Jamie Murray in a Wimbledon bunker and Laura Robson courtside. After Sir Andy Murray admitted he struggles to find tennis coverage “interesting or insightful”, it is clear the BBC have entered a trying phase.
Trying in more ways than one. They would love to have Sir Andy but he has chosen YouTube over a seat on the Beeb, and just as the sport searches for darlings in this post-Federer era, so too are the BBC.
It is now four years since Sue Barker quit the BBC. Her A Question of Sport axing was announced in 2020, and she then left her Wimbledon role on her own terms in 2022, having anticipated she would eventually be “pushed out”.
Watching Wimbledon has not been the same since.
In her farewell tribute video, it was clear Barker was deemed irreplaceable. “She’s giving up the baton but I’m not sure anybody can pick it up,” Martina Navratilova said, while the narrating John McEnroe added: “You see the thing about our Sue, she just is Wimbledon.”
John McEnroe and Sue Barker had a great rapport (Photo: Getty)
Barker had a natural rapport with the champions around her because she was a champion herself. “She’s lived it, she understands it, she understands the highs and lows of Wimbledon as a player,” Billie Jean King said.
A French Open champion and Wimbledon semi-finalist, Barker was replaced by broadcaster Clare Balding at SW19. Nowhere near as dreadful as Paddy McGuinness taking her A Question of Sport gig, but still an uninspiringly safe choice.
The last time Balding’s salary was published, she was on £178,000-184,999 in 2022-23, and the BBC have been sure to get their money’s worth.
She is their jack of all sports but master of none, a consummate pro with a broad range of experience presenting the Olympics, horse racing, football, rugby league and The Boat Race, on top of Sports Personality of the Year, major Royal events, and Crufts.
She is a national treasure to some, is and always has been a 100 per cent faithful to lovers of The Traitors, but because the BBC utilise her so widely, her lack of tennis expertise shows.
Many UK viewers watch tennis for two weeks a year, and it feels like Balding does the same, whereas Barker was synonymous with the sport. “I just live tennis,” a younger Barker had said in that tribute video. We could all see that.
As a crown jewel for the BBC, dominating its screens for four per cent of the year, the Wimbledon coverage should rise above the other sports they show. Balding makes it blend in.
Clare Balding is a safe pair of hands for the BBC (Photo: Getty)
Evidently the BBC felt there was no tennis player turned broadcaster ready to replace Barker. Annabel Croft would have deserved the gig, but Balding was also there waiting in the wings. She had undoubtedly earned her stripes, but struggles to engage with players past and present quite like her predecessor did.
Enter the BBC’s “trying” phase, where it appears they might just be training up a long-term replacement for Barker.
Former British No 1 Robson has joined the BBC team for this year’s tournament. She has already been a pundit on TNT Sports, and though not a grand slam champion herself, she has beaten them on the biggest stages.
Ahead of the slam, she was at ease in the umpire’s chair on No 1 Court, joking with Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner about the absence of Serbia and Italy from the World Cup.
And once Wimbledon got under way, so too did the BBC’s experimenting, with Robson seated feet away from the Centre Court turf to provide close-up insight during Serena Williams’ first-round match with Maya Joint. This type of analysis had been seen on other channels, Robson doing so on TNT Sports, and brings an added dimension – although it is hardly inspiring.
“It’s something new, it’s something different,” BBC’s director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski told reporters this week. “I think we should just try stuff.”
Kay-Jelski is data driven and admits himself he is always asking, “what’s the next thing?” He recognises the Wimbledon audience varies widely in age and digests the coverage in different formats. Boomers pine for Today at Wimbledon while Gen-Z prefer bite-size highlights, meaning you cannot please everyone.
The same applies to personnel. “Different audiences want different people,” Kay-Jelski said. “Some people might love Pundit X, and other people find them un-insightful.”
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With the deal to broadcast Wimbledon recently extended until 2033, the BBC have time. Kay-Jelski’s admission they will “try, try, try, and then try not to get too stressed if something doesn’t work” is essentially him telling us they will throw plenty of mud at the wall to eventually see what sticks.
But in its search to please a multitude of audiences, upsetting Barker was the BBC’s greatest own goal. She was the differentiator to all their other coverage, a presenter who made those around her comfortable, and she would arguably still be there had they not sought to refresh a show that did not need changing.
It all started with that axing on A Question of Sport. What happened next? Well that was entirely the BBC’s fault.