Big-spending Sky forced into cuts
THE size of Sky Sports’ gamble in paying an astonishing £11millon a game to retain their Premier League TV rights has led to the company having to re-address their entire sports strategy. And overlord Barney Francis addressed staff this week to present his way forward — ‘Fit for the Future’ — with the station needing to make considerable changes to afford their gigantic football bill.
This will see Sky concentrate on their live rights in every sport while reducing the support programming and those leaving the network are not being automatically replaced.
Francis, who prefers to speak off the cuff, was using a prepared script on this important occasion and one department asked for a copy to show Sky personnel who missed the meeting. But he declined to issue duplicates, telling his troops he didn’t want your Sports Agenda columnist to get hold of the text — such is the paranoia in Isleworth.
Sky claim the strategy talk — rather than plain cost cutting — was preparing the station for the varied demands of a multi-platform future where a Thierry Henry video on Sky’s YouTube channel can become more important than traditional programme making. THE technical problems with the charter plane which forced the England team to stay overnight in Turin after the game weren’t the only flying concerns related to the Italy match. The BA flight bringing in ITV Sport’s football pundits Glenn Hoddle (right), Ian Wright, Lee Dixon and the cream of Fleet Street had to abort landing close to the ground because of the cross-winds meaning the plane was wrongly aligned with the runway approach. These same Italian cross-winds and another rather more serious runway direction miscalculation by the pilot in poor weather saw the plane carrying the great Torino side of 1949 crash into the Basilica of Superga which stands on the hill overlooking the airport, killing all 31 on board.
RELATIONSHIPS between the FA and the England Travel Supporters Club — already at a low point over the switching of double loyalty rewards from away trips to Wembley — will be further strained by the loud singing of songs in Turin that only bring embarrassment on English football. Understandably the FA are in no mood to act on their fans’ complaints about ‘Two caps for Wembley, you’re having a laugh’, when the same travelling set of supporters still sing ‘F*** the IRA’ and ‘Where were you in World War Two’. It’s also been noted that while senior members of the Fans Supporters Federation are quick to speak out about loyalty issues, they are less talkative about those tasteless chants. IT would never have happened under the fanatical reign of former FA head of security Ray Whitworth, now working for Major League Soccer. But England manager Roy Hodgson took himself off for a long walk around Turin in his England training gear to while away some of the time before kick-off. Inevitably that meant good-humouredly running the gauntlet of England fans and their demands for photos, selfies and autographs.