The Sport Thread

[RhysJR]

[JAS84]

Russian players are banned from Wimbledon. Which means that the men's world number 2 and women's world number 4 miss the tournament.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/61161016

[RhysJR]

[Newshound47]

Russian players are banned from Wimbledon. Which means that the men's world number 2 and women's world number 4 miss the tournament.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/61161016

I wonder if the broadcasters are checking their contracts incase the tournament ends up getting a much wider boycott as the ATP and WTA do not seem happy. The BBC would be happy airing a very weakened tournament but I am not sure other broadcasters would be so happy. Not likely to happen but who knows. 

There is also a risk that Queens and Eastbourne are cancelled as if the ATP and WTA withdraw ranking points (The ATP statement implies that is a decision they are considering) I am not sure how many players would play  them.

[thegeek]

Absolutely amazing and stupid that two quarter-finals are clashing.

the times in the tweet are local time, so they are back-to-back after all!

[Rdd]

They are still clashing, 18:30 CEST=17:30BST.

All times BST:
Friday 8pm- Gloucester v Saracens

Saturday
12:30pm Edinburgh v Wasps
3pm Munster v Toulouse
5:30pm Leicester v Leinster,
5:30pm La Rochelle v Montpellier
8pm Lyon v Glasgow

Sunday
12:30 Toulon v London Irish
3pm Racing 92 v Sale

[Brekkie]

I think the all-French tie versus the only tie with no French involvement is fairly sensible scheduling if a clash wasn't avoidable.

[Rdd]

Well, the other way to avoid was to use late Sunday - and Sunday 9pm local KOs, as bizzare as it might seem to us, are a regular thing in the Top14.

[thegeek]

They are still clashing, 18:30 CEST=17:30BST.

Ahem, yes. It's a good job that paying attention to time zones isn't a key part of my job or anything.

[bkman1990]

Hazel Irvine is presenting the evening sessions of the World Snooker Championship matches alongside Shaun Murphy on BBC Four tonight.

Seema Jaswal presented the afternoon sessions on BBC Two, going by her Twitter account, earlier today.

https://mobile.twitter.com/seemajaswal/s...gr%5Etweet

[Brekkie]

I think it's pretty normal to mix it up a little bit rather than Hazel host all the afternoon shows.

[RhysJR]

So, with this week being a rather bad week for streaming services, FIFA couldn't have chosen a better period to launch their own streaming service, FIFA+.

https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/home

It is free and not require a password, for now at the very least, and claims to show 40 000 live football matches a year by the end of 2022, in addition to FIFA's archive and many original shows.

Some more deatils and analysis here:
https://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis/...d-to-know/

[thebigdog2022]

Seems Jason Mohammad is joining the BBC team on Sunday, wonder if he is replacing Rishi or Seema?
https://twitter.com/jasonmohammad/status...y7mI4qAAAA

[Brekkie]

So, with this week being a rather bad week for streaming services, FIFA couldn't have chosen a better period to launch their own streaming service, FIFA+.

https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/home

It is free and not require a password, for now at the very least, and claims to show 40 000 live football matches a year by the end of 2022, in addition to FIFA's archive and many original shows.

Some more deatils and analysis here:
https://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis/...d-to-know/

To get to 40000 live matches you're going to have to be scraping that barrel somewhat.

[TMD_24]

During the Arsenal v Man United pre-match show today, Frank Warren confirmed that BT Sport has signed a 3 year extension with him to his promotional boxing matches on the channel.