the alcohol adverts that appear on shirts. Do they take the advertising logos off the kidswear? No. No. No. Although I do read that because of religious sensibilities, you can buy an "alcohol free" Celtic shirt.

I was thinking about this when for the first time today, I realised that Barcelona were now sporting a shirt sponsor. Except that they've selected Unicef who of course aren't paying for the privilege. I may still see if I can buy an unsponsored Barcelona shirt.

Following on from my moan the other day about the ridiculousness of football managers "banning" the BBC from their press conferences or making any comments to them, it was pleasing to hear Chief Sports Writer of The Mirror, Oliver Holt, saying the same thing on Sportsweek this morning. He said it was a bit of a hobby horse of his, as it is of mine. As he pointed out, last night's Match of the Day featured neither Sam Allardyce nor Alex Ferguson (yes I know Man Utd only played today). If the BBC investigate, say, where Abramovich's millions come from and Chelsea take issue, might they be banned as well?

It is indeed for the Premier League to insist on its managers talking to all their partners as part of the deal.

And here's something really scary. After Bolton's Monday game, Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling asked Sam Allardyce if he'd ever taken a bung. Allardyce said that he was "out of order" and an hour later, reports say that Bolton officials were harranguing Sky's producer.

The scary part is that the interview was not replayed or shown on either Sky News or Sky Sports News. The impression given suggests that Sky appreciates that to make their multi-million investment in football work, they have to have access to players and officials. If they fall out with them, then the value of their investment is reduced.

So if you've made a large investment in a product, you don't want to rock any boats and ask tough questions, even if it begins to make people question your editorial integrity. Sky News has just appointed a Viewers' Editor (link broken at time of entry), so maybe that's a question for them?

So following last week's Panorama into football bungs, Sam Alladyce, the "embattled" Bolton manager has imposed a ban on the BBC at all his press conferences. He now joins Sir Alex Ferguson in refusing to talk to the BBC (Fergie is unhappy at the way his son was treated in a previous BBC documentary).

Now if Alladyce feels that he has a legal complaint against the BBC, then he's every right to have his day in court if that's what's needed. But the BBC pays his club a share of the £xm a year that is paid to the Premiership for radio and television rights. As such, however unhappy he might be, he should be contracted to make post match comments much as American sportsmen and women, or tennis players are obliged to.

These petty vendettas aimed against broadcasting organisations who have the temerity to conduct investigative journalis