The Sport Thread

It is ‘proper’ graphics, it’s those of Sky and BT. During the game it’s the same information in different templates that you’ll get on the PLP world feed.

You want a music package and some slides with graphics on rather than studio based presentation discussing and analysing the game? You do realise that information - if you want it - is easily available on apps and websites? And you can even play the music on a loop if you’d like, and I’m sure the filler features on games and players of the past can be found somewhere too.

You want Sky to bring back the over the top sound FX that made it sound like there was a spaceship in your house? Why?!

And all this is what you call ‘proper’ coverage? It isn’t, it’s a mixture of geeky interest in different presentation (nothing wrong with that) and nostalgia for things that would be completely out of place now.

To try and claim what the UK broadcasters produce isn’t ‘proper’ coverage, in ‘proper’ studios, with ‘proper’ presenters, and ‘proper’ graphics is to somehow miss the very high quality coverage Sky and BT provide of the Premier League and a huge disservice to those who deliver it.

Nothing wrong with PLP - it’s very well produced and close to (if not up to the same) level as Sky and BT- but it’s not (on the whole) designed for a UK audience.

Which major markets take it then?

India, South Africa, possibly Far East, maybe Canada it’s hard to say, I think Sport24 show it on cruiseliners and aeroplanes.

I just want sky to do the proper build up like the olden days it felt to me like a premium experience and way different to what any other up broadcaster were doing at the time, now it’s too Samey and not unique.

To be honest I couldn't give a flying banana what music and graphics Sky use. I'd just like them to employee match specific pundits for Newcastle matches who fans like and actually know what they're talking about.

There was an absolute clunker from Kieron Dyer tonight where he suggest Bruce would finish with our best ever points total - we finished with more points in 5 of the 8 seasons he played for us....

I'm not sure who the summariser was on Derby v Leeds on Sunday but he was coming in for quite a lot of stick on Social media.

A lot of his contribution was providing anecdotes and factoids about Leeds and their manager. Unfortunately most of these were coming from an article by the journalist Phil Hay who writes for The Athletic, and whose article had been widely shared and praised so a lot of Leeds fans were very familiar with it.

Indeed it did. The start of the Rugby World Cup often used to be part of a mad weekend of sport on ITV, it was the case in 1999 as well as 2003 when they had a big F1 race and also in both years England qualifiers as well. On that weekend in 2003 they had highlights of Turkey vs England which was a crucial game in England qualifying for Euro 2004, and it was quite a controversial one as well because Sky had the live rights exclusively (the only match in that qualifying campaign the Beeb didn't have) and there were reports they wouldn't be offering highlights, to much dismay. Eventually the FA said they didn't want any England fans travelling in case there was trouble (there'd been quite a lot at the reverse fixture) and so that put pressure on Sky to make it more widely available, and they offered up highlights which ITV got. There was a thought it could be shown as-live straight after the final whistle, but in the end it was a conventional highlights show later in the evening. But it was a huge weekend for ITV Sport, I remember one programme (On The Ball?) showing a map graphic with all the places they were going to be that weekend.

As I say, it was similar in 1999 with rugby, the F1 and more England qualifiers (that was the era when they had England highlights rights). And they had a similarly frantic weekend during the last Rugby World Cup last year, rugby and football again, and with racing in place of F1.

Gabby was on two channels at once last night with her appearance there and her presenting the Premier League on Amazon. Interesting to see her back on ITV, her spell there seems to have been a bit forgotten about now, given she's so established at the Beeb. I think the Beeb has really been the making of her, actually, I thought on ITV she sometimes came across as a bit flippant, but she now does loads of sports and does them all really well, and she seems a really nice person.



Well, indeed. The other point as well is that there has to be a bit of distance between the broadcasters and the competition, I know they're not going to slag off the product because they've paid loads of money for it and want to keep it, but if we were just getting coverage 100% provided by the Premier League I wouldn't be convinced they would be prepared to be entirely critical and independent when it was required.

Also as well, the international coverage is intended for viewers all over the world and I would think that audiences would prefer something aimed more at British audiences, which assumes that we know where Bournemouth is, for example, without having to explain it. EFL on Quest uses the official Football League graphics on their match edits and it certainly doesn't feel like a more premium product, it feels more remote, like we're constantly opting in to another programme.

Also, I can't really buy an argument that the international coverage has a better and more memorable theme tune when most UK audiences watch the Premier League via Match of the Day.



The co-commentator was Danny Higginbotham, a regular part of Sky's Football League coverage and someone regularly praised as one of the better co-commentators for doing their research and being prepared to talk tactics in an accessible way (although I find him a bit hard to listen to, I'm afraid, because I always find he has a bit of a hectoring tone to his voice). I'm not sure I really understand the complaints, they seem to be taking issue with a co-commentator doing some research. I know a lot of it might have been old news to big Leeds fans, but they're not just broadcasting to them. Be different if he was getting facts wrong.



The last really big name Sky poached from a channel would probably have been Alan Parry who was a familiar voice on ITV when he joined, and that was back in 1996. As you say, since then they've usually tried to cultivate their own faces and voices, and presumably it helps that they have Sky Sports News which obviously requires umpteen presenters a day and gives them the opportunity to train new people up in a very effective fashion.

There have been people like David Croft who joined from the Beeb when they got the F1 but obviously when they take over a new sport they needed to create a team from scratch. And there have been people like Ben Shephard and Rachel Riley who have joined from other areas of television, on a non-exclusive basis. I know it didn't work out for Riley but that wasn't her fault, the whole programme was misconcieved. I assumed when they hired her it was because they wanted to take the coverage in a different direction, like when Adrian Chiles started doing MOTD2. But in the end they just got her to read stuff off the autocue that anyone could have done.

Since the restart, I’ve watched quite a bit of LaLigaTV which gives an eye into what a League-owned presentation can look like. It can be jarring to hear the use of insistent terminology - the league is always “La Liga Santander”, clubs and stadiums are always referred to by their full titles, etc. The pundrity isn’t bad at all (any punditry can be a bit dry for those of us raised with RTE’s style of having a “character pundit” a la Eamon Dunphy, George Hook, or Joe Brolly) but what is utterly annoying is their insistence on playing background music all the way through the pre game and post game coverage.

I think there’s a bit of nostalgia from at least one poster for the original Super Sunday theme (“Here we go, this is it!”) which was used for Sky’s first five seasons (and I think was the only specially commissioned theme Super Sunday ever used). But it might be forgotten that it was almost entirely talked over, either by Bruce Hamill (I think) with “Sky Sports brings you to the heart of the action...FORD SUPER SUNDAY!” or by Richard Keys giving the speil on the broadcast to come. More headline bed than theme really, and it would never fit in with Sky’s coverage today. And I think it’s common case that the two hour build up of early Super Sundays was far too long for a regular league game. It’s a pity Sky have never really settled on a consistent memorable theme since, though I’ve a soft spot for Written in the Stars which was used for most of the first half of the 2010s.

See the comment above re Kieron Dyer.

The reality is that Sky's coverage is generally targeted at the neutral with sops to looking like they care about tailoring it to the individual clubs involved. This is fine for the neutral, those sops to the teams often come across as insulting or downright annoying to a teams fans.

Given football is an absolute barren land next Saturday does anyone know why BT or Sky haven't rang up the national league and asked for the North and South division play-offs? With no championship and no premier league, surely it'd be a good opportunity to showcase lower leagues?

BT are full on with UEFA competitions next month and have the return of Rugby too. No shortage for them.

I've liked almost every Super Sunday (because the MNF ones were different) theme Sky have ever done, at least the ones I remember.

Written in the Stars was always my favourite, I think it came in in 2011 which co-incided with the 20th anniversary of the PL formation, hence why the intro featured classic moments as well:


I know the current one has had its fair share of criticism as well, and I will admit it does get irritating hearing it every ad break, but it's still a good theme overall.

As for the criticism of Sky's presentation - I can't see why you would pick a world feed over your own presentation if you could afford it in any case. Surely you would go for something specific to Britain if you were broadcasting in Britain, or something specific to Germany if you were broadcasting in Germany etc. The only reason the world feed exists is for convenience, and so the countries that can't afford their own pres can borrow it. We can, and so we have no such need for it.

So they should be tailoring coverage to the neutral fans, they make up the vast majority of the audience. They're not supposed to care about the individual clubs, they're supposed to be impartial. And it's very rarely I hear people claim they need to be aimed more at the fans of a particular club, most complaints how they are "very bias imo" towards whatever club they're talking about.



I don't understand this. Sky can't phone up the National League because they already have a TV contract with BT - and on Saturday they're showing the semi-finals of the National League play-offs!

If the argument is they should show the North and South finals as well because there isn't any other football on Saturday, I would think that having spent the last month showing football pretty much every day, Sky and BT might like to have a bit of a break for one day.