I know many out there say “just get pay television if you want to watch sport.” But some sporting events should be left sacred for as long as possible – like the British Open.
Channel Nine has once again let down sport lovers, with one of the most bizarre and ridiculous scheduling decisions of all-time.
Despite having the free-to-air rights for the British Open, the network has decided not to show the tournament live. It’s the equivalent of buying a Ferrari and leaving it in the garage to gather dust.
It follows similar questionable decisions to not show sport live, including the World Club challenge between Manly and Leeds, which was on at 5am. Instead the network showed a replay the next night at around midnight.
Also the Wimbledon coverage, where Nine pretended to show a Stosur match live, while crossing to Lleyton Hewitt’s match. The phony coverage was expertly uncovered by Media Watch.
Now, back to The British Open.
Channel Nine director of sport Steve Crawley was quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying “it’s a difficult situation, the fact is, the British Open doesn’t really work on free-to-air.”
What a load of bullocks. The event finishes around 4am each round.
Surely Nine has room in their graveyard timeslot for live sport?
I understand that golf isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s a bit better than selling fancy sponges and abdominal exercise equipment on looped American infomercials. Or playing an old movie or re-run of Matlock.
What makes the decision by Nine even more ridiculous, and contradicts everything Steve Crawley says, is that the network will show highlights of the tournament from around midnight!
So the other night we were able to witness the highlights from the first day of the Open, while the second round was underway.
If the British Open doesn’t work on FTA, why is Nine showing it at all?
And also what is the point of having a High Definition channel if you don’t use it? Nine puts the AFL Footy Show on at 9:30pm on HD for Queensland and NSW viewers, so they don’t have to wait up to watch. Wouldn’t it seem logical to utilise the HD service for golf?
The cynic in me says a sneaky cash payment could have been made by Foxtel to Nine to prevent them from showing the event live.
Something like that must have happened, because it just doesn’t make sense why Nine would pull out at the last minute, when it doesn’t affect their prime-time programs.
I’m hoping an Australian wins The Open more than ever now. It will be karma for a network that used to be ‘switched on’ when covering sport. To get the network back to where it used to be (i.e. ‘Still the One’), executives should start asking the question: What would Kerry Packer do?
Clearly he wouldn’t give up a premier sporting event like the British Open, especially when one has the rights to show it live.
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