Bowls and Television

To make good television you have to be well informed, unique and ready for a challenge. When it comes to lesser sport you have to captivate your audience into watching even if they would not usually be a viewer of a niche or minor sport.

Very rarely will you see these sports receive prime time spots on the flagship sports channels. These spots are saved for football, rugby, golf and tennis. Once or twice a year sports such as darts and snooker come to the forefront and although they are technical sports rather than physically challenging, still receive huge audiences and even bigger prize money.

My inspiration for this post came from last week’s Scottish International Open that was screened on the BBC. Before you say, yes I know it’s a bowls competition but why should this receive lesser attention than other sports? Bowls has one of the highest weekly participation rates in this country and should not be taken as an ‘Old man’s game’ because this is simply not the case.

The World Bowls Tour is very competitive and exciting tour and has a number of events in which the best players from the world of bowls take to the unusually blue rink to compete for the coveted competitions and a place in the very sought after Top 16.

The Famous Blue Rink of the WBT

When the Scottish International Open comes to Perth each year they also entertain a Women’s and a Junior event. I will focus on the latter purely for the fact that the final alone was televised. The two boys who reached the final done so at the age of just 16 and took to probably the biggest stage they can reach at this point in their careers. They played out a fantastic match which went to a tie-breaker. This isn’t uncommon in a final at these events because the players are so evenly matched. So where is the issue? When the tie-break reached the third and final end the match was at its end and there was one bowl left to be played by the reigning champion, Blantyre’s Greg McLaughlin, who had the opportunity to retain his crown. As he walked up to the mat to throw his final delivery the BBC Cameras cut to a full view of the rink and you heard to voice of Dougie Vipond utter those dreaded words, “We have come to the end of our coverage on BBC 2, join us on BBC 1 at 3.15 for the second semi-final in the Scottish International Open” (The senior competition) and the channel cut to an advertisement before The Daily Politics came on.

I cannot fathom how the broadcaster for Britain could commit such a fatal error. I believe if this was any other sport then there would be no way this would have been allowed to occur but just because it was bowls being shown, what makes it acceptable to finish a broadcast when there was literally ten seconds remaining (You had to wait until around 4.30pm to see the bowl being delivered) a four hour break for one bowl is a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

Now I know that television channels have strict guidelines to follow but surely a slight touch of leeway could have been given here and I can say with complete and utter confidence that more people would tune in for the bowls than they do for the Daily Politics.

There are many questions to be raised from the argument of a separate, free to view sports channel provided through the money used by the license fee that we all pay to receive and fund the BBC. After the success of the Olympics this year and the anticipation of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in two years time (which includes bowls) it has been encouraged by a few fans, journalists and sportsmen and women.

This channel, it seems, will be unlikely to include bowls as the World Bowls Tour and the English Indoor Bowling Association have signed a deal with pay-to-view channel Premier Sports which will showcase around 260 hours of competitive bowling events, according to the WBT website.

The New Home of Television Bowls

I see an initial problem with this deal in that a lot of people who subscribe to Premier Sports already will not see bowls as a sport they would watch on a weekly or monthly basis. Also, earlier I said that Bowls is not an ‘Old man’s sport’ but the demographic for viewer on television will be older people who have played bowls for many years and I just can’t fathom these people forking out the extra money they will have to, to watch bowls on the television when there is already a fair number of events on the BBC and Sky Sports. I will be interested to see how this coverage is received and I will be very intrigued to see the new competition(s) they are proposing especially for Premier Sports.

One final thought on the whole scenario is of course the changes that have been made in the way the sport is played to make it more interesting for the television and I have no problem with this in the events which feature only the top 16 players and have no bearing on the rankings and qualification for other events, such as the Premier League of Bowls which has been shown on Sky for the last couple of years. They introduced a “Poweplay” end in which any points scored in said end by the nominating player will be doubled. I agree that this adds excitement to the sport but it should never be introduced anywhere else. For this year’s Scottish International Open, the WBT introduced a shot clock. This gave the players only 30 seconds per shot and I feel it took away from the quality of the event. Yes, the players had extensions to use but you cannot simply make a decision on what shot to play, especially under the pressure of the lights and television cameras, in half a minute. I would suggest that this gets scrapped immediately or they will alienate a lot of fans and players who are used to the norm and I am very firmly in this camp.

Do you play a niche or lesser sport and feel the same way, or do you play bowls and have different views? Let me know in the comments section below!