Grand slammed!

For all the hype and excitement generated by the sports channels over the last few years, promising to bring the greatest sporting action anywhere in the globe, last week was a huge disappointment.

All the rivetting stuff that was going on at the green grass courts of Wimbledon in London, but here we were wringing our hands in despair as none of the sports channels, no not even the high profile ESPN-Star Sports, could give sports lovers a chance to watch some of the greatest matches every played in tennis history.

Cricket could be the nation's obsession, but what good old Doordarshan has done in the days before the satellite invasion was to hook viewers to the Grand Slams - at least, from the semis stage onwards. Even the feature films telecast timings were changed to accommodate the live telecast.

When the Star Sports and ESPN entered the fray, they promised to show viewers sports events as the way they should be watched - with identifiable knowledgeable commentators, pre-post match analysis and telecast of matches from round one. That did the trick, rather business, with sports lovers hooked on straightaway.

And, the spin off was that the sports channels became pay channels. With the telecast rights rising every year, Star and ESPN decided to join hands and not cut each other's noses. But, their joint efforts were not good enough as a rejuvenated DD outbid them for the crucial final matches of the slams in the last couple of years.

This year as Croat Goran Ivanisevic launched his fairy run all the way, Rafter worked up magical stuff, Agassi missed just a few shots to give up, Henin showed waif like and Venus portrayed the power and athletism of a winner - we missed all of them in the heart-stopping matches which happened beyond the last eight stage.

Very frustrating it was to agonisingly wait for the progress of the Wimbledon matches on the news channels. "Exorbitant telecast rates" is the reason given by DD as well as ESPN-Star Sports. That's all right, but why did the latter put a `Live' sign even when they were showing a `deferred live' match? Pay channel meant greater responsibility, we thought.

But, with regard to cricket, the ESPN-Star Sports promises continuous action as it claims to have acquired telecast rights for India for all international matches from seven of the 10 cricket playing nations till 2004. The same press release says it has the rights for three years of `The Lawn Tennis Championships' at Wimbledon for the next three years. "Only till Quarters...", it could have very well mentioned.

By V. Geetanath

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Section  : Southern States
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