If a tree falls in the forest

Women’s sport confronts broadcast reality

Photo: Zachary Vessels on unsplash

Golf LIV-in

Will Saudi Arabia now effectively control elite men’s golf globally? Really? Quite the flummoxing merger between LIV and the two heritage tours. Beat ‘em up then hug ‘em close. Brutal strategy.

More next week when I’ve spent enough time lying down in a darkened room!

If a tree falls in the forest

When a global sporting event takes place without TV coverage, does it really happen? Or at least, does it really matter? That question should be front of mind for all the protagonists in the standoff over broadcast rights for next month’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Blank screens are looming larger with every passing day in the five leading European markets, including Britain. Which will explain why you’ve not been bombarded with prime-time trailers for the World Cup since the end of the regular season. 42 days to the opening game, and counting…

First a quick recap. FIFA has unbundled rights for its women’s competitions from the men’s for the first time. Broadcasters in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK have offered sums for the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand that are a small fraction of what they paid for the men’s event in Qatar last year. Early morning kick-offs (European time) don’t help, but it’s safe to say that perceptions of value differ wildly between football’s organising federation and TV’s buyers.

“Whereas broadcasters pay $100-200 million for the men’s FIFA World Cup, they offer only $1-10 million for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This is a slap in the face of all the great FIFA Women’s World Cup players and indeed of all women worldwide.” FIFA President, Gianni Infantino

Sports ministers in all five countries are jittery - presumably because they realise they will be first in line for public criticism if no deals are done. And lest you think that would be unfair, they are a cohort that has joyfully ridden the up-wave in the women’s game in recent years. Rough now to go with the previous smooth.

All parties might want to take a look at F1 for an urgent reality check. The W Series folded part way through last season for lack of cash. The ambitious project to establish an elite women’s motor racing format on the back of the F1 circuit wasn’t without its flaws - the imagery of the drivers it used was often toe-curling - but it was promoted energetically and certainly garnered good media coverage in a very crowded market.

Insiders believe the W Series floundered for lack of buy-in from F1, which instead is now pushing its own product, F1 Academy. This is for female drivers, with a stated aim of enabling them to compete in the established formulas currently locked-up by men. But this is happening in a media vacuum.

Some of last year’s W Series drivers are part of the 15 woman roster for the new seven weekend series, but only one of these weekends is paired with F1, you can’t watch the races live on TV and the press has shown scant interest. So, a competitor goes bust and the ‘in house’ successor is hidden in a corner. Wilful neglect for dubious reasons, or simply a commercially-driven decision by F1’s owners that is too hard-headed and/or short-termist?

An absence of live World Cup coverage would be a big backward step for women’s football. My sympathies lie (marginally) with broadcasters. Just because they grossly overpay for men’s soccer doesn’t compel them to do so now. They have been valuable partners for the football authorities and politicians in growing the female game and their compliance has probably been taken for granted.

The BBC’s coverage of the 2019 World Cup garnered 28.1 million views. Given the time zones this time, only a deep run by the Lionesses in the tournament would make a sizeable inroad into that total.

Last year the UK government added the FIFA Women’s World Cup to the A category of sporting events on the so-called ‘crown jewels’ list that must be shown on free-to-air television. That assumes, of course, that someone wants to show it - unlikely to be a problem that was envisaged when the events list was first devised or last revised.

The most likely solution is a late deal, or deals, after much posturing and arm-twisting, in which FIFA has to give up most of the ground between the negotiating parties. If the FA and government both want to protect the financial and emotional capital that they have invested in women’s football, perhaps they should contemplate buying the rights themselves and swallowing the loss on a resale to the BBC or ITV. Help to bridge the gap, remove FIFA toxicity in the process, and get the games on the box.

What about a water bottle Willoughby?

For all the national hoo-hah about ITV’s This Morning in recent weeks, it’s reported that only around half a million people actually watch the show. Perhaps the broadcaster could fly Holly Willoughby plus sofa down under to front coverage of the World Cup for 32 days and act as a reset for the troubled programme. Just an idea for FIFA to float to assist its negotiations.

Not so pretty in pink

Easy to laugh at the British Olympic Association’s ‘brand refresh’ with its “core set of fifteen patterns… each of the patterns based on a different athletic attribute from speed and power to flexibility and precision” and “a brand-new bespoke font, Team GB Sans.” But this is part of a more serious and contentious intent, namely “telling the athletes’ stories year-round.”

This goes straight to the heart of the commercial conflict between the BOA, which needs to raise funds to take Britain’s sportspeople to Olympic Games every two years, and the multiple governing bodies whose purpose includes the identification and development of those same athletes ‘year-round’, year after year. The more the BOA crowds the market, the harder it makes the task for individual sports whose own sponsors are blocked from being seen to have any association with Team GB and the Olympics. The sports, mind, are the BOA’s members! The parallel conflict exists with the BPA and the various Paralympic sports.

And then of course there are individual athletes’ own personal sponsorship arrangements in the mix too.

Too posh to push?

Last year the Lawn Tennis Association was severely ruffled by a Sport inc. ahead of Wimbledon in which I asked whether the governing body might be too wealthy for the good of the sport. After the poor showing by Brits at the recent French Open, coupled with damning observations from GB #2 Dan Evans, one newspaper has asked whether British tennis is too posh. The LTA’s latest annual report sees chair Mervyn Davies hailing “another strong year for Great British tennis both on and off the courts.” I’ll dig into that a little closer to this year’s Championships.

The only way is up (or sideways)

Regular readers may remember my astonishment at the Middlesex CCC interview panel’s lack of focus on the fortunes of the men’s first XI in my unsuccessful attempt to be appointed the county’s new chair. Having played seven of its fourteen group matches, MCCC is currently bottom of its T20 Blast south group with nil points - the only one of the eighteen counties that’s winless. One Middlesex member tells me this is the worst team he has seen in the best part of five decades as a supporter. Priorities? Go figure!

Scratch n sniff

Last week’s Sport inc. piece on smells prompted a couple of readers to cite hot dogs as their evocative sporting whiff. One was quite specific: “the suspiciously sweet aroma of cooking onions on a hot dog trolley”. Another remembered them at French rugby, the Yankees in the Bronx and any club ground in the UK. I especially liked this put down of Deep Heat though: “popular in the 80s on the shiny legs of the pretty boy backs - the smell of the placebo, run-faster effect that just says amateur, four-point try, pre-professional rugby!”