Lineker admits to viewers that Emma beat Ronaldo
GARY LINEKER admitted live on air that his Match of the Day show on BBC One was playing second fiddle to Emma Raducanu’s “special” US Open triumph on Channel 4.
The tennis proved a bruising night for the corporation’s flagship football show, which had been anticipating a bumper crowd for Cristiano Ronaldo’s return in Manchester United colours.
Government “3pm blackout” rules ban the airing of live football between 2.45pm and 5.15pm to protect between stadium attendances meant the programme was the first opportunity most fans had to see Ronaldo play – but a scheduling clash meant most viewers watched the dramatic tennis final.
A peak audience of 9.2million watched Raducanu’s triumph on the terrestrial broadcaster just hours after it had secured a tie-in with Amazon Prime, the main rights holder, to ensure the action was free-to-air.
After the final had finished, Lineker acknowledged midway through his show that even he and analysts Ian Wright and Alan Shearer were keeping tabs on the Raducanu match.
“You may have missed the start of the show because you might have been watching the tennis,” he told BBC One viewers.
“If you were, you saw something special. We had half an eye on it ourselves, if we’re perfectly honest. Well done, Emma Raducanu. What an extraordinary achievement.
“But just in case you were watching the tennis and you missed the start, you can watch the show from the beginning on the iplayer so you can see all the Ronaldo stuff that you may have missed.”
Channel 4, meanwhile, said in a congratulately statement to Raducanu that its audience of 9.2 million accounted for a 39.9 per cent share of that evening’s viewing. The BBC initially had a highlights package for the tennis but that was scrapped, with it running live only on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website.
Ian Katz, the broadcaster’s chief content officer, tweeted: “We’re so delighted that Channel 4, in partnership with Prime Video, could enable more than 9m people to enjoy one of the most thrilling and historic nights of British sport in a generation.”