Let Me Entertain You

My articles are usually biased towards Politics, Economics and Investments; so this particular one is very much a new direction for me with the prime focus on Sport.?It is generally appreciated that the word Sport has lost its true meaning given the transition in most sporting arenas from an Amateur to a Professional status; so much so, it is now big business for those elite participants and their entourage.?It is also an open secret that the rewards can be enormous in many, if not all, professional sports.?Clearly, I am not yet telling you anything that is earth shattering and some of eye-watering packages can be fully justified. ?However, some packages may be more difficult to comprehend and, indeed, to justify before jumping into the lion’s/lionesses den of finer detail and this is where my link to ‘Let Me Entertain You’, the classic recording by Robbie Williams, holds sway.?The key word is the E-word, Entertainment.?It is important that all Professional Sportsmen and Sportswomen are mindful of the need for them not just collect their bounty but to succeed and deliver an ‘entertaining outcome’ because it is the masses that are ultimately picking up the bill as their pay-masters and pay-mistresses or is it more poltically correct these days to refer to them as pay-persons.

I don’t want to make this article a discussion about gender pay issues and, to prove my point, I am initially focussing on Horse Racing which has been a passion of mine for many years and where there is little or no discrimination amongst the jockeys.?This view extends to other equestrian events like point-to-point, dressage and show jumping; the best jockey/rider should win but, of course, it is not just the jockey.??The four legs beneath them will also be an important factor delivering both the result and the general level of entertainment and excitement.?To those who appreciate the finer points of horse racing, the spectacle is both highly enjoyable and highly entertaining.?What’s more the profession is a level playing field for men and women, or should I say gentlemen and ladies. ?The only concession in horse racing is to the mares as they will get a small weight allowance over stallions/geldings. The really big money is of course in flat racing as the sport is driven by breeding and it also has a global following but in no way does that diminish ‘the wow factor’ in National Hunt given the thrills and the occasional spills of the Grand National and Cheltenham Festival meetings to name but two.; and maybe – talking horse power - in ten years time we could even have a female presence and champion in other sports like Formula 1 where, arguably, the machinery and the technology - like the horse - are as important and sometimes perhaps more important than the driver’s qualities.

The next sport under my microscope is Football which is clearly very heavily driven at the top level by sponsorship and advertising but, at all levels, by an element of tribalism. ?I appreciate a good game of football but my enthusiasm is sometimes tempered by the players reward for just turning up and playing which frequently is prioritized over the entertainment factor.?It doesn’t matter how you play; a win is a win to the tribe regardless of the star quality delivered.?Player contracts are also so tight that when clubs do hit the buffers it is the manager who invariably carries the can with the red card.?However, I won’t immediately rush for my tissues as these managers usually also leave with a handsome package and, more often than not, fall into another managerial role fairly quickly as their ultimate reward for failing in their previous management role.?However, the one issue that really does baffle me in The Premier League is this Parachute Payment to clubs who have failed their supporters and been relegated.?An alleged sum of ￡30m for a team of failures seems bizarre to me unless the cost of season tickets were subsequently cut reflecting the team’s abject failure to entertain their supporters.?They simply don’t deserve this sum and if the club needed to save ￡30m they could re-negotiate the player’s contracts for not delivering to supporters expectations; and better still why not allocate this parachute payment to the teams in the Championship who missed out on promotion in the play-offs but who have delivered and have probably entertained their supporters in their quest for promotion, unlike those that were relegated from the Premiership.

You could argue that these same factors are also filtering into Rugby Football where the upward pressure on the price of players’ contracts has driven a number of big club names into financial difficulty, if not bankruptcy.?This is yet another example of a sport transgressing as a result of monetary greed into a very badly run business, where financial reward for players precedes both success and entertainment.?Sadly this trend will probably continue and I suspect that there will be a few more crest fallen clubs both in Football and in Rugby in the forthcoming season. In truth, no business is sustainable where wages exceed revenue.

I will remain on the fence with - is it Women’s Football or Ladies Football - as we are about to endure a few weeks of Entertainment Down Under on terrestrial television.?As I have already mentioned, I enjoy a good game of football and the atmosphere of big games even when the walk doesn’t always match the talk.?However, Women’s or Ladies Football just doesn’t really float my boat.?Maybe I am in the minority - it wouldn’t be the first time – and I am sure that there will be some very entertaining moments in the World Cup but, even here, the Lionesses appear keener to negotiate a bonus reward into their contracts ahead of achievement.?I am aware they are European Champions and all credit to them for this success and we know that they will also be rewarded if they do well in the World Cup but even if they don’t win, it is still important that they entertain the masses and this is where I must agree to differ with those who think Women’s Football is entertaining. ?I clearly have a high entertainment threshold. The rewards may snowball in time if they do well.?Pay TV will then step in and offer bigger financial rewards but, meantime, because the entertainment appeal is only driven by terrestrial TV coverage, it would imply that this is yet another example of a sport trying to run before it can walk, putting the cart before the horse.?Entertain first, win over those on the fence, and negotiate the reward later but I won’t be holding my breath.

My next topic is tennis where I have a few contentious issues to discuss between what are now referred to at Wimbledon as the Ladies game and the Gentleman’s game.?It was always referred to as the Ladies and Men’s Championship but somehow it does look like the WOKES have won the day but surprisingly they have yet to tamper with the title of Mixed Doubles.?Having watched both the Ladies and Gentlemen’s Finals this year, I was incensed at the lack of Entertainment in the Ladies Final and that is not to take away the qualities and the glory of the winner who played well but it does take two to tango, so to speak, and what should have been an entertaining ninety minutes turned into an unmitigated nightmare.?It was arguably the worst final I have ever seen in my 55 years of watching Wimbledon.?Thankfully, the Gentlemen’s Final on the Sunday more than made up for the time I gave up the previous day.?I was never really in favour of pay equality at Wimbledon, purely and simply because of the hours at work on court, so it’s staggering to think that both the winners and the beaten finalists of both games received the same monetary reward.?To quote a famous tennis player, ‘They Cannot Be Serious’ and it cannot be right this year because the Ladies Final simply was anything but entertaining. I don’t know what the solution is because ‘equality of pay’ will never be re-negotiated.?Somehow there does, however, need to be a reward in all sports where participants entertain and perhaps exceed expectations. ?The lacklustre Ladies Final has done nothing to alter my view that reward should reflect duration, success and entertainment.

I will conclude with cricket where the recent series between England and Australia has been one of the most entertaining series I have had the pleasure to watch.?This is one of the best and closest Ashes series in my memory and all participants on both sides should be rewarded appropriately for entertainment value alone.?It’s also great to see the closely fought matches that have taken place between the English Ladies and the Australian Ladies but we must never misuse the term ‘The Ashes’ which is historic and should not be hi-jacked by the Media ?when making reference to the Ladies Game.