http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/golf/r-a-chief-bbc-only-wanted-open-highlights.118207382 R&A chief: BBC only wanted Open highlights
Nick Rodger
Golf Correspondent
Tuesday 10 February 2015By all accounts, Peter Dawson and his cronies at the Royal & Ancient have taken more flak than a Lancaster bomber of late.
The decision to award the Open Championship television rights to Sky and bring to an end some 60 years of live, uninterrupted coverage of golf's most cherished, celebrated major on the BBC has provoked a fairly robust public backlash. "Oh, we've had plenty of hate mail......clearly from individuals who haven't read the etiquette section of the rule book judging by some of the intemperate language," said Dawson with a wry smile, as he took off his chainmail, bascinet helmet and chivalrous codpiece and sat down for a tranquil chat with a small gathering of unarmed golf writers in his St Andrews redoubt.
This was an opportunity for Dawson to set the record straight and the message was clear: the BBC essentially threw in the towel when the negotiations got to the nitty gritty. For the fist-shaking masses who immediately jumped on the bandwagon and lambasted the R&A for selling their souls to the satellite devil, Dawson's claims will raise a few eyebrows.
As of 2017, the Open will be broadcast live on Sky with the Beeb showing a nightly package of highlights between 8pm and 10pm. Having put the rights out to tender, it became clear that there were only two genuine contenders but, according to Dawson, that rapidly developed into a one horse race as the bidding process intensified. In the end, the guardians of game had no option but to go with the Sky proposal. While he refused to divulge details of the actual sums of money involved in the new contract, Dawson was more forthcoming when it came to the intricacies of the negotiations.
"Having got the first bids back, we, as the result of what they said, had a lot of questions to ask and we asked a lot of questions of both companies," explained Dawson. "At the end of that question and answer session, we went out for a second round of bids because there were so many points in the questions that could have affected it. At that stage, I think all I can say is that it was very, very clear that the BBC, at that point, were interested in pursuing the highlights option.
Construe that as you will. And the decision to go with the live rights with Sky was one I would suggest that if you were in possession of the information we had, there's not a person in this room, believe me, that would have made a different decision, given the state of play at that time. It is a natural reaction for people to be upset, but when you analyse the two bids we received, they shouldn't be. BBC did bid for the live rights initially, and so it's not true to say they didn't want them. Later on in the process, they switched emphasis. I'm not 100 per cent sure why. But the BBC made it clear that the highlight feed was the way they wanted to go. It was financially driven, I'm guessing, but you'd have to ask them."
In many quarters, the R&A's decision was seen as an act of high treason, on a par with Guy Fawkes menacingly boogling about with gunpowder. Peter Alliss, the BBC's voice of golf who has been offering his musings on the game since the days of the mashie niblick, was particularly vocal in the aftermath and hissed that the R&A were "dipping their hands into the money."
On the other side of the remote control, however, many viewed the decision to decamp to Sky as inevitable given the way the BBC has been gradually turning its back on golf in recent years. Like the end of any long-standing relationship, it was never going to be easy. "Don't get me wrong, we love the BBC to bits," added Dawson with dewy-eyed affection. "They are a great operation. I don't feel let down by the BBC, no. I think the BBC does a tremendous job in quite difficult circumstances now. I don't think it's possible for the BBC to do everything that the Great British public wants at the current licence fee level. I just don't think they've got a chance. That has to be addressed. Perhaps this is not a popular view, but I think it's true. I read in the papers that it's the R&A's greed that's doing this, we've taken the money, and to hell with the viewers. Not true. We've read a lot about the crown jewels (of BBC televised sport) but the BBC actually recommended that the Open Championship be B listed, and that's in the public domain. You can read that online. Which means that highlights as a minimum should be shown on free to air, not necessarily the live broadcast. So that was the BBC's position on that."