I admit that I like watching sport on the television. This past weekend has been a big one.
On Saturday afternoon, I watched The Rugby League Challenge Cup Final live on the BBC. Wigan Warriors narrowly beat Huddersfield Giants to lift the trophy though in my humble opinion Huddersfield were the better team. They lost because their goal kicker was not on his best form. He missed four kicks. In top level Rugby Union that simply would not have happened. Huddersfield had not won the trophy since the year that I was born - 1953 and of course, coming from Yorkshire I wanted them to win.
On Saturday evening, I got to watch The European Champions League Final live from Paris. It was just before the scheduled kick off time that I discovered I could view the game free of charge on YouTube via the BT.com site. I watched every dramatic moment as Real Madrid beat Liverpool by one goal to nil - raising the cup for the fourteenth time in their illustrious history.
I would have liked to watch The English Championship Final live from Wembley in London. this evening but Sky Sports held the rights to it and we do mot have access to any Sky sports channels at home as I refuse to subscribe to a service that was initially funded by the right wing media megalomaniac - Rupert Murdoch.
In the end Nottingham Forest beat Huddersfield Town by a single goal - putting Forest back into The Premier League for the first time in twenty three years. The winner's purse in this match is probably the biggest in world football with Forest set to earn £175 million.
Like many sports fans, I thoroughly resent the impact of pay-to-view channels in the televisual enjoyment of big games and major sporting events. It is as if they have stolen our sports away. I feel this most hurtfully in relation to watching cricket. It seems that the cricketing authorities have sold their souls to the highest bidders so that many cricket lovers - myself included - rarely get to watch any live cricket on TV. In addition, many youngsters who might have been inspired to take up cricket are denied vital on-screen inspiration.
How dare they take our national sports away from us!
While I am not interested in sport I too resent people having to pay Murdoch (Foxtel and Sky) and the Singapore government (Optus) to view what they used to see on free to air. A good bit of the money people pay will eventually end up in the bulging pockets of overpaid sport players and in the past perhaps Russian oligarchs.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised you are not interested in sport Andrew! I thought it was the law that all Australian blokes had to be passionate about sport.
DeleteSame goes for the violence that so often comes in the wake of big sports events - mainly football, or has there ever been a similarly active hooligan scene in tennis, or cricket? I guess most people who love to watch sports are decent folk who really just want to enjoy the game, having a favourite team they would like to see winning. But those criminals who vandalise city centres and beat others ups just because they support the "wrong" team have completely lost the right to attend any sports event in person.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started supporting football, fans from opposing teams would mingle and you could swap ends at half time if you wanted to. Nowadays, I notice that there are sometimes reports of violence in German football which was always so well-behaved.
DeleteI don't like sports, don't watch any on TV and never played any as a child. I'd rather read a book.
ReplyDeleteAnd there was me imagining you in your tennis whites - including a very short skirt.
DeleteI agree with you especially in relation to cricket not being shown live on terrestrial television. At least there is still radio. The theatre of the mind.
ReplyDeleteNot quite the same though is it Dave?
DeleteI've said before, there's an unwritten rule, only ONE Yorkshire team in the Premier League. Huddersfield's fate was sealed when Leeds won at Brentford.
ReplyDeleteI hope that we (The Tigers) will replace Leeds at the end of the 2022-23 season but perhaps The Blades will have something to say about that.
DeleteSounds like a bad week for Huddersfield! To be fair to BT Sport they did stream the Champion's League final for free, which I enjoyed watching. And to be equally fair, it is not the broadcasters but the sports themselves that sell out for the highest purse they can get. In some cases I suppose it works - the Premier League for all its faults is hugely successful - but in others (and I agree Cricket is one of them) it seems to have badly backfired at a grass roots level. I remember as a child knowing every England cricketer and watching tests and county matches avidly - now I barely know more than a handful of players. Boxing is another sport that, it is widely acknowledged, has suffered from pay per view in the sense that public awareness is lower than ever. Overall, there is far more sport on TV than ever before - and that's a good thing - but I do wish that more of it was not behind a paywall. Perhaps one solution would be to require each sport to ensure that a certain percentage of its output is viewable for free?
ReplyDeleteYou reinforce my main point pretty well. By the way the "they" I referred to in my last utterance was both sporting authorities and pay-to-view channels. Football would be nothing without the working class hordes who built it up in the first place. They made football but they didn't sell it.
DeleteNo doubt there are many sports lovers who will echo your sentiments, YP.
ReplyDeleteI can echo River's comments - I'm not a sports lover at all. Apart from golf, have never willingly played any game whatsoever - I'd even do my best to avoid compulsory games at school! My golf clubs and trolley have been languishing in a corner of the garage since we moved here. I found them a few days ago, and had forgotten I even had them!
I agree. Pay-per-view is a scam. It makes team owners and athletes and broadcasters rich but it's terrible for fans. Good for you for not subscribing to Sky.
ReplyDeleteI was distracted by all of the colorful tattoos on that player's body. Amazing work but I can just imagine how painful it must have been to have all of those done! Ouch!
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