BT Sport: For the few, not the many
Is BT Sport a worthy broadcaster for the National League?
This article first featured on Trevor Knell’s substack - I wrote it for him as a guest blog for his site. If you want to follow a non-league blogger with a great eye for non-league issues and stories get following Trev and his content.
The widely held opinion in non-league circles is that the BT Sport deal has been great exposure for the National League.
BT Sport has been broadcasting live and exclusive coverage of English football’s fifth tier since 2013. The deal sees a live National League match broadcast in a regular Saturday slot, along with a weekend highlights programme.
In 2020, BT signed a three-year contract extension, guaranteeing them exclusive rights to the National League until the end of the 2023/24 season.
With the rights package due to end next season, one would hope that a similar extension will be signed soon.
That said, while I agree that BT Sport has been great for the league, ten years into the partnership, it would be fair to say there is still room for improvement.
The financial remuneration may not be as big as some National League chairman would like, but BT Sport are a flagship broadcaster with a national audience. On the surface, that is fantastic for every club in the league.
Certainly, in the seven years since Bromley got promoted to the National League, TV exposure has had a big impact on the standing of the club on a local and national level.
Yet, at the time of writing, despite sitting sixth in the National League table, Bromley have featured in just one televised game this season.
It begs the question: Who really benefits from BT Sport’s National League coverage?
Take a cursory look at BT Sport’s schedule in February and you’ll see that every live National League game, bar one, features Wrexham, Chesterfield, or Notts County.
Look, I get it. Ex-EFL sides with big budgets, whether they’re at the top or the bottom of the table, are likely to be a much bigger draw than Bromley. But spare me the ‘simple economics’ argument. I believe it’s more insidious.
If BT’s execs see no value in showing Bromley play against anyone other than Wrexham/Notts/Chesterfield, it dissolves fans’ faith that the broadcaster is fair and impartial.
For me, if you choose to be the primary broadcaster of any national league, you have a duty to showcase the teams in that league equally. In the case of BT Sport, that isn’t happening.
For example, on January 10th, Bromley were featured on BT Sport for the first time this season. They were playing away at Wrexham (of course!). If you tuned into that game as a neutral, from the one-sided coverage, you could have been mistaken for thinking Wrexham were actually playing against themselves.
The build-up was focused on Wrexham to such an extent that when Andy Woodman was interviewed, it was a rushed chat with Becky Ives in the corner of the pitch.
Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson, meanwhile, got full interviews pre and post-match with the show’s main presenters: Matt Smith, Aaron McClean, and Chris Hargreaves.
There’s nothing wrong with Becky Ives, by the way. I respect her craft. But the presentation made Andy Woodman and Bromley look like an afterthought.
If this sounds like sour grapes, it isn’t meant to be. It merely serves as a microcosm of my wider critique of BT Sport’s National League coverage.
I will never doubt the broadcasting quality of the individuals working on BT’s live games. However, a bit of introspection wouldn’t go amiss where equity is concerned.
If, for example, Bromley or Wealdstone found themselves in the National League play-offs this season, given they’ve both only featured on the channel once, how could BT Sport possibly claim to know anything about either side? That’s not a league broadcaster worthy of its name.
I’m not asking for The Bromley BT Sport Show, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that teams throughout the league get an equal share of the focus.
Or am I being naïve? For the survival of the National League’s deal with BT, perhaps big-club-focussed output is the way it has to be.
Big teams sell, and that’s all TV networks care about. It’s the reason Manchester United almost always feature in live FA Cup ties on terrestrial television, no matter the opposition.
The only way I’ll ever get to disprove this theory is if Bromley mount a serious challenge for the National League title. Maybe then we’ll feature more than once or twice a season on BT Sport.
Editor’s Footnote
Machel alludes to BT’s execs and I’m afraid that’s where the buck stops. Execs up and down the food chain are primarily concerned with their viewing numbers. They live or die by them.
While not immaterial, the quality of the broadcasts they oversee isn’t the thing that keeps them awake at night. Your workaday exec answers to a ‘Head Of’ whose first question is: How are the numbers? The ‘Head Of’ asks that question because they report to a Chief Exec whose first question is: How are the numbers? That Chief Exec… well, you get the picture.
If you can guarantee decent numbers by pandering to the clubs with the biggest fan bases, it’s a safe bet for your employment as an exec. Your numbers look good, you sleep well, and you can keep making payments on your Audi estate (they all drive an Audi estate).
However, the other remit of the executive class is to grow the numbers. They love a year-on-year comparison that lot. Wrexham won’t be in the National League for much longer. How are the year-on-years going to look when they’re gone?
The National League is, let’s face it, a little bit niche. Big clubs are going to drop into it from time to time, but how do you help the league as a whole grow as a television spectacle? If I was an exec, that’s the question that would keep me awake at night.
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Great to have featured this piece from Mash on www.footballwriting.co.uk, another great debate piece for the Freebie Friday feature and hopefully we'll collaborate a few more times this season to help the exposure of both sites.
Editor’s Footnote (ICYMI)
Machel alludes to BT’s execs and I’m afraid that’s where the buck stops. Execs up and down the food chain are primarily concerned with their viewing numbers. They live or die by them.
While not immaterial, the quality of the broadcasts they oversee isn’t the thing that keeps them awake at night. Your workaday exec answers to a ‘Head Of’ whose first question is: How are the numbers? The ‘Head Of’ asks that question because they report to a Chief Exec whose first question is: How are the numbers? That Chief Exec… well, you get the picture.
If you can guarantee decent numbers by pandering to the clubs with the biggest fan bases, it’s a safe bet for your employment as an exec. Your numbers look good, you sleep well, and you can keep making payments on your Audi estate (they all drive an Audi estate).
However, the other remit of the executive class is to grow the numbers. They love a year-on-year comparison that lot. Wrexham won’t be in the National League for much longer. How are the year-on-years going to look when they’re gone?
The National League is, let’s face it, a little bit niche. Big clubs are going to drop into it from time to time, but how do you help the league as a whole grow as a television spectacle? If I was an exec, that’s the question that would keep me awake at night.