Quote ="headhunter"BBC's coverage used to be dreadful with uninterested anchors and pundits, Eddie Waring-style commentary, amateurish production values and camera crews/editors who clearly had limited experience of the sport and were more used to filming RU (and so missed most of the action). In the past 5 or so years it has improved massively, meanwhile Sky's coverage has fallen off a cliff. Watching a game on Sky and the BBC is like watching a different sport these days, I've recently cancelled Sky Sports after 15 years because their coverage is just unwatchable at present.'"
Isn't that just the technology though? After all you could call Ray French many things, but not uninterested. And Clare Balding was an excellent anchor, who though initially conscripted in to presenting RL, said she had come to love and respect the game and its players.
As for Union, I think the Beeb's coverage of that sport was just as pedestrian and out of touch as their coverage of RL. In the past it seems to me the only sport they really gave some thought to was soccer, and they covered Rugby (both codes) as though it were soccer. They lost cricket, initially to C4 because their coverage was so poor.
But in the eighties and nineties RL fans used to praise Sky's coverage to, erm the skies. Is it that coverage has moved on and Sky haven't? How does their coverage of soccer compare with the of RL? I certainly think that those who run cricket are kicking themselves for jumping into bed with Sky.
