BBC Sport

BBC Sport logo
Type	Department of the BBC
Industry	Media
Headquarters	MediaCityUK, Salford, United Kingdom
Area served	Specific services for United Kingdom and rest of world
Key people	Barbara Slater (Director}
Services	Television broadcasts Radio broadcasts Online presence
Owner(s)	BBC
Website	www.bbc.co.uk/sport

BBC Sport is the division of the BBC providing sports coverage for BBC Television, Radio and Online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flagship analysis programmes such as Match of the Day, Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Today at Wimbledon and previously Grandstand. Results, analysis and coverage is also added to the BBC Sport Website^[1] and through the BBC Red Button interactive television service.

Due to the public status of the BBC, advertising is forbidden and as a result, sports matches covered by BBC Sport are not allowed to be sponsored, although the present commercialisation of sport makes this almost impossible in practice. In the face of increased competition from its rival broadcasters the BBC has softened its stance and is now contractually obliged to refer to certain competitions by their sponsored name under the terms of broadcasting rights deals.

History[link]

The BBC has broadcast sport for several decades under individual programme names and coverage titles. Grandstand was one of the more notable Sport programmes, broadcasting sport since the programmes launch in 1958. The BBC first began to brand sport coverage as 'BBC Sport' in 1988 for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, by introducing the programme with a short animation of a globe circumnavigated by four coloured rings.^[2] This practice continued throughout the next two decades. Upon the launch of the BBC News website in 1997, sport was included in the BBC's online presence for the first time.

In 2000 BBC Sport became a separate department of the BBC based at BBC Television Centre in London. As a result, the BBC Sport website was launched, although close ties were retained between the editors of the BBC Sport and BBC News websites. The website contained the details of several sports covered by the BBC, including key sports and other smaller specialist sports.

In 2006, the department gained Mihir Bose in the newly created Sports Editor position to improve the sports coverage. BBC Sport also began to experiment with High-definition television, namely broadcasting the 2006 Football World Cup on BBC HD, as part of larger experiments within the BBC.^[3] Following the official launch of the BBC HD channel, BBC Sport expanded their HD coverage of sport, with Director of Sport Roger Mosey announcing in January 2009 that the BBC's aim "is for all our sport production to be in HD by 2012 at the latest".^[4]

In June 2008, an interactive service was launched by BBC Sport on the BBC Red Button service. Available on all major television platforms, the service relayed both sports results and other sport video feeds currently not allocated broadcast time. The best example of this is the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon, where matches on other courts are only broadcast as part of highlights or in full on the BBC Sports website and BBC Red Button.

In 2009, Mihir Bose and Roger Mosey both left to be replaced with David Bond as Sports Editor in December and with Barbara Slater becoming the new Director of Sport in April 2009.

In May 2007, the BBC Trust approved plans for several BBC departments, including BBC Sport, to be moved to a new development in Salford.^[5] The new development at MediaCityUK marks a major decentralisation of BBC departments and a key investment in the north of England. The department moved in to Quay House, MediaCityUK gradually in late 2011 and early 2012 with the first Sports bulletins being broadcast from the new BBC Sport Centre on 5 March 2012.^[6]

TV Sports rights[link]

Tennis[link]

One of the BBC Sport's most prized pieces of sport is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. The BBC has televised Wimbledon since 1937 and today produces over 900 hours of footage for display in 159 different countries.^[7] BBC One and BBC Two show coverage from 12 noon until 9pm each day. As well as this digital viewers have the option to view uninterrupted coverage of up to five alternative games on BBC Red Button. BBC signed a contract in 2011 to provide exclusive Wimbledon coverage until 2017 to keep the longest sporting contract in the world.

Coverage is presented by Sue Barker, while the Wimbledon highlights, titled Today at Wimbledon are fronted by John Inverdale. Commentators and analysts include Barry Davies, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Jimmy Connors, John Lloyd, Martina Navratilova, Virginia Wade, Sam Smith, Tracy Austin, Greg Rusedski, Tim Henman, Andrew Castle, Lindsay Davenport, Chris Bradnam, David Mercer, Mark Petchey, Simon Reed, Matt Chilton, Mark Cox, Liz Smylie, Louise Pleming, Andrew Cotter and Ronald McIntosh.

Furthermore, the BBC shows live coverage of the Australian Open, with the majority of coverage on BBC Red Button and important games (such as a match involving Andy Murray), including both finals shown on BBC One or BBC Two. However, coverage was scaled back in 2012 with coverage only beginning at the semi-final stage. The BBC also provides coverage of Queen's Club Championships and the ATP World Tour Finals whilst it is being held in London. The main commentators for the Australian Open is Sam Smith, John Lloyd and Andrew Cotter from 2011 before it was Chris Bailey instead of Cotter. Andrew Castle, Tim Henman, Greg Rudetski and Andrew Cotter usually provide commentary for other tournaments outside Wimbledon.

For many years the BBC broadcast the French Open but this ended in 2011 as ITV picked up the rights from 2012 onwards. They also used to show Davis Cup Live but since 2009 they haven't covered this because of Britains poor performances in the tournament. British Eurosport now generally shows these matches.

Football[link]

International football[link]

The BBC hold joint rights to show the FIFA World Cup until 2014 with ITV. A near equal split of group stage and knockout stage games are shown, including a semi final, and the final which is shown on both networks. A similar agreement exists for the European Championship. All games other than the final group games, which clash, are shown on BBC One or BBC Two, plus BBC HD. During those clashing games the game not shown on BBC One is shown on BBC Red Button. There are also nightly highlights and extensive interactive options.

At the minute all Scotland away games are shown live on BBC Scotland. The BBC also broadcast highlights of all Scotland home matches. This coverage is usually shown on BBC One Scotland or BBC Two Scotland and simulcast on BBC Red Button for the rest of the UK, though similarly it can appear on the nationwide networks. Until 2008 all Northern Ireland games whether Home or Away were shown by BBC Northern Ireland on BBC One NI or BBC Two NI and these were shown from the 1980s right up until 2008. In 2008 the rights transferred to Sky Sports and these were the last of the Home Nations to be shown by Sky but highlights of all home matches are broadcast on BBC NI and some away matches are still shown live but all matches are still broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster. BBC won back the domestic England and FA Cup contract in 2001 from Sky Sports so showed the England matches until 2005 and then showed all home matches from 2005 until 2008 and all away matches on Sky Sports however the rights transferred to ITV and Setanta in 2008 and now ITV show all home matches live and Sky show all away matches. The only England match that has been broadcast was highlights against Ukraine in 2009 on Match of the Day. Similar highlights arrangements exist for some of the Wales but these are made by BBC Wales for S4C and some away matches are shown by BBC Wales. No matches of the home nations are broadcast nationally now unless its a friendly or a tournament finals match because Sky hold all domestic live rights or ITV for the England matches

Domestic football[link]

The BBC also show extensive highlights from the Barclays Premier League. Match of the Day shows highlights of each Saturday's games while the Sunday games are covered in Match of the Day 2. Football League highlights are shown on The Football League Show after Match of the Day. Football Focus airs each Saturday lunchtime to preview the weekend's games, followed later by up to the minute game reports in Final Score through the afternoon on BBC Red Button and BBC HD and later on BBC One. As the final whistles approach, coverage switches over to BBC One where Final Score continues in England and Wales, with Scottish viewers able to see Sportscene Results at this time for special focus on the Clydesdale Bank Premier League and the other divisions. SPL highlights are shown, also under the Sportscene umbrella on Monday evenings. In Northern Ireland a similar service is available, entitled Final Score from Northern Ireland which starts at 5pm after all the English and Scottish results are in with Gabby Logan and this is usually hosted by Mark Sidebottom or Gavin Andrews . In addition, BBC Sport also provides Scottish matches for the BBC Alba channel's strand, Spòrs. This includes delayed coverage of SPL matches and live Challenge Cup games.

Beginning in 2009, the BBC signed a three year contract to show ten Championship matches live annually, as well as one leg of each League Cup semi-final exclusively live and shared live coverage of the Final with Sky Sports. It also shows Football League and League Cup highlights shows. The BBC has not renewed the contract meaning that live coverage will revert exclusively to Sky Sports but it is looking likely that they will keep their highlights shows.

Highlights and live coverage of the Scottish Cup and Co-operative Insurance Cup is also shown by BBC Sport Scotland, and on BBC Red Button throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. BBC NI show highlights of the Carling Premiership, Co-Operative Insurance League Cup and JJB Sports Irish Cup on Final Score from Northern Ireland and show Live coverage of the finals of the Irish Cup and Irish League Cup on Match of the Day from Northern Ireland, these are hosted by Stephen Watson usually with Michael O'Neill, Jim Magilton or people from the local game and are commentated on by Jackie Fullerton or Joel Taggart

Presenters[link]

Radio 5 live and BBC Sport's main studios at MediaCityUK

Match of the Day is anchored by Gary Lineker as has been since 1999. Match of the Day 2 is presented by Colin Murray and has been from the start of the 2010/2011 Premiership season. Murray is also a presenter on BBC Radio Five Live.

Dan Walker hosts Football Focus having taken over at the start of the 2009/10 season. Former host of the programme Manish Bhasin presents The Football League Show, as well as the BBC's League Cup highlights programme The League Cup Show and has done so since 2009. Gabby Logan is the current host of Final Score and also deputises on Match of the Day and MOTD 2 and she took over from Ray Stubbs who went to ESPN in 2009.

Other football hosts include Jake Humphrey who, when not presenting the BBC's Formula 1 coverage, deputises on Final Score and MOTD 2, as well as presenting some of the BBC's live Championship coverage. Former Radio 1 DJ and sports reporter Mark Chapman also deputises for Gabby Logan on Final Score, for Manish Bhasin on The Football League Show and presents occasional live international fixtures. He is also a regular football host on BBC Radio Five Live.

Recent former hosts of football on the BBC include:

• Adrian Chiles joined BBC Sport in 2004 and hosted Match of the Day 2 since its creation until 2009, he also hosted the BBC's highlights programmes from big tournaments such as Euro 2008 and the 2006 World Cup. Chiles also presented coverage of the Olympic Games in 2008 and BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2006 and 2007. Chiles left the BBC at the end of the 2009/2010 season and signed with ITV, to front Daybreak as well as leading their football coverage. The rest of the MOTD2 season was hosted by Jake Humphrey after Chiles departure.
• Ray Stubbs joined BBC in 1990 and was the BBC presenter who hosted MOTD when Lineker or Lynam was unavailable, he presented Football Focus from 1999–2004 and Final Score from 2001 when it became a separate program from Grandstand until 2009. He hosted BBC Darts Coverage from 2000–2009 and BBC Snooker from 2002-2009. He left the BBC to anchor ESPN's newly acquired coverage of the Premier League
• Celina Hinchcliffe who is still with the BBC, but now is a sports reporter for the BBC News Channel and BBC World News.
• Des Lynam - Hosted MOTD from 1989 until 1999. Hosted BBC tournament coverage of World Cup and European Championships from 1980s until 1998

Pundits[link]

The BBC's main football pundits are Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer, Lee Dixon, and Mark Lawrenson. they use people for tournaments that they do not use for MOTD like Leonardo, Martin O'Neill and Gordon Strachen. BBC Scotland use Pat Nevin and many others. BBC NI use local NI footballers like Chris Morgan but for big matches use Jim Magilton, John O'Neill and Michael O'Neill who is now Northern Ireland manager.

Commentators[link]

The BBC's main commentator is Guy Mowbray who is their number one and has since he commentated on the 2010 Football League Cup Final and the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final and he usually gets the bigger matches on MOTD and MOTD2. There other commentators are Jonathan Pearce who formerly was a leading commentator for Five, Steve Wilson, Simon Brotherton who also contributes to BBC Radio Five Live and recent addition Steve Bower. BBC Sport Scotland's main commentator is Paul Mitchell. The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship saw the retirement of the long-standing and popular commentator John Motson from live television football commentary, though he continues to work on Match of the Day and MOTD2 performs frequent live radio commentary for BBC Radio 5 Live.

Summarisers[link]

The BBC uses summarisers when broadcasting live matches. Mark Lawrenson is the usual choice for big games like the FIFA World Cup tournament or the Football League Cup Final, whilst also summarising on BBC Radio 5 Live for Premier League matches. Mark Bright is also used to summarise live matches in the Football League Championship or at the Africa Cup of Nations. Other summarisers are Martin Keown and Iain Dowie.

Regional coverage[link]

Scottish coverage is presented by Richard Gordon, Dougie Donnelly and Dougie Vipond. David Currie presents the Saturday afternoon results programme. Jason Mohammad presented Wales on Saturday until the programme was discontinued at the end of the 2008/09 season. He is now one of the reporters for Final Score. However, he continues to present other Welsh football.

BBC NI coverage is hosted by Stephen Watson and they use Michael O'Neill and Jim Magilton for analysis for NI matches and local Footballers for Irish League Coverage. BBC NI main Commentator is Jackie Fullerton who has been from 1992 when he left UTV and commentates on all their main football coverage and NI matches, other commentators are Paul Gilmour who also works for Sky Sports, Joel Taggart who also works on BBC Radio Ulster and deputised for Jackie whenever he was ill in 2004 and 2005 and Michael McNamee who also works on BBC NI Rugby Coverage. BBC NI use John O'Neill or Gerry Armstrong as summarisers

2010 World Cup coverage team[link]

Gary Lineker was the main presenter of the BBC's coverage of the 2010 World Cup from South Africa, fronting all major matches including games featuring England. The BBC's nightly highlights show was presented by Match of the Day 2 host Colin Murray. BBC reporters from both live matches and around South Africa include Gabby Logan, Dan Walker, Rob Walker and Colin Patterson. The BBC brought five commentators to the World Cup, these being Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce, Steve Wilson, Simon Brotherton and Steve Bower, who were partnered by co-commentators Mark Lawrenson, Mark Bright, Mick McCarthy and Martin Keown. The BBC's expert panel of Football Pundits included Jürgen Klinsmann, Clarence Seedorf, Emmanuel Adebayor, Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer, Lee Dixon, Gordon Strachan, Roy Hodgson and Harry Redknapp

Rugby union[link]

The BBC holds exclusive rights to the Six Nations championship in the UK and does so until 2017. It shows all matches in the tournament live on either BBC One or BBC Two. Coverage of these games is complemented by an interactive service on BBC Red Button. The BBC hold additional rights to the Autumn Internationals for the Irish, Scottish and Welsh sides, as well as highlights of the English team; coverage is again on BBC One or BBC Two.

The BBC held exclusive rights to show the EDF Energy Cup until the 2009/10 season when these rights were acquired by Sky Sports. BBC Wales, BBC Alba and BBC NI holds joint right to show the Magners League, along with S4C in Wales and RTE and TG4 in Ireland. BBC Wales and BBC NI shows matches on Friday evenings and usually BBC Wales coverage is shown across the rest of the UK on BBC Red Button. Highlights from the Magners League are shown in Scrum V on BBC2 Wales and BBC Red Button alongside briefer highlights in Wales on Saturday on BBC One. BBC Sport Wales/Chwaraeon Cymru also produces the Welsh language S4C's coverage of the Magners League and EDF Energy Cup under the Y Clwb Rygbi brand. This is because the BBC is obliged to provide S4C with several hours of programming a week. BBC Two in Wales often shows Wales national rugby union team under-20 Six Nations games, which are also shown on BBC Red Button in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

BBC Sport's rugby union coverage is currently presented by John Inverdale, Gabby Logan and some times Jason Mohammad. The main pundits used are Jeremy Guscott, Jonathan Davies, Andy Nicol, Keith Wood and Stuart Davies. The BBC's commentary team includes Eddie Butler, Andrew Cotter, Alistair Ekeyn and Conor McNamara are the other 2 BBC Commentators. Brian Moore, Philip Matthews and Jonathan Davies. Bill McLaren was the BBC's main commentator for many years before his retirement in 2002. BBC NI coverage is hosted by Stephen Watson or Gavin Andrews with pundits who used to play for Ulster such as Bryn Cunningham and Andy Ward, Commentary is by Jim Neilly and Ryan Constable

Rugby league[link]

The BBC covers the Challenge Cup from the round in which the Super League clubs enter. The coverage is shown on BBC One and Two and will usually consist of two matches per round, one on a Saturday and the other on a Sunday. Highlights of the Super League are shown under the Super League Show title is shown overnight on a Sunday on BBC Two. Produced by BBC Yorkshire in Leeds, the show airs at an earlier mid-morning time-slot for viewers in some of the BBC's northern regions, where Rugby League is most popular. The National League play-offs are also covered on the Super League Show. From 2009, the BBC will hold the rights to show one England international each year and one non England rugby match per year.

Rugby League coverage is presented by Clare Balding and when she is unavailable it is hosted by Mark Chapman. The Super League Show is fronted by Harry Gration and Tanya Arnold. Ray French was the main commentator until 2009 when he decided to lessen his workload and stay commentating for the BBC but would be the number 2 commentator, Dave Woods is now number 1 Rugby League Commentator. John Kear and Jonathan Davies are the BBC's commentary team while Robbie Paul and Brian Noble are amongst the pundits. Dave Woods is the chief commentator for the Super League Show.

Motor racing[link]

The BBC covered Formula One for many decades until 1996, initially covering the odd race on the calendar, before introducing in 1976 a programme which followed the entire championship. Formula One was shown under the Grand Prix banner, races were commentated on by Murray Walker, with many co-commentators including James Hunt and Jonathan Palmer. Coverage was expanded in the 1990s, when all qualifying and races were shown live - many with Steve Rider fronting the coverage. The loss of the rights to ITV was seen as an example of the BBC Sport department's decline in the late 1990s, although as with cricket, the BBC continued to broadcast every race live on its radio services.

2009 marked the return of BBC television coverage of Formula One after an absence of 12 years. A five year deal was announced in March 2008, replacing ITV's existing coverage.^[8] Jake Humphrey anchored the coverage with David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan acting as pundits. Martin Brundle and David Coulthard provided the commentary (with Brundle also replicating his famous grid walks seen previously on ITV, while Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie were the pit lane reporters.^[9] Brundle and Kravitz were the only two members of the ITV F1 team who made the move to the BBC F1 team. Legendary commentator Murray Walker, who commentated on F1 for both the BBC and ITV for over 50 years, returned as part of the team, providing analysis and opinion on the BBC's Formula One website.^[10] In 2011 there was a change in the BBC Team: Jonathan Legard was replaced by Martin Brundle as Lead Commentator and David Coulthard joined him in the commentary box.

The red button coverage offered alternate Radio 5 Live commentary from David Croft, Anthony Davidson and Natalie Pinkham and for the 2009 season a CBBC commentary from Michael "Abs" Absalom, Dan Clarkson and Perry McCarthy was available. The red button also offers a split-screen (showing the main coverage alongside an onboard camera view and a rolling leader board) and a rolling highlights package. The Formula 1 Driver Tracker, provided by FOM, was introduced at the 2010 British Grand Prix and is available both online and on the red button. BBC Three plays a role in the Formula One coverage with a one hour highlights programme.^[11] Friday and Saturday's free practice sessions are also shown on the red button.

In the middle of the 2011 season, the BBC announced that it had entered a new deal in which it would share the F1 broadcasting rights with Sky from 2012 until 2018,^[12] including all practice and qualifying sessions in addition to the races. Sky would be able to show all the races live, and the BBC would be able to televise ten of the races live and show extended highlights of the remaining ten on a delayed broadcast.^[13] The announcement was controversial, with early promises that the races would be uninterrupted by commercials^[14] doing little to quell the highly negative reactions from fans and observers.^[15][16] Before the last race of the season the BBC and Sky announced the full plan for 2012, revealing the races which the BBC would be able to broadcast live. ^[17]

Sky launched a new channel in March 2012 called Sky Sports F1 and Martin Brundle moved to commentate on Sky. On 7 December 2011, Sky announced that Ted Kravitz, David Croft, Anthony Davidson & Natalie Pinkham would be part of Sky's F1 team for 2012. The Sky coverage is hosted by Simon Lazenby who has Davidson and Brundle alongside him, with Brundle joining Croft in the commentary box before the race, and with Davidson covering practice sessions with Croft while Kravitz and Pinkham are in the pits. Georgie Thompson formerly of Sky Sports News joins Kravitz for The F1 Show.

BBC announced that Jake Humphrey, David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan, Ben Edwards and Lee McKenzie would be part of their coverage team in 2012. Later, it was confirmed that Gary Anderson would be joining them as technical analyst. The BBC Radio 5 Live F1 team left for Sky but it was announced on 5 January 2012 that James Allen would return to the commentary box for BBC Radio in 2012 with Jaime Alguersuari and former Moto GP presenter Jennie Gow as pit reporter.^[18]

Motorcycling[link]

In 2003 the BBC won the rights to the MotoGP World Championship. After a successful first season fronted by Suzi Perry, coverage was expanded with more live races, and the contract was extended to the end of the 2013 season. The BBC now shows all MotoGP races, with all qualifying sessions live via the BBC Red Button. From the 2009 season, more coverage is available on qualifying and race days again through the use of the Red Button service.^[19] Jennie Gow replaced Perry for 2010,^[20] but from 2011 former pitlane reporter Matt Roberts becomes host, alongside the original and unchanged commentary team of Charlie Cox and Steve Parrish.^[21] Azi Farni will replace Roberts as pitlane reporter.

BBC Sport has also covered the North West 200 since 2007 on BBC NI with coverage of race day live on BBC Sport NI website and 2 highlights programmes shown on BBC One NI after race day. These are available on the Iplayer and sometimes are broadcast on BBC Two nationally. These are hosted by Stephen Watson who hosts from the paddock and race commentary is usually with Steve Parrish, Keith Huweun, Philip McCallan, Philip Moore and many others.

Olympics[link]

The BBC holds the exclusive terrestrial rights to show Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics and has shown live coverage of every Summer Olympics since 1960. This long-standing association between the Olympic Games and the BBC will now include coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London. Presenters for the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics have included many of the corporation's sports presenters, such as David Coleman, Frank Bough, Des Lynam, Steve Rider, Jake Humphrey, Sue Barker, Clare Balding and Hazel Irvine.

Athletics[link]

For many years, the BBC has covered the biggest events in athletics, stretching as far back as 1954, when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Lead commentator for many decades was David Coleman, until his retirement after the 2000 Summer Olympics. The BBC covers events such as the Commonwealth Games, the European Athletics Championships, domestic British athletics and mass-participation events such as the London Marathon and the Great North Run. From 2010 following a shake up by the IAAF the BBC won the rights to stream live coverage of each Diamond League meeting on the red button, with the two British rounds and final two meetings live on BBC Two and selected meetings on BBC Three. The BBC lost the rights to the 2011 and 2013 World Championships to Channel 4. However in November 2011 it was announced that the BBC has obtained the TV, radio and online rights to the 2015 and 2017 IAAF World Athletics meetings, the latter being held in London. The BBC athletics presenting team consists of John Inverdale, Sue Barker, Hazel Irvine, Colin Jackson, Steve Cram, Jonathan Edwards, Denise Lewis, Stuart Storey, Paul Dickenson, Brendan Foster and Michael Johnson.

Horse racing[link]

Although the amount of horse racing on the BBC has declined in recent years, many big races are still to be found on the BBC. The Grand National has for many years been one of the biggest attractions on Grandstand with audiences around or often in excess of 10 million for the race on a Saturday afternoon. Coverage of other events such as Royal Ascot and the Epsom Derby are also broadcast, with presenter Clare Balding fronting the coverage.

The Derby was won back after many years in 2001, when the BBC also gained rights to the Epsom Oaks, which had only ever previously been shown by ITV and Channel 4 (until 2001, the commercial broadcasters had always held the Epsom contract, but from 1960–1974, in 1977, and in 1979 the BBC had shown the Derby simultaneously with ITV, because it was a protected event which could not be exclusive to either channel). However, many important races have disappeared from the BBC in recent years: the Cheltenham Festival and other Cheltenham meetings went to Channel 4 in 1995, meetings from Newbury moved to Channel 4 in 2002, and after 50 years Glorious Goodwood and other Goodwood meetings were lost to Channel 4 in 2007. Also, in 2007 the Irish Derby, which had been included in Grandstand and later Sunday Grandstand for decades, was only shown on At The Races.

The most famous BBC TV racing broadcaster was Peter O'Sullevan, who became one of the first ever TV sports commentators in the immediate post-war years, and stayed with the BBC until 1997.

2012 will be the last year of any UK horse racing being broadcast on BBC Television following a deal signed with Channel 4.

Golf[link]

The BBC holds exclusive UK rights to live coverage to one of the four men's major golf championships, The Open and joint rights to the US Masters, covering Saturday and Sunday's play live and broadcasting highlights of Thursday and Friday's play. Sky Sports show all four days of The Masters live. The BBC also cover two other European Tour events held in Britain - the BMW PGA Championship and the Scottish Open, although live coverage of these will finish in 2012 under the new contract negotiated with the European Tour where Sky Sports will hold exclusive coverage. Sky Sports will cover Thursday and Friday play live.^[22] It also covers the Women's British Open. Highlights of the Ryder Cup and live coverage of the Walker Cup can also be seen on the BBC . Hazel Irvine is the lead presenter on the BBC. The BBC commentary and analysis team includes Peter Alliss, Ken Brown, Maureen Madill, Wayne Grady, Jean van de Velde, Phillip Parkin and Andrew Cotter

Snooker[link]

The 1960s BBC2 programme Pot Black was arguably the reason for the sport's great popularity over the last 40 years. Snooker produced the largest ever audience for BBC2 with the 1985 World Snooker Championship final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor pulling in 18.5 million viewers just after midnight. The sport always pulls in large viewing figures for the BBC through tournaments such as the World Snooker Championships, the Masters and the UK Championship. The coverage is regularly hosted by Hazel Irvine or Rishi Persad. The pundits are commonly Steve Davis and John Parrott with the commentary team consisting mainly of former champions of the sport, such as Ken Doherty, Willie Thorne, Dennis Taylor, John Virgo and more recently Stephen Hendry.

David Vine was the main host when BBC first showed Snooker in 1978 until 2000 when he retired, David Icke was his deputy when he was unavailable. Icke was replaced by Dougie Donnelly in the early 1990s and Donnelly became main presenter after Vine's retirement for 2 years. Matt Smith was deputy from 2000 until 2002. In 2002 Ray Stubbs and Hazel Irvine took over, Ray Stubbs left in 2009 and was replaced by Rishi Persad who only joined when Hazel missed the 2009 championships because she was on Maternity Leave. Ted Lowe was the BBCs lead commentator from the first time the BBC showed Snooker until his retirement in 1996. Clive Everton was then main commentator until his role was reduced in 2009 and now he only appears in the early stages of a tournament alongside the likes of Neal Foulds and Terry Griffiths.

Cricket[link]

The BBC has most recently carried highlights of ICC tournaments such as the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup, held in the West Indies, and the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 which was staged in England. Highlights of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup was also broadcast on BBC. BBC Red Button offers live Test Match Special radio commentary with on-screen scorecards and graphic for all England's home Test, ODI and T20 matches. They occasionally show Live Cricket on the BBC Red Button whenever a Scotland or Ireland match is being covered by BBC Scotland or BBC Northern Ireland

American football[link]

The BBC currently holds the rights to highlights (primarily broadcast on its web site) and live radio coverage of the NFL. Since 2007, the BBC has also broadcast the Super Bowl live on television.^[23]

Jake Humphrey presented their play-off highlights show for the first 2 years with Matt Roberts taking over duties in 2010. Both featured in the Super Bowl coverage for 2010. Current studio pundits include Mike Carlson, Rod Woodson, and Jerry Rice. They also show highlights of the International Series game from Wembley stadium and in 2011 Mark Chapman presented highlights of this which means he may be presenter for the Super Bowl in 2012.

For Super Bowl XLV, Jake Humphrey took over presenting duties on his own, whilst Matt Roberts did the weekly playoff highlights show leading up to the game. Tiki Barber and Mike Carlson were the two pundits for the Super Bowl, and Carlson also did the playoff highlights as well. They took the game feed from Fox Sports, with the commentary from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Michael Johnson hosted a special Inside Sport programme before and after the game for the BBC.

They will again air live weekly radio coverage of the NFL on BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra and air the Super Bowl on BBC TV and on BBC Radio Five Live in 2012.

Other sports[link]

As well as all of this, BBC shows the BDO World Darts Championships, they have shown this from 1978 to 2011 exclusively and will show it together with ESPN in 2012. Hosts for this have included David Vine in 1978 Peter Purves from 1979–1984, Tony Gubba from 1985–1990, Eamon Holmes from 1991–1993, Dougie Donnelly from 1994–1999, John Inverdale in 2000, Ray Stubbs from 2001–2009 and Colin Murray from 2010–present. Bobby George has presented as well from 2000–present. Commentators are Sid Waddell 1978-1994, Tony Green 1978-2010, 2012–present, Vassos Alexander 2011–present and David Croft 2003–present and John Part 1995-2007.

They also cover the Alpine Skiing World Cup under its Ski Sunday banner; and briefly covers sports such as road and track cycling, sailing, badminton, table tennis, squash, equestrianism, gymnastics and other minority sports in an attempt to publicise the type of sports that will make up the forthcoming London 2012 Olympics. Presenters for these sports include Jill Douglas and Phil Jones who often report for other areas of BBC Sport.

BBC Sport regained coverage of the Boat Race from ITV Sport who pulled out of coverage after the 2009 event. A 5 year contract was signed by BBC Sport to cover the event from 2010 after last covering the 2004 race. Clare Balding hosts this and Commentary is from Andrew Cotter.

Previous coverage[link]

Cricket[link]

One of BBC Sport's major criticisms is that it no longer shows any live cricket games, having lost coverage of the Test Matches in 1999 to Channel 4 who then lost to Sky Sports in 2005. Coverage was fronted by Tony Lewis for many years. The BBC was also widely criticised for not even bidding for the rights to show home Test matches when the next set of rights between 2006 and 2009 went up for sale, a decision which it also took for the next contract running until 2013 with the corporation claiming it could neither afford the cost of the rights or fit into their schedules. That honour went exclusively (and rather controversially) to Sky, with nightly highlights on Five.

Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra broadcast England matches and some county cricket (along with the BBC's various local stations); many of these radio commentaries are simulcast on BBC Red Button with live scorecards.

Motorsport[link]

The BBC also broadcast the World Rally Championships until 2001, when Channel 4 bought the rights. WRC is now shown on ESPN. The British Touring Car Championship was another event the BBC lost when ITV took the broadcasting rights in 2002.

After losing the rights to Formula One and the World Rally Championship, the BBC dabbled in British and World Superbikes for a few years — often showing the World Championship version live. After acquiring the rights to the MotoGP World Championship in 2003 coverage of the World and British Superbikes was dropped, presently picked up by Eurosport with highlights on Channel 4 and ITV4 respectively.

Radio sports rights[link]

BBC Sport has monopolised the sports commentary market on British radio since the BBC's conception but since 2000, has lost coverage of some sporting events to TalkSPORT. BBC Sport provides Sport coverage for BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and broadcasts its radio commentaries on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra under their Five Live Sports banner, BBC Radio 4, the BBC World Service and online on the BBC website.

In 2006 BBC Sport won six of the seven available Saturday afternoon broadcast rights packages of 32 games each from the Premier League for three seasons from August 2007.

BBC Sport Online[link]

BBC Sport operates a sub-site of BBC Online which supplements the television and radio services of the department. The website features scores and analysis from a variety of sports including those not broadcast by the BBC. The site also includes news stories related to teams or particular sports and live broadcast coverage of some sports.

The website launched c.2000 and was relaunched in 2003 to accommodate bigger screen sizes, with a sidebar to incorporate more sport and to parallel the relaunched BBC News website.^[24] The current look was implemented in February 2012, featuring the bold colour scheme of the logo, the new horizontal navigation bar across the whole of the site and design characteristics being implemented across the BBC website. The new look gave more prominance to live sports, programmes and events as well as news on the individual teams.^[25]

Sports forum[link]

Until 2011, the BBC Sport website hosted an online sports forum entitled 606, named after the original start-time of the radio programme - six minutes past six. It covered a large variety of topics which included cricket, football, rugby (league and union), tennis, athletics, motorsport and many more. Sporting teams usually had their own individual pages where members could post and comment on any news or topics relating to that team. Users accessed through an account system and could comment and rate their opinions. The forum was moderated by the BBC and any posts deemed to have broken the 'house rules' was not posted.

As part of the reduction in BBC Online's budget of 25%, all non-essential services that did not focus around core products were closed. As all posts had to be post moderated, and as conversations were increasingly being done through social media websites that BBC Sport were a part of, the site was closed on 31 May 2011.^[26]

Interactive services[link]

BBC Sport also offers a service on the BBC Red Button interactive television service. The service offers a sports multi-screen service covering sports news stories in addition to five streams that can broadcast sport through the red button. This is often used for uninterupted coverage and scores over a commentary, or for an alternative sport event unable to be covered on the main BBC TV or Radio services.^[27] A key example is of the broadcasts of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships as matches on other courts may be displayed through the red button while a higher ranking match on a main court is taking place on the main TV service.^[28]

See also[link]

BBC portal

• BBC News
• BBC Sports Personality of the Year
• Broadcasting of sports events

References[link]

External links[link]

v t e The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Services Television (station list) Radio (station list) BBC Online BBC Red Button (Ceefax) BBC iPlayer Management BBC Trust Lord Patten (Chairman) Mark Thompson (Director-General) Departments Television Radio News Sport Weather Children's CBeebies CBBC Natural History Monitoring BBC Films BBC Archives BBC Academy Nations and regions England East East Midlands London North East and Cumbria North West South South East South West West West Midlands Yorkshire Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Northern Ireland Scotland Gàidhlig Wales Commercial subsidiaries BBC Worldwide BBC Records BBC Studios and Post Production History Timeline British Broadcasting Company Logo of the BBC Coat of Arms Board of Governors BBC controversies Key properties London (Broadcasting House London Bush House Television Centre London White City London Media Village London Maida Vale Studios) Belfast (Broadcasting House, Belfast) Birmingham (The Mailbox Drama Village Birmingham) Bristol (Broadcasting House, Bristol) Cardiff (Broadcasting House Cardiff Drama Village Cardiff Bay Upper Boat Studios) Glasgow (Pacific Quay Glasgow) Manchester (New Broadcasting House Manchester) Newcastle (Broadcasting Centre, Newcastle) Salford (MediaCityUK) Southampton (Broadcasting House, Southampton) (Full List) Finance Television licence (history) Projects Dirac The Box backstage.bbc.co.uk Domesday YouView Freesat (channel list) Redux Category  Commons Portal WikiProject