EFL highlights show in Quest for viewers
THE Football League’s struggling Saturday night highlights show will be screened by low-profile freeview channel Quest from next season.
The official announcement will follow when the presenting team are known and the time of the broadcast, crucial to the show’s success, is agreed.
The highlights have been shown at 9pm on Channel Five for the past three seasons, but the programme has never attracted the audiences expected for such a prime-time slot.
The EFL highlights used to be shown in the graveyard slot after Match of the Day by the BBC, but still brought in 1million viewers, double the number watching on Channel Five.
The BBC were said to be interested in regaining the rights, but the EFL have preferred to take the bigger offer from wealthy Liberty Group, who oversee Eurosport and the Discovery channels, as well as the relatively unknown Quest.
The Premier League TV rights auction is going into a second round next week after bids were received yesterday. This extension suggests either competition from one of the internet giants, such as Amazon, or the offers are lower than the Premier League expected.
NIKE, as ever, used social media to launch a big World Cup advertising campaign yesterday, with the video featuring Harry Kane, Eden Hazard, Gareth Southgate, Alex Iwobi and Mo Farah (right).
The campaign is titled ‘ Nothing beats a Londoner’, which is bizarre considering the FA, whose national training centre at St George’s Park is located in the Staffordshire countryside, don’t like to be considered London-centric. Even more so, runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City are flying the flag for Nike in the top flight. Nobody from the FA, City or Nike wanted to comment.
Football freestyler John Farnworth is raising money to fight Alzheimer’s by doing keepy-uppies throughout a 10-day trek to Mount Everest base camp. Champion juggler Farnworth is training to keep the ball off the ground throughout the 38.5-mile hike. He has practised by climbing Mount Snowdon, managing to keep the ball off the ground all the way up. Balancing the ball on his neck helps during the difficult terrain, but 80 per cent of the time the ball is being juggled by his feet.