Category: Sport
-
Wimbledon 2021
It’s been an awfully long time since I last attended an actual in-person sporting event, so it was great to be able to get a ticket to Wimbledon this year. Prior to the pandemic Wimbledon had finally gone digital in their ticket allocation. Previously, to enter the public ballot, you had to send away for…
-
Who Pays For the Super League?
Unless you’ve been asleep, you will know that, at time of writing, 12 named football clubs have agreed to join something called the European Super League. Another three teams are as yet unnamed. Obviously the whole thing is a sporting farrago, which guarantees the founder members permanent places in this league regardless of how well…
-
Super Bowl Technical Shortcomings
While it’s a few hours too early to know how many millions of Americans watched this year’s Super Bowl, it’ll certainly be the biggest audience of the year, being the major television event. Even with the Tokyo Olympics still scheduled for this summer, there won’t be as many people watching at one time as there…
-
When Should Athletes Get The Vaccine?
Note: This piece expands a little on a Twitter thread that I published earlier today. Today it was reported that the UAE Team Emirates cycling team had all received the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine while they attended an Abu Dhabi winter training camp. The team counts among its members, the 22 year-old Tour de France…
-
The Premier League in an SVOD World – Running the Numbers
This week, Amazon Prime in the UK has begun the first of its streaming-only games offered to Prime subscribers. You will recall that during the last UK round of Premier League TV rights, a package comprising of the entirety of one mid-week “matchday” and all the Boxing Day games was offered. In the end Amazon…
-
Amazon Prime Premier League Fixtures – Redux
I’ve repeatedly tried to explain why the Premier League was foolish to package rights to every fixture across two of their Match Days as a single TV package when they sold their latest UK TV rights last year. Amazon Prime ended up buying those packages after neither Sky nor BT felt they were worth buying.…
-
Champagne Superova: Sport and TV
Sunday was an incredible day for sport. Personally, I spent quite a lot of time flicking between ITV4 and Eurosport’s coverage of Stage 9 of the Tour de France, with South Africa’s Daryl Impey winning from a breakaway on France’s national day. But I was also watching quite a lot of cricket – especially early…
-
Sports TV: UK v US
Yesterday evening, UK time, the NFL championship games took place, deciding which teams will contest the Super Bowl. I have an on/off relationship with the NFL – but will flip over to catch a bit every now and then. So last night, when I wasn’t watching Les Miserables on BBC1, I caught a bit of these games…
-
Eleven Sports in the UK Reported to be in Trouble
I wrote something on Twitter about this, but thought I’d elaborate a little here too. There was something of a shake-up in rights prior to the start of this football season when newcomer Eleven Sports entered the UK market and snapped up rights from Sky (La Liga) and BT Sport (Serie A and UFC) amongst…
-
Sporting Disdain
There’s a major sporting occasion that has been getting underway this week and climaxes at the weekend. It’s in Europe this year, and it features teams of individuals who normally spend much of their time competing against one another in an individual capacity. I’m very excited about it. Yes, it’s the UCI Cycling Road Championships…
-
Sexist Coverage of the World Cup
No, I am not talking about Patrice Evra’s applauding of fellow ITV pundit and England footballer Eniola Aluko (nor his muttered “no clapping” moan in a subsequent match). Nor am I talking about the various people who are upset that women deign to commentate on a football match. (Incidentally, “Remote Controller” in the new issue…
-
Televising The World Cup Around the World
Two media stories which have interested me a lot about the World Cup so far. In the UK, we’re fortunate to still have Ofcom’s Listed Events. This is a list of sports events that are considered national events, and must be available to audiences free-to-air. Despite various attempts to either redefine the list, or scrap…