‘Flog Wimbledon to pay-TV and you sell off a piece of Britain’s soul”, cries the Daily Mail, curiously warm-hearted because the BBC and the tournament “have gone together like strawberries and cream” for nearly 80 years. So repel prospective BT boarders. Slash Langham Place bureaucracy: or something.
Alas, though, real tennis fans already have to wander the cable byways of ITV and Eurosport to get proper television coverage of the tennis grand slams. Would it make any difference if one more championship crossed the road - except for finals weekend? You can be suitably dismayed about pay-coverage of cricket, football, rugby, and the rest : but the essential game of sporting thrones is long since lost. Would it be a tragedy if Roger Federer couldn’t watch his own matches on BBC1? He could always catch them on Swiss TV, where the licence fee is £305.
