The Sport Thread

[Brekkie]

BBC1 Wales now showing a 1999 match between Wales and South Africa on Sunday.

Also on Sunday the BBC are showing the Emma Raducanu exhibition match at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Champions Tour event, which itself used to get BBC then ITV4 coverage, but is only being streamed online this year. The match is at noon but only on the iPlayer and red button. They could have probably squeezed it in on BBC2 with snooker coverage due to start at 12.45pm. I doubt the game would last much longer than an hour anyway.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/59436937

[RhysJR]

Rugby union not having the best of 24 hours with Newcastle v. Worcester postponned due to storm Arwen - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/59408593

Weather conditions also brutal in Llanelli for Wales football
https://twitter.com/BBCSportWales/status...0922852371

[RhysJR]

Updates from the Scarlets to S4C Clwb Rygbi

Work still ongoing to get the team back. The matches are postponned but the flights have been cancelled too. Will be tight to get the team back before the Sunday 04:00 deadline.

[Rdd]

A knock on problem now might be disruption to the first round of the Heineken Cup due to quarantine requirements on return for the teams concerned. Depending on when they get back, of course.

[RhysJR]

Radzi Chinyanganga will become Eurosport's presenter of triple crown snooker events, effectively taking over from Colin Murray as number one snooker presenter.

https://www.thesportsman.com/articles/fo...fresh-face

[Brekkie]

Not too surprising given his work in snooker and recently at Eurosport.

What is surprising is a tournament where coverage only begins in the second round given the two big stories of the Championship have come in the first round. It's not like some events in other sports where the top players join in later rounds - the defending champ got knocked out before BBC, and it seems Eurosport, coverage begins.

[AJB39]

Not too surprising given his work in snooker and recently at Eurosport.

What is surprising is a tournament where coverage only begins in the second round given the two big stories of the Championship have come in the first round. It's not like some events in other sports where the top players join in later rounds - the defending champ got knocked out before BBC, and it seems Eurosport, coverage begins.

Eurosport have covered the first round live.

[RhysJR]

Not too surprising given his work in snooker and recently at Eurosport.

What is surprising is a tournament where coverage only begins in the second round given the two big stories of the Championship have come in the first round. It's not like some events in other sports where the top players join in later rounds - the defending champ got knocked out before BBC, and it seems Eurosport, coverage begins.

Eurosport has already had coverage since Tuesday but with commentary only and no studio coverage, which begins today. I think the proper coverage not getting underway until halfway through the tournament can be put down to a combination of a dew things:

1) Pre Barry Hearn coming into snooker, the Top 16 players had byes and did not compete in the qualifying tournament. Now most events, the Worlds the major exception, are 128 player fields (the controversy created by Shaun Murphy this week is based on this). So the old tournament would probably get underway today and so the TV coverage still starts as it used to.

2) Most events have the first and second rounds take place weeks, if not months, in advance and at a completely different venue. For example, the German Masters begun om the 18-30 October in Cannock, not Germany, and doesn't recommence until the 26th of January in Berlin. These qualifying portions of the draw are usually only shown on Eurosport Player/Discovery+ (and I presume Matchroom.tv) and this pattern has been repeated in a way for the UK Championship despite the first round being at the same venue.




On the other side, Jason Mohammad will be part of the BBC coverage which implies that Hazel Irvine may not be part of the coverage again after missing a few events in the last 18 months with Jason filling in. The alternative theory is Seema Jaswal could be busy with her other commitments and unable to be No.2 presenter like she was at the Worlds in May. It will be really sad if we are deprived of seeing Hazel at work as she is a fantastic sports broadcaster and the opportunities to watch her work are quite rare these days.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jasonmohammad...5825187848

[Brekkie]

Ah, the Radzi article implied their coverage started today but with no studio coverage so far that makes sense. Odd the early rounds aren't at least on the red button for the BBC too.

Seema doing the Champions League at BT (and possibly Europa Cup in later rounds) and FA Cup at ITV may mean she's had to move on from the snooker. I think there is a clash next weekend for example. They'll also need a new third presenter moving forward as Radzi often did any live morning sessions.

It makes sense for Jason to be utilised really as outside of Final Score and the Olympics he doesn't really do much live coverage for the network. Looking at the listings it seems to be him and Rob Walker hosting coverage this week.


Also a shame they don't seem to be utilising BBC4 for some of the evening coverage as they have done in some tournaments over the last year or so. For me it's a no brainer - fits there better than most of the sport they show, though maybe less so in the "archive channel" than the "too posh for BBC2" guise.

[Brekkie]

The mens Barbarians match is off so BBC1 showing the womens game instead.

https://twitter.com/LeeMcKenzieTV/status...0000186377

[RhysJR]

The mens Barbarians match is off so BBC1 showing the womens game instead.

https://twitter.com/LeeMcKenzieTV/status...0000186377

An awful weekend for rugby thus far...

Dubai Sevens on World Rugby YouTube and website once again this week. Will be interesting to see if a broadcast partner is found before the final round of the season at Twickenham at the end of the season.
Rather odd that's there no crowd at all this week but full capacity next week.

[thebigdog2020]

e started today but with no studio coverage so far that makes sense. Odd the early rounds aren't at least on the red button for the BBC too.

Seema doing the Champions League at BT (and possibly Europa Cup in later rounds) and FA Cup at ITV may mean she's had to move on from the snooker. I think there is

Don't know if Seema is involved yet but the man making headlines at the minute Shaun Murphy is involved in the BBC Sport coverage this week. Spoke to him at the start and said he regretted the timing of the comments but stood by his comments earlier in the week.

[Robertclark125]

Staying on the topic of Rugby Union, and hopefully this "plug" is allowed as well. Charlie Starmer-Smith recently spoke to BBC Sport, about his dad Nigel, former rugby union commentator, who now suffers dementia and lives in a care home. It's a really sad sight, to see Nigel in this way now.

Charlie is a musician, and has brought out his first single, "Spotlight", to raise money for Alzheimer's Society. It's available to download now folks, so please, do so, and help families like Charlie's and try to find a cure for this illness.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/rugby-union/59438801

[william]

Also on Sunday the BBC are showing the Emma Raducanu exhibition match at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Champions Tour event, which itself used to get BBC then ITV4 coverage, but is only being streamed online this year. The match is at noon but only on the iPlayer and red button. They could have probably squeezed it in on BBC2 with snooker coverage due to start at 12.45pm. I doubt the game would last much longer than an hour anyway.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/59436937

Interestingly, the whole event is on Facebook (annoyingly, I only found that out just now…) - I'm not sure that's ever happened before. It's an IMG event, so I take it they're doing their own production. For the short time I've been watching, there's not been any commentary but obviously the BBC will have some. Anyway that's probably why the BBC have picked it up. The Raducanu session was sold out weeks ago apart from a few hospitality tickets.

[Brekkie]

Not sure if they're masking a Eurosport or WST graphic but the snooker graphics on BBC are now full width with a black bar underneath.