Is that the same Daily Mail, who's 'star' sports diarist Charlie Sale told his readers yesterday, that Steve Rider was going to sign a new smaller term contract with ITV Sport..
A shame they didn't handle things better in their eagerness to get Adrian Chiles because with both of them they'd have had a very strong presenting team, especially now the BBC have lost Chiles and Ray Stubbs. Adrian Chiles will debut on May 24th for an England friendly, so I presume Matt Smith will do the FA Cup and Champions League finals.
If ITV do retain the Rugby World Cup rights (and I hope they do) I'd have liked to have seen Steve Rider involved, but I suspect Craig Doyle will be the main presenter, with perhaps Martin Bayfield again as the second presenter.
A move to Five for Matt Smith to replace Colin Murray might be mutually beneficial. Five will get a decent football presenter for the first time since Steve Scott, while Matt will pretty much be doing as he does now - the UEFA Cup, but with first choice games and a wider audience.
I know he certainly has since 1999, but did Jim Rosenthal anchor the 1991 and 1995 Rugby World Cups too? (BBC had it in 1987).
Craig Doyle would be the obvious choice now he does the Guinness Premiership highlights week in week out, but I think if Steve Rider had still been around he would have got the gig this time around (in 2007 it clashed with F1).
Still though no confirmation ITV will keep the rights, or indeed any sign of a bidding process for them.
I know he certainly has since 1999, but did Jim Rosenthal anchor the 1991 and 1995 Rugby World Cups too? (BBC had it in 1987).
No, in 1991 it was Frank Bough, with David Bobin as the back-up. That was the first real rugby coverage ITV had ever done - so much so they couldn't use the ITV Sport logo before it as it didn't have any rugby in it - so they needed to create a team very much from scratch. And at the end of the final Frank said how much he'd enjoyed presenting sport again. In 1995 it was Alistair Hignall, who was pretty hopeless, with Trevor McDonald joining him for the opening match and the final because it was such a big world event. The highlights were presented by Mark Austin and Mary Nightingale - a decade before they paired up again on the ITV News. And Nicky Campbell did the highlights in 1999. Steve Rider was the main presenter in 1987 on the Beeb, but it was almost all highlights, what with the matches being around 4am - they only showed one of the quarter finals, the semi finals and the final live.
The problem with Matt Smith going to Five is that they don't have any other sport apart from the Europa League, hence Murray could combine it with his day job on Five Live and before that Radio 1. In fact he could still have done it next season, combining it with his Beeb work, if he really wanted to. Whereas on ITV Smith also does the Champions League and the FA Cup, plus cricket and darts, although for a while he did freelance on Five Live as well.
The problem with Matt Smith going to Five is that they don't have any other sport apart from the Europa League
Off topic but not than many people are probably aware, but Five do have some Athletics rights - the other weekend morning they showed the Great Edinburgh Run live, and I'm sure they show some of the other Great Run events live as well. (As a side note Stuart Storey is the lead commentator - at least someone still appreciates him)
I think like C4 though much of the rights of that kind are advertiser funded and there isn't really any connection between the different aspects of their sports output.
If the BBC have the rights ridiculous on Saturday afternoon they're showing Murder She Wrote, The Weakest Link and The Apprentice in the afternoon slot rather than offering highlights from the Doha meeting.
I get the impression that they have been unable to sell the rights in the UK, and have thus offered to them to the BBC for free in the short term (the two UK events are already signed to the BBC).
If anyone does offer money for them, they will be off.
Thus the BBC won't be pushing them or indeed worried about putting them on a linear channel.
RTÉ Sport has slightly revised its corporate look today for the new GAA season, with a new font and some other slight changes to the 2007 look.Never mind that some RTÉ Sport programmes (Pro Box Live and OB Sport, I'm looking at you in particular) are still using the original 2004 corporate style and never received the 2007 look!
Not a big change (and they are still aping the BBC's style of using the same style logos for all sport programmes). Can't say I'm a fan of the new font...looks too, well, computery. That's not really a word but is the only thing I can use to describe it!
The Sunday Game's title sequence, new logo font and animation besides, is still practically the same as that used since 2007 (with the change back to the original theme tune in 2008). They might have thrown in the odd new visual here and there but its still much the same.
