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It may have escaped your notice, although you'd have had to have your head buried several feet in the sand, or alternatively, so far up somewhere else, but from 2009 Formula 1 returns to the BBC. Auntie made an absolutely huge hurrah about this news, assuming that the great British public would be hanging out the bunting and organising street parties in celebration.
Quite why the rights to broadcast a sporting event of limited attraction should warrant such a fanfare is hard to fathom, until you consider where our only noncommercial broadcaster is right now, especially in terms of sports coverage. Thirty years ago, we, the paying public, didn't get much live sport on the telly. Yes, there was horse racing, home test matches, Wimbledon and a bit of rugby of both the league and proper variety. OK, and if you're prepared to stretch the definition a bit, there was wrestling. Live football? No chance. Overseas cricket tours? You're having a laugh, as the vernacular puts it. American sport? Who would be interested?
Then two things happened.
Firstly, the Dirty Digger, Rupert Murdoch, burst onto the scene with three 24 hour sports channels to fill. And, it seemed, a limitless budget with which to do it. His business model was simple, but very, very effective. The people craved televised football, he reasoned, so he would give it to them. At a price. He paid the Premier League untold riches for its soul and in so doing changed our world for ever. Gradually, every sport that wasn't football realised that Rupert needed live action, and boy, could they provide it. At a price. As two ‘at a prices’ in a few sentence attests, it of course worked both ways. Rugby League prostituted itself to such a degree in pursuit of Sky Gold (pun intended) that it even agreed to become a summer sport, instead of the muddy, frozen, rain-swept Northern mess it had been for decades.
One by one, like a stack of dominoes falling, Sky and the other commercial stations bought up all of the sports and the Beeb was left with.... well, nothing much. Match of the Day (not live sport at all), the Grand National and bloody Wimbledon, of which more in a minute. So it's easy to understand that the BBC felt quite pleased with itself recently to have regained Formula 1. That's despite the fact that for all its glamour, F1 remains a minority sport, simply because very little happens in a two hour race. Every single track is described as being ‘notoriously difficult to overtake on’ so who wins and who loses comes down to the team with the best wind-tunnel and gang of Kwik-Fit fitters. Right riveting it ain't.
But back to the Beeb, and sport in general. A second but less well documented reason that the corporation lost its prestige when it came to sports coverage is this. It's hard to remember now, but before Sky (and, yes kids, there was a time before Sky), there was only one way to cover sports. The BBC way. This arrogance led to the retention of ultra boring commentators (Trevor Bailey anyone? Thought not.) and an approach that was so set in stone and antiquated that it's a surprise nobody thought to complain at the time. We didn't because we didn't know any better.
It was the sort of safe, comfy, cosy approach to covering sport that assumed everyone watching was middle class, middle England, white people. A strategy that was confirmed by its retention of Wimbledon at any cost. And we're talking tennis here, not Vinnie Jones' brand of lump it up football. If the Church of England can be described as the Conservative party at prayer, then Wimbledon is the Conservative Party at play. Genteel is the word that best describes Wimbledon - not a black face to be seen in the crowd and the tipple of choice is Pimms, not Stella. It has suburban home counties written all over it and if you want any more weight behind the argument, just think of: "Come on, Tim". That says it all. Or worse, Cliff Richard.
To reinforce the message still further, The Beeb's style is typified by a Question of Sport. It's been running for Christ knows how long without ever knowingly producing an edgy moment (pun intended once again). Jumpers and slacks and Sue feckin' Barker - the least sexy woman ever to appear in front of a camera. And that includes Clare Balding. Do you know anyone not in an old people's home who likes it? No, me neither.
Say what you like about Sky's over-hyping of events - even Bolton v Wigan is sold as ‘do or die, not to be missed Earth shattering TV’ - their technical innovations have been nothing short of brilliant. Yes, brilliant is an over-used word, but in this case it is truly warranted. Hawkeye. Cameras in dozens of locations, hyper slo-mo, computerised reconstructions of goal-line incidents or golf holes. Does anyone really hanker after the BBC's staid approach?
It was reported that the Beeb paid £40m a year for the rights to broadcast F1 live. And therein lies another question. Anyone with a TV has to buy a licence and most of the fee goes directly to the BBC. Is it really right that a significant chunk of that money is then spent on a minority sport? OK, pretty much all of the BBC's output could be described as ‘minority’ these days, because at any one moment, most of the audience will be looking at something else, but it’s a question of scale.
£40m buys you a lot of TV programmes. A few reality shows, for example - Z-list slebs you've never even heard of trying to pretend that they’re important people. Add a few quiz shows with the likes of Noel ‘smug smug smuggy smug’ Edmonds, or Dale ‘orange-man’ Winton. More badly acted soaps. All this could be yours, if only the BBC hadn't got all macho about having some live sport.
Formula 1? Worth every penny.
The Edge Editor Responds
Another thought provoking ‘colon’ as per usual, Wardo. But as a non-Sky subscriber, I am actually very pro The Beeb. Sportswise, the BBC have a way of doing things that certainly ITV have simply never been able to hold a candle to. The best single illustration I can give of this is that, undoubtedly, come the end of Euro’08, the BBC will put together a compilation of the ‘highs and lows’ of the entire competition and set it to a piece of music. (In fact, they do this for most sporting event competitions they cover.) Now I, for one, am never usually knowledgeable enough to know what that certain piece of music is called, but I simply don’t need to in order to always fully appreciate what the BBC are doing, every single time.
Sky and ITV just don’t know how to do it. Sometimes they try, yet they are hamhanded by comparison, whereas The Beeb manage to get it right time after time after time.
And Wimbledon? What a wonderfully English occasion. Pimms o’clock certainly makes for such an eloquent, civilised change to bloody lager, don’t you think? When you mention Wimbledon and the word ‘genteel’ in the same breath, you are obviously forgetting John McEnroe, who although I did not favour as a player has gone on to become the greatest tennis commentator I have ever heard (you see, The Beeb are also extremely good at choosing their commentators, whereas Sky and the simianlike Richard Keys I really do find most offensive and somewhat second rate, even though I acknowledge the fact that he has, seemingly, presented more live football than any other ‘anchor man’ on British TV over the past decade - but that still doesn’t add to his appeal in my eyes). Two words - Desmond Lynam - the master.
Furthermore, you must be forgetting that epic encounter (and I do not use those words lightly) between Borg and McEnroe in the 1981 Wimbledon Men’s’ Singles Final - the most thrilling five-set match you are ever likely to witness. In fact, loving football as much as I do, I actually think that their confrontation, over no less than three-and-a-half hours was probably the greatest sporting encounter in any arena I have ever witnessed in my entire life. That and Ali v Frazier at Madison Square Garden on 8th March 1971.
Lengthy-Boy Responds
Formula One is a sport between 2pm- 4pm on a Sunday; the rest of the time, it's a business. Sport OK, so the races might be boring, but you have to take the rough with the smooth. Monaco and Canada, for instance, were excellent (although even they were hardly a match for Valintino Rossi & Co. in the MOTO GP).
Whilst I can understand that a casual observer might find F1 boring, surely that applies to any casual viewer of any sport? For instance, I've seen Chelsea in a Premier League football match and I know I don't need to go again. But who didn't read or hear at least one Lewis Hamilton story last year? The world title decider in Brazil was THE* most watched sporting event of the year. (*Source: bbc.co.uk). Then we have the Schumacher years. He might have cheated now and again, and be German, but he did win 91 races all told, and you simply don't do that by chance.
Business
The $100million fine given to McLaren, after the 'Spygate Scandal', was totally unnecessary and completely OTT (a McLaren employee was in possession of a 700 page dossier containing all of ‘Ferraris secrets’!) Fernando Alonso, the reigning world champion, and his shock and surprise at the speed of his rival, Lewis Hamilton, was another big story of the year, along with his ongoing rift with his team (who were paying him £12m a year). And who can forget Max Mosley’s Nazi Sex Scandal? But hey, there's no such thing as bad publicity, is there?
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