Questioning the BBC

I woke up on Thursday morning to the surprise news that the BBC had regained the rights to televise Formula One. Like most sports fans brought up on Murray Walker commentating on Nigel Mansell and who finds it sad that the Beeb has lost so much world-class sport, I welcomed the development. Plus there’s also the brilliant theme tune.

Then I started thinking. Wouldn’t the BBC have been better advised to spent that money – reported to be £300m - on golf?

From a general sporting perspective, given F1 was already on terrestrial tv wouldn’t it be more beneficial to snare some of the golf which is currently on satellite channels and bring it to the British public?
I’m not quite sure how the figures compare but it’s difficult to imagine F1 rights are any cheaper than those of the PGA or European tours.

Of course I’m biased, with F1 being about my eighth favourite sport. Of course I’d rather they bid for golf.
But it’s not really about the likes of me, who have all the sports channels literally at their fingertips. I get to see plenty of golf, week in, week out.

But do the 12-year-olds who only have terrestrial tv? No, they get two good weeks a year in the Masters and The Open. Hardly much chance to provide inspiration for those 12-year-olds to take up the game. As a colleague at NCG noted last week, it was watching the Duel in the Sun in 1977 which inspired him to take up golf.

Having golf on every week would provide myriad more opportunities to inspire kids, who are the next generation of golfers. Or am I being naïve and the BBC has no real interest in tour golf. As long as they have the Masters and The Open, they’re happy?

Perhaps they have no stomach for six, seven or eight hours of action, Thursday to Sunday on as many as 40 weeks of the season. I think that’s probably about right. In which case do they deserve the glory of showing the Masters and The Open?

Why couldn’t they slip another channel on our satellite/freeview box and devote it to sport? Even if they have to show repeats or only have programmes on seven hours a day, so what?

Get the golf on there Thursday to Sunday, throw in a couple of magazine shows and intersperse it with their other sport – Match of the Day re-runs, motor sport, rugby league, Six Nations and snooker. I’m not looking for flashy sets and highly-paid presenters, I just want to see the action (indeed Match of the Day without Lineker and co is a joy) – and more importantly give youngsters the chance to see it.

Still, at least we’ll get the chance to watch 20 cars driving on a circular piece of tarmac on many weekends next season.

Chris Bertram