Last night, you might have seen on Twitter a last-minute announcement that the semi-finals and finals of the Scottish Curling Championships would not after all be live-streamed on the BBC Sport website, as had been expected and as has happened in previous years. The issue seemed to be the event's sponsorship by an alcohol brand, and lots of different people quickly pointed out the obvious double-standard - the BBC have no problem at all giving lavish coverage to the "Guinness Six Nations" and indeed did so again this very day as the curling finals were taking place. It seems to be one rule for the most popular sports and another rule for minority sports - even though it's the minority sports that desperately need sponsorship the most. When they succeed in getting it, they're penalised by the BBC and starved of the TV coverage they desperately need just as much. It's crazy.
However, it turns out there's a little bit more to this story. I actually went to Dumfries for the curling finals today, and by chance I found myself sitting within earshot of someone who, let's say, seems to be ideally placed to know just about everything that goes on in Scottish curling. He revealed that BBC Scotland were totally happy to go ahead with livestreaming of the event and had no problem with the sponsorship issue, but were overruled by BBC Sport headquarters, which these days is based in Salford in Greater Manchester. That explains the shock last-minute nature of the decision.
Can there be a more perfect example of why the BBC is institutionally incapable of serving its Scottish audiences adequately? This event is a Scottish-only championship for a sport that in UK terms is played almost exclusively in Scotland. If ever there was a decision that should have been made by BBC Scotland, and BBC Scotland alone, without any possibility of a veto from on high, this was it. If there were rules about sponsorship to be applied, BBC Scotland should have been the ones to interpret them and to weigh them against the cultural importance of the event. It sounds like they initially did just that and decided the livestream should go ahead. That should have been the end of the matter, and "Salford" shouldn't even have come into it.
The other controversy surrounding the curling finals was the scrapping of the decades-long tradition that the winning teams automatically get to represent Scotland at the subsequent World Championships. Instead, a selection panel will make the decision and the results of the national championships will be only one of the factors taken into account. Most of the spectators today seemed to be deeply unhappy about that development, not least because they feel it devalues the national championships. (I must admit that I reacted that way myself - when I saw that selection for the worlds was no longer directly at stake, I almost had second thoughts about going today, because the competition suddenly seemed less important and prestigious than when I had previously gone to a couple of finals days in Perth.)
But the well-connected chap I was overhearing explained that the rule change was the result of a memorandum of understanding with "British Curling", which oversees Team GB curling participation in the Olympics. He went on to add that "British Curling" also have a representative on the selection panel that will decide which teams represent Scotland at the World Championships. That strikes me as downright odd. OK, well over 90% of "British curlers" are in Scotland, so British Curling is presumably a heavily Scottish-dominated organisation. But as a matter of principle, a British governing body should not be deciding the composition of Scottish representative teams when there is a Scottish governing body there to do the job.
I also formed the impression from what was said (and admittedly the guy was speaking quietly at this point so I may have got the wrong end of the stick) that it's a foregone conclusion that Bruce Mouat's team, the reigning World and European champions, will be selected as Team Scotland for the men's worlds, even though they suffered a shock defeat in the semi-final this week. This is apparently because the statistics that will be looked at are firmly in their favour, and show that they usually "get over the line".
Leaving aside the issue of the devaluing of the national championships, I'm not sure how I feel about this rule change. On the one hand, there have been any number of occasions in the past when the Scottish national champions have clearly not been the best team in the country and have frustratingly gone on to have very poor results at the worlds. But on the other hand, these instances of the 'wrong teams' going to the worlds allowed a much greater range of players to gain valuable international experience. That may no longer happen, and there's a real danger of 'fossilisation' if the same team is always selected irrespective of any runs of poor form. The same danger applies on the women's side, incidentally, because Rebecca Morrison's team is the totally dominant women's team in Scotland at the moment - and yet if the traditional rule had applied, she wouldn't be going to the worlds. She had a horror show today and was resoundingly beaten in the final by Team Henderson.
As you won't have seen it on the BBC, here are a few photos from today...
Ah well. At least the colonial affairs department is now out in the wilderness beyond London. Doesn’t that magnanimous, far-sighted, downright self sacrificial act of sheer generosity on the part of our superiors—putting decision making in the hands of Mancunians!—just make your wee heart tingle? Think of the inconvenience in moving it outside the M25. Downright magnificent! Never say they forgot about us.
ReplyDelete"putting decision making in the hands of Mancunians!"
DeleteI wonder how many are actually Mancunians.
Don’t they realise it’s the highlight of the year’s sporting calendar?
ReplyDeleteYou're being sarcastic, I presume, but it absolutely should be regarded as one of the highlights of the calendar. I'd make a comparison with the Melrose Sevens (which the BBC have covered for as long as I can remember) in the sense that it's not a top-tier event but is nevertheless culturally important, has a niche place in the calendar and is worthy of attention.
DeleteActually BBC Scotland no longer shows the Melrose Sevens. Last year you could only watch it live streamed on YouTube. In fact BBC Scotland’s coverage of Scottish Club rugby is poor. The Welsh and Northern Irish get to see some URC games on the BBC, but Glasgow and Edinburgh fans get zilch on BBC Scotland or Alba, though you can get the odd game involving these sides on the Welsh language channel.
DeleteI stand corrected on a point of technicality, but it's undoubtedly true that BBC Scotland covered the Melrose Sevens for many decades. There were some years you could watch uninterrupted live coverage of it for hours on end.
DeleteYes, the Melrose Sevens was for many years on the BBC. I always made a point of watching it as it’s the birthplace of Sevens rugby, but last year, for the first time that I can remember, the BBC decided not to show it, and it will be interesting to see if they show it this year. BBC Scotland just does not care about so called “minority sports”. All they seem to be interested in showing is football, and even then it’s lower league matches, the odd Scottish cup match, and women’s football. There is much more to Scottish sport than football, yet BBC Scotland’s dismissive attitude is to assume that other sports are irrelevant as football is the “national sport”. It just shows a complete lack of effort and imagination on the part of our so called national broadcaster.
DeleteSomething else that's weird is that TV coverage of international games where Scotland is playing under its own name and flag have to have at least one commentator from England. Maybe this is an international norm but I don't think football matches between Portugal and Belgium or Turkey or anywhere else always have to have a Spanish commentator explaining to a Portuguese audience how poorly the Portuguese team is performing.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Portugal didn't vote to be controlled by its neighbour.
BBC Scotland's prime time news viewing numbers are officially now down to around 200, so you don't need to guess why the big BBC doesn't give a shit about who Scotland is or what we want for the money we pay them
ReplyDeleteIf you paid the price of a Mars bar in a shop but only received a penny caramel you'd call the cops on the shop owner, but the BBC are the shop owner and the cops and the law, so being Scottish is the learned experience of being controlled by others (England) and the learned response is to Girn moan and groan but to still walk away doing nothing about it
Scotland the Brave? Scotland the crushed
Curling is a bit shortbread-tin, and that may well be the reason it was ever broadcast in the first place. Climbing is easily way more popular (facilities in Scotland include Europe's largest indoor climbing center), it's way more popular than darts or bowling, it has a long history of World significance in Scotland, but outwith the Olympic games there is no coverage of competitions at all, and the chances of climbing comps being sponsored by booze companies is zero.
ReplyDelete"Curling is a bit shortbread-tin, and that may well be the reason it was ever broadcast in the first place."
DeleteI'm sorry but that's a ludicrously ignorant comment. Curling has had full medal status at the Olympics since 1998 (and also had full medal status at the first Winter Olympics in 1924), and I think you'll find that would inevitably have entailed TV broadcasts irrespective of, er, "shortbread". It's one of the most popular sports in Canada, where it receives extensive TV coverage. It's also long been an established sport in Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland.
"Climbing is way more popular than darts or bowling"
DeleteI presume you must be talking only about participation numbers there? If you stuck darts and climbing on the TV at the same time, I'm pretty sure most Scots would choose to watch the darts. I certainly would, but maybe I'm just weird.
Wings over Scotland used to love a quite trashy TV show called bullseye.
DeleteDarts: the sport of kings.
DeleteIf James ever gets round to presenting his polling data in the form of a curling rink, please let me know. It seems to me this is the only sensible way of presenting such data, and I shan't be able to take him seriously until he does.
ReplyDeletePredictable FUD!
DeleteSo many people missing the point
ReplyDeleteIt's not whatever the event is that's important, it's the paid for by Scotland BBC choosing to ignore and override anything they decide they don't care about, and what they don't care about is anything Scottish, and why you're more likely to see Tooting and Barnstable town playing football on your TV while Scotland's population have to search around SKY TV or pirate websites to watch our own National football team or any other event Scottish
Personally I'd be quite happy to watch English folk coming to Scotland to climb Scotland's hills then fall off them again, but without our population footing the damn hospital bill every time they do it
Ruth Wishart at the National, at the end of a piece where she rails against SNP cronyism in the Scottish cabinet and (potentially) both houses of Westminster:
ReplyDelete“Whatever the die-hard Unionists may suggest, independence supporters are still a potent force in the land. We’ll be more potent still if the internecine warriors could put a sock in it.”
Wheesht for not even Indy? Whatever it is, it’s all our fault.
“53” here again - am I becoming a reply guy junkie? ;-)
ReplyDeleteJames - you are correct in what you say.
I live I a family house where other (3) people watch the TV*. Hence we have a TV licence and pay the BBC. The obvious remedy of a license fee boycott is not available to me, however much pleasure and self-satisfaction it would provide me with.
How many other people are I this situation and to what degree is this inhibiting any such boycott ever seriously getting off the ground?
* I don’t watch TV but I do use the Iplayer. Giving up the latter to legitimately stop paying the license fee would be a tiny and easily accepted sacrifice.
I have just sent the following complaint off to the BBC Complaints (yawn) department. On past experience I await their condescending and dismissive reply.
ReplyDelete"The Scottish Curling Championships were withdrawn from BBC iPlayer without notice on the grounds of too much advertising of an alcoholic drink. I watched the rugby instead which was sponsored by Guinness00. In previous years this was for Guinness - the alcoholic drink. The advertising here is prominent and unavoidable to the viewer. The fact that it is for a zero alcohol version of Guinness is irrelevent in the overall context.
In other popular sports, eg football, teams often have adverts for alcohol on their jerseys which is shown on camera throughout football matches.
Why is it acceptable for rugby and football to have extensive and intrusive alcohol advertising shown on screen but not in the case of curling?
1. Did BBC Scotland take the decision not to broadcast the curling despite being happy enough to do so initially? If so, why did BBC Scotland change its mind?
2. If BBC Scotland did not take the decision, then which part of the BBC did take the decision?
3. If this is the case, why did this part of the BBC have the power to overrule BBC Scotland, in Scotland, over a purely Scottish event?
These questions are not rhetorical; I want answers.
Over the past year Scotland had a steady diet of cricket fed to it, notably on BBC2 over a period of weeks. These were purely domestic cricket (English) matches . Does the BBC believe that English cricket is of such rivetting interest to its Scottish viewers to justify coverage such as it had ?
Like many other fans I am unable to travel to events such as the Scottish Curling Championships but I still take a keen interest in them. I pay my licence fee, not for cricket but for events of Scottish sporting interest. I know many other people do as well. The BBC is taking our money under false pretences.
Curling is an important minority sport in Scotland. Why was it treated with such ignorant, arrogant hypocrisy?
I played at national championships at every level for almost 50 years, schoolboy to over sixties. I’ve done all the jobs. TV commentary, ruling body, chief umpire, coach etc.
ReplyDeleteThe selection rather than winner’s privilege rule came in because of the Olympics, which require their sports to be homogenised down to the size of adverts on jackets. But I must not be diverted by my ‘Olympic movement is sport’s antichrist’ rant.
The current World and European Champion lost to two better teams on the day. There is no question in my mind that Ross Whyte, whom I first saw when I umpired the Scottish Schools championship, deserves to go to the World championships, as is his team’s privilege.
He probably does and he would probably do quite well. I was surprised to see in the programme yesterday that his world ranking is 4, just one place behind Mouat, which is pretty extraordinary.
DeleteHe has been above Mouat in the rankings a couple of times this year. The bottom line is, if you want to be world champion, all that should be required is you keep winning. Now you need selected by the blazeratti. Shameful abandonment of the spirit of sport.
DeleteI am told that more countries play curling than play cricket. Perhaps a minority sport in a UK context, but certainly not worldwide.
ReplyDelete