I was surprised to come across the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony last night as I was idly channel-hopping my way through the stunning array .of dross that is available on a Sunday evening, surprised because I was barely aware it had taken place at all. Jim Kerr, who I am shocked to learn is younger than me, led legendary Scottish rock dinosaurs/royalty (you choose which) Simple Minds through a short setlist which included Alive And Kicking and Don’t You Forget About Me. But is the Commonwealth Games really Alive And Kicking? I’d certainly forgotten about it.
Katie Sadleir, who I learn is the chief executive of Commonwealth Sport, announced herself delighted with the games, saying that they “have absolutely exceeded my expectations.” She added: “People are talking about it on the streets. I’ve met with athletes. I’ve met with Commonwealth Games Associations and everyone is going away buzzed about what happened.” Fair enough. It went down well in Glasgow, but how about anywhere else?
For one thing, the games were not shown on the BBC, who had only bid a “fraction” of what winning broadcaster Warner Brothers Discovery had eventually paid. As ever in the modern world, money talks and that’s why the games were only available to watch on the dreadful pay channel TNT with some coverage on Channel 5. But given Sadleir’s enthusiasm, the viewing figures must have been great, right? Hardly.
TNT’s viewing figures peaked – PEAKED! – at 50,000 while Channel 5 maxed out at 800,000. Now, I am not an expert, but 50,000, or even 800,000 out of a UK population around 70 million, does not sound like a great number to me. If Ms Sadleir’s expectations were lower than that, Christ alone knows what she was expecting.
Now, while I admit that I did not follow the Commonwealth Games as much as the Olympics – and even there my levels of interest peaked with the London games and have reached anywhere near those levels since – I would tune in, albeit brainlessly, to watch some of the sports, especially the Athletics. The bowls is a bit racy for me. But tucked away on TNT, in between various pedal-cycling events and Australian No Rules Football, I really could not be bothered. Neither did 70 million others, I fear.
I know I am a bit old fashioned but I do feel visibility matters. I know people’s TV viewing habits have changed – mine certainly have – and these days we watch telly when it suits us rather than following the rigid programming schedules, but not necessarily with live sport. While the BBC is struggling to adjust to the new world of multichannel TV, streaming and all the rest of it, I think showing live, free-to-view sport matters. So much sport, like cricket, club rugby union, football and golf, is now behind a paywall and in many cases viewing figures, as with cricket, are in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions. And it is a fact that people with lower incomes are less likely to have access. Participants in sports like cricket and rugby union have always been over-represented by the wealthy and privately-educated and wilfully denying access to the lower orders, as the old farts in charge might regard them, does little to make them more inclusive. If you don’t see a sport on mainstream TV, then for many it isn’t there.
We rightly celebrate cricket superstars like Ben Stokes, Joe Root and Jimmy Anderson – not one of whom had an elite private school, wealthy background, by the way, unlike nearly all of their team mates – but the truth is they are only superstars in their own world of cricket. They could happily walk into most shops and pubs in the country and hardly anyone would know who they were. That is no way to increase participation, regardless of the cashflow derived from selling the rights to sports to giants like Warner Brothers Discovery. I suspect the suits in charge don’t care, as long as the money keeps rolling in.
From my point of view, the Commonwealth Games never happened. I watched more of Simple Minds’ set than I did of any of the sports on offer and even then, not all of it and I think that’s a shame. Perhaps, the Commonwealth Games, with its distant echoes of the British Empire, feels a little out of date these days and the whole thing is dying a natural death anyway, now being accelerated by hiding it away on a pay channel.
Simple Minds’ choice of songs may have been more apt than anyone realised. Still able to cut it but very much yesterday’s men with their best years long behind them. Stuck behind a paywall on a minor and utterly second rate sports channel, the Commonwealth Games also feels like its best days are long behind, too. Ultimately, if next to no one is watching, what’s the point?
