It wasn’t really that much of a surprise that the Open Golf Championship became the latest major sporting event to join Rupert Murdoch’s near monopoly in the Sky. A sport with already falling participation rates surely will not gain additional players when even less people will be watching the game on television? What’s worse from golf’s point of view is that the biggest fall in participation is among 16-to 25-year olds, down by a quarter in last 12 months alone. Will the loss of golf on terrestrial TV improve that figure?
When cricket sold its entire portfolio to Murdoch, we were promised that despite the inevitable drop in viewing figures for cricket, the huge sums of Sky subscriber money would more than compensate in grassroots investment. Perhaps the investment did come along to some clubs but the simple fact is that less people are playing cricket. The amateur game thrives in the ‘burbs and local villages but large numbers of state schools don’t play the game at all. Therefore, it is no surprise to find that the proportion of England Test cricketers from private schools is on the rise.
I heard Peter Dawson from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club explain yesterday that the Sky money would be used to bolster the game at all levels, to increase participation, but he produced no evidence to suggest that it would. And he would also do well to look at what has happened in cricket where it can be argued convincingly that the 2005 England Ashes winning side will be the last one to be known to the general public as well as cricket fans. I do not deny the excellent job Sky do covering cricket but the reality is that your average punter would probably not be able to put a face to a good number of England players. Pre 2005, the likes of Cook, Bell, Anderson and Broad would have been sporting heroes who would have transcended cricket but they aren’t anymore because they’re on Sky. Dawson also said that just because a sport left terrestrial TV didn’t mean that participation numbers would decline and he had examples of that (which he wasn’t asked to give) but football, the country’s national sport, is losing participation quite dramatically at grassroots level, despite record (and obscene) levels of cash being pumped into the sport.
One of golf’s problems can be illustrated by the BBC Sports Personality of the Year where Rory McIlroy, a truly world class and charismatic player, lost out on the big prize to Lewis Hamilton who, with respect has very little personality and whose performance is largely determined by the tools at his disposal. McIlroy, charismatic, brilliant, on terrestrial TV – what a role model, but on Sky where the viewing figures will be measured in hundreds of thousands, not millions.
The genie is out of the bottle now and other sports like rugby union will be next. The RU world cup won’t be on terrestrial TV and I’ll wager that the Six Nations won’t be after the next rights auction.
You can’t argue with the success of Sky but it is gathering most of the big events and we’re paying for them. I’m getting tired of handing over so much money to Rupert Murdoch and the day might not be far away when I conclude that I might as well get rid of the lot and read more books instead.
And hardly anyone goes to work and talks about the sport they watched last night. Apathy may rule in the future.
Bye bye Peter Aliss. It was nice knowing you.
