![Martin Slumbers said of the Open’s move to Sky that ‘we took what was frankly a fairly tired and outdated broadcast and turned it into [something] absolutely world-class’.](https://media.guim.co.uk/532645416a08d9e0e180e8e708cca46c79e32925/18_41_3473_2084/1000.jpg)
It is one of sport’s unwritten rules. Martin Slumbers also seemed about the least likely individual to breach it. Which did not stop the chief executive of the R&A launching a verbal grenade in advance of this Open Championship.
Criticism of existing broadcast partners or sponsors isn’t so much sporting taboo as something that simply doesn’t happen. And for good reason: current or future relationships would inevitably be damaged by administrators slagging off one of the entities that affords coverage or hands over cheques.
Consider the position of Slumbers, then. When posed with a perfectly reasonable question on Wednesday with regards Sky Sports’ newsworthy loss of the US PGA Championship from its schedule, the least controversial man in showbusiness took aim at the BBC. “When we moved [live Open coverage] last year we took what was frankly a fairly tired and outdated broadcast and turned it into [something] absolutely world-class and raised the whole level of the way it was shown,” he said.
“Tired and outdated” leapt out to anyone in that room and beyond. One of many curious aspects of the Slumbers volley is that the switch away from terrestrial TV wasn’t even agreed on his watch. Another is that the BBC, via exhaustive radio coverage and a highlights show that pulls a far higher audience than Sky can call upon, remains an Open component.
Only Slumbers, a man who tiptoes through the tulips on all manner of topics from Donald Trump to long‑handled putters, will know why he chose this subject matter for a veritable outburst. But the evidence is it may not have been a wise one. Should the US PGA move work – a delay over confirming the BBC agreement is thought to relate only to how many years it will be for – the R&A will come under immediate pressure from those who remain concerned about the sport’s removal from the public consciousness because of satellite coverage.
Sky’s deal with Augusta National, which ended last year, hasn’t been extended yet. If those presiding over the Masters are wise – and they hardly need the money – they will watch the US PGA outcomes with great interest.
Sky is widely known to have its own challenges with regard to resources, the embarrassment of losing the US PGA at the same time as launching a dedicated golf channel aside. For someone in Slumbers’s office to castigate one of the precious few alternative broadcast options was odd to say the least.
“I don’t buy the argument around participation and reach,” Slumbers said. “It is clearly good to have more reach. But the Open is a global product. It’s not just a UK product. We touched 600 million households last year with The Open Championship in multiple countries all around the world.”
Aside from this being a contradiction – reach either matters or it doesn’t – the specific debate here is entirely about the UK. The R&A didn’t halt live BBC coverage on account of the impact in Turkey. Moreover, if you asked the golfers in the Open field what inspired them to take up the game they would answer almost in unison that it was watching one of the icons of the sport on television.
There is plenty to admire about Sky’s output. Their use of technology, not just at majors, eclipses anything the BBC was doing. Multi-platform coverage is valuable in an era when it is seriously difficult to get youngsters to sit for five hours in front of a television watching golf.
There is detailed insight from the series of former professional players they use as pundits and the on-screen tips offered by those participating in the Open are the kind of thing amateur golfers are fascinated by. At a base level, Sky’s commitment throughout any given season is worthy of credit.
Nonetheless, the glaring lack of journalistic critique tends to exude the strange idea of a world where everything is perfect, where no player can do any wrong, where rule-breaches are always accidents and tournament officials are the salt of the earth.
Everything is rather chummy and in-house. This isn’t the kind of approach, thankfully, taken towards other sports. In fairness to the BBC, their oft-criticised parachuting in of commentators and pundits from across the sporting spectrum loosens shackles in regard to honest comment.
Slumbers will insist he was making precisely that. But this was an offering that won’t be forgotten, specifically by those on the receiving end.
