Is it really that popular?

[Rooter]

Occasionally and I stand by my view. I think the majority of womens tennis is poor. Way too many unforced errors, too many huge miss-matches. How many classic games are plucked from the womens side? How many ding dong battles have raking passing shots? Too many points are won by a ball going into the net or out of play, ie lost rather than won.

you didnt watch williams versus watson then...

 

[Snelly]

Yes it is really that popular and I think it fantastic to see top level sport on terrestrial TV, be it tennis or anything else.

What is the alternative? What are you missing? Cheaply made, utter garbage, presented by morons on antique auctions, the problems of the underclass, moving house or cooking would be on if Wimbledon wasn't.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

you didnt watch williams versus watson then...[/QUOTE

No, but one match doesn't make it the norm. If you look at other sports where women have been playing as long as they have at tennis then the standard is excellent. Golf is a great example. You can see the standard is top notch and the difference is physical, not technical. Athletics is similar.

I will happily eat my golf cap if todays two semi's are 7-6, 6-7, 9-7 thrillers but I am not expecting to be chopping it up.

 

[Hacker Khan]

It is one of the protected jewels so it doesn't really cost them that much. If they were really committed to tennis then they would show other tournaments, not just bits of lead up tournaments to Wimbledon, but that is not the BBC way anymore. They seem to want to cherry pick odd very large sporting events and clearly someone within the BBC is a big F1 fan.

They do a very good job with Match of the Day, perhaps they should look at highlight programmes for other sports as well. They can't fight Sky so why not learn to live with them a little smarter?

Do the British public love tennis? For this two weeks only. After that 99.9% forget about it. Personally it bores me rigid. I can not bear the grunting and poor quality of the womens game, sorry but look back at every tournament and list the best matches, look at the best passing shots, count the unforced errors. The mens game is better but I still can not get excited by it. I get enough sport on Sky though so for those that do care I am pleased for them that is available. Having a good mix of sports is important.

I think it's more the case that BBC can never afford to compete with Sky/BT for any sporting rights nowadays, so they don't really Cherry Pick as such and they could never afford to commit to any major sport now as the rights are too expensive.

Sky/BT base most of their strategy for increasing subscribers on getting the best sporting events. So it's the individual sports who effectively decide what the BBC gets, as they either take the money from the highest bidder which will always be BT/Sky, or sell packages that ensure that some of their live sport/highlights is shown on terrestrial TV. Which, for all his faults, is what Bernie did in F1.

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

I enjoy watching the men play but can't stand all the ridiculous grunting from women, Monica Seles has a lot to answer for!!


There is a time and place for women grunting and it's not the tennis court

 

[Tongo]

I always enjoy coming home from work and watching a match. I couldnt watch it all day like the golf but for an hour its entertaining. Love watching Federer play as well. He's obviously on the wane but in his prime he was one of the few sportsmen / women worth paying good money to watch.

 

[Hobbit]

It's more popular than golf, or at least more inclusive across generations and the sexes.

There was a thread on here not so long back bemoaning the lack of golf on the Beeb but now a moan about the coverage of another lesser sport... Live and let live

 

[c1973]

Inequality does not sit well with me, so for that reason I haven't been watching much of Wimbledon the last couple of years.

Pity, cos I do like Wimbledon fortnight.😃

 

[JustOne]

Don't know how popular it is... but I enjoy watching it so happy to see it on the box..... although I couldn't care less if it was on Sky as I have that too. Maybe we should have it on Sky to stop the riff-raff from watching it????????? eh Bob?

 

[chrisd]

Inequality does not sit well with me, so for that reason I haven't been watching much of Wimbledon the last couple of years.

Pity, cos I do like Wimbledon fortnight.😃

Inequality?

 

[c1973]

Inequality?

Women (who play a maximum 3 sets) get the same prize money as the men (maximum 5 sets). That's inequality in my book. 😃