[spireitematt]

Another sport I  shan't be watching then as I positively REFUSE to use the services of Sky and put even more money into the pocket of Mr Murdoch.

I notice that the opening six Nations championship game between Wales and England is on BBC on Friday.

I thought that Sky had the monopoly of England rugby games.

Has this changed or is it just their home matches??

Sky have the rights to England Rugby games but they are not allowed to show Six Nations as its a free to view sporting event similar to the World Cup and Euro.

Sky might be buying Wimbledon from the BBC.

I dislike Murdoch and Sky. I would like to see Football League matches shown on BBC. BBC need to get themselves a Sporting channel instead of showing a few sporting events on the red button.

[Lord Snooty]

The BBC need to get their heads out of the 1950s and start taking advertising. Then put a reasonable bid in for some of the sports they have lost.
Then scrap BBC Parliament and replace it with a new 24 sport channel.
Does anybody watch that Parliament channel? Utter garbage!

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I can think of one person on babble who watches it intently. Least said the better.

[spireitematt]

The BBC need to get their heads out of the 1950s and start taking advertising. Then put a reasonable bid in for some of the sports they have lost.
Then scrap BBC Parliament and replace it with a new 24 sport channel.
Does anybody watch that Parliament channel? Utter garbage!

I don't think anybody watches it.

[devwakey]

I have Sky, and to be honest I love it.

I dont like how it is massively tailored towards the big teams, i.e. Man utd on the box 3 our of 4 weeks

I think they should show games as much as they do however, they should be equally shared out amongst the league. Giving every team the same amount of payout/sponsorship.

I enjoy watching soccer Saturday with Jeff and Co, I like watching random games that I generally have no interest in,

Although I would say that this is because I am a football fan, not because I am a sky fan. I would happily watch these games on the BBC.

[4evaabaggie]

I am an Albion fan, I will watch games involving us and England not random games except for FA cup where I support the underdog. I hate what English football has become because of Sky, I hate the way they, the FA and the media favour a few clubs. I refuse to pay for sky sports, sky movies and any other add on's that they keep imposing on people ......... british television generally has taken on the appearance of US television, too many channels all showing mass produced heavily repeated trash ......

[St Charles Owl]

I am an Albion fan, I will watch games involving us and England not random games except for FA cup where I support the underdog. I hate what English football has become because of Sky, I hate the way they, the FA and the media favour a few clubs. I refuse to pay for sky sports, sky movies and any other add on's that they keep imposing on people ......... british television generally has taken on the appearance of US television, too many channels all showing mass produced heavily repeated trash ......

I would disagree with that last statement, there is a ton of new stuff on tv over here, much more than you ever get on UK tv!!

Comparing sports coverage in the UK and US though is interesting. Nearly all the major sports over here are shown on "regular" TV channels such as NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox, these are the US equivalents of the BBC and ITV and require no premium cable/satelite package to watch them. While it is all to do with money, in the US most of the sports are bought by the mainstream networks as opposed to a premium channel such as Sky. ESPN is the exception to that, and they have 5 or 6 channels dedicated to sport, but even most of these are available on your basic package.

If the BBC want to compete with Sky, then they are going to have to stump up the money to do so, but to do that they need to drastically change the way they are funded. The licence fee will not support sports rights, neither will those paying for it as it would come at the expense of other things. The BBC has a charter to provide public tv and however you look at sport, it is not considered applicable to the whole population. The problem with sky is not their coverage, which is generally excellent, its the fee you have to pay for the privilege of watching it!!

[talkSAFT]

BBC could compete with Sky if they got out of their old mindsets.
By that, I mean they can easily easily reduce Costs.
eg That recent comedy with Hugh Bonneville (WC2?) was probably reasonably accurate, and there are so many useless poofs poncing about that they could cut down on. And the salaries they pay to some Presenters (funded directly by us) is criminal.
eg Jonathan Ross was being paid £4m pa (until he was sacked), and people who read the News on Autocue (which, literally everybody on the dole could do with training) are getting £1/2m pa. Absolutely scandalous.
And, they say, if BBC didn't pay them so much, ITV and Sky WOULD!!! Nonsense! ITV and Sky would start to reduce their costs accordingly. Simple economics.
Wouldn't it make us feel better if they got an ugly bloke/woman off the dole, and paid them Minimum Wage to read that autocue in a pair of jeans and Tshirt?

[themaclad]

Had Sky for 20 years, at the beginning it was brilliant, football all the time these days it's overkill city, as for Sky Sports news it summed it up for me about Sky a couple of years ago, straight after a cup final Sky's main sports news led with a story of Paul Scholes retiring, more important than the cup final do not think so. These days Sky seems to think that the goings on at a penniless Scottish championship side deserves a lot of air time and as for the dress in yellow on transfer deadline day well I just despair.
Give them credit for coverage of games but it is overkill also they seem to forget that football took place before 1992.