THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
STUART BATHGATE ([email protected])
MAKE THE most of this afternoon's broadcast from Murrayfield - it's just about the last rugby from Scotland you'll see on the BBC this season. And even then, in common with the other games in the RBS Six Nations Championship, this afternoon's Scotland-Ireland match is a network production, not home-made. The big guns will roll into town, hire a little local help, then be out of here by sundown.

Yes, having praised BBC Scotland last week for their imaginative football series That Was The Team That Was, we have decided this week it is only right to stick the boot in for their unimaginative rugby union coverage. Well, not so much unimaginative as non-existent.

They do, for reasons best known to themselves, continue to televise the Melrose Sevens, and this is marginally better than nothing at all. But compared to other parts of the network, and other UK-based channels, BBC Scotland's interest in rugby has declined to near vanishing point.

Want to see our professional teams in the Heineken Cup? That's on Sky. In the Magners League? That's on Setanta. As for our club sides, they're nowhere.

The last deal between the SRU and a domestic broadcaster produced Scotsport Rugby Round-up on Scottish a few years ago. It wasn't quite groundbreaking TV, but that was OK, because the club rugby on offer was some way removed from cutting-edge stuff.

Before that, there was Rugby Special Scotland on the BBC. Some of the people involved in that had greater experience of the sport than their commercial counterparts, but in essence it was the same round-up of the grassroots game.

For the last few years, though, we've had nothing other than Melrose and the odd mention of the national side on Reporting Scotland around this time of year. Even the Saturday results service has been abandoned. It could be argued that STV has been just as negligent, but the BBC has a far greater historical connection to the sport and greater obligations as a public-service broadcaster, so should bear more responsibility for the dearth of rugby on our screens.

Rugby supporters with cable or satellite have long been accustomed to seeking out S4C or BBC Wales, and in some cases trying to understand what exactly the commentators are saying in Welsh. But they are the converted, the people who are willing and able to make an effort to watch rugby.

As a major sport, in a country which is supposedly battling hard against obesity, rugby should be regularly available on terrestrial TV. Then kids can watch it and, if they like what they see, can take their interest further. Conversely, if it falls off the radar, a generation will grow up feeling it exists in a different world, a world in which they cannot partake.

And so the spiral of decline will go on. Less rugby on TV leads to lowered general interest, which leads to smaller attendances, then decreased revenue, more players moving out of the country, and poorer results . . . and the poorer results could easily convince broadcasters that they were right to avoid the product in the first place.

BBC Scotland's lack of interest in rugby can't all be caused by an obsession with chasing ratings by pumping out a diet of Rangers and Celtic matches, news and exclusives. It does at least pay lip service to some of the minority sports, which could explain the continued commitment to Melrose, as well as the current unprecedented enthusiasm for shinty. Is there an anti-rugby bias? There certainly appear to have been a loss of interest in the sport at key positions within the organisation.

To an extent, this is understandable. In the decade and more since the game went professional the SRU has struggled to adapt, and more than a few former diehards have been turned off by the bitter infighting.

But, far more than any individual fan, a major television channel has the power to make a positive impact on that struggle. By the same token, it can also worsen it through inaction - and that, whether by accident or design, is what BBC Scotland is doing to rugby at present.

This article was posted on 10-Mar-2007, 08:01 by Hugh Barrow.