Rugby Dude: BBC Gave Up The Open Due To Small Audiences
/The Telegraph's Hannah Furness quotes Eddie Butler, plugging his new book as voice of The Beeb's rugby coverage, suggesting that BBC did not put up a hard fight to keep The Open Championship due to audience size.
Furness writes:
Speaking about his new book The Head of Gonzo Davies, Butler, the BBC's voice of international rugby, said: "There is a will to protect the Six Nations, which for most of my working life was not considered jewel by the BBC.
“It was something the BBC did, but rugby was a very arcane, esoteric sport which nobody really understood. Until the BBC did some market research and found ten million people watched it.
"The moment they started to take the Six Nations seriously, they've actually given it their full attention and are going to protect it as best they can.
"They're certainly going to protect it harder than they protected the Open golf, which has gone from the BBC. They didn't defend that with much vigour because not many people watched it.
"All those Sunday afternoons of the Open title being decided, across the land not many people watched it.
"But there are things the BBC will fight hard for."
The Open's rights have gone to Sky Sports, with the American rights current up for grabs in a sudden chase literally out of the blue, even though ESPN is signed through 2017.
