You are in:
Sports - July 2009
First things first, I'm not going to mention the Ashes series. I've been glued to my desk bringing you this issue of SGB, and I've hardly seen a thing on TV of late. I was lucky enough to catch that final set of the Wimbledon men's final, which was just sensational and a great advert for sport. More recently, the UK Championships in Birmingham have been great fun.
One thing that is often overlooked with digital TV now almost everywhere is that it has done something very, very good - digital TV and the proliferation of channels on the delivery mechanism means that even the most marginal of sports can demand good quality coverage. Not that I'm suggesting Wimbledon or the UK Champs are marginal, of course. Scout through the channels, and you'll find just about every sport under the sun, where previously, with very few channels of choice, it was often football or nothing.
It's fair to say that television plays a major part in the popularity of football, but could - and does - it work the same way for more 'marginal' sports? Will we see football's grip on TV viewers eroded by the women's game, for example? Or by ever-popular boxing, or stock car racing, or doughnut trampolining... The list is endless, and with the right kind of coverage and some television investment, the Sky really is the limit.
Elsewhere, it really is sad to hear about the demise of Canterbury Europe; no doubt a company that doesn't have excellent base layer product will step in and pick them up for peanuts and benefit from all the hard work they put into branding and identity in recent years. The knock on effects of companies disappearing are potentially very large, not just for the 70+ staff that have been let go. This affects every rugby and football club the company are involved with, to a high degree in some cases, and of course you guys out there on the front line in sports retail. Let's hope it's the only casualty we see this summer.
Jon Bruford, Editor
01584 877177
