Pay-TV can make a brutal sport of
us
Rohit Brijnath
An insensitive posse of Melburnian burglars, with no
consideration for the art of sports watching, briefly ruined my
life in 2001. They stole my wife's jewellery. Fine. They filched my
DVD player. Acceptable. They tried to lift my old-fashioned TV set
(but the weaklings failed). Bearable.
But, unforgivably and unbearably, they stole my TV remote.
Perhaps they were too young to appreciate that the remote, for men,
is the modern equivalent of the caveman's club. Our security
blanket, our weapon to brandish.
But now we are victims of our own vanity. Now we have more
remotes than a metrosexual has hair gels. TV, DVD, Mio, StarHub,
fan, AC. Now some of us are plain spoilt.
In the old days, our fathers used us as remotes. Now we press
buttons, then they tapped us on the head: go, change. It was a time
when we'd ascend roofs, fiddle with antennas, get grainy, hiccuping
pictures of Bjorn Borg and think life was poetic in black and
white. To be connected to the sports world was a privilege. Now, in
this city, it's for the privileged.
There's HD, super-slow motion, a taping facility and
commentators who believe that since everything is excessive in
sports so, too, must be their words. There's sepak takraw, spelling
bees on ESPN and men who pull tractors with their pinkies. There
are over 20 sporting channels to choose from, but it's like an
insidious worm eating slowly into your wallet.
Yes, alas, sports is not a fundamental right, but it has become
fundamentally insane. French Open on one Pay-TV provider, Wimbledon
on the next. Cricket? Pay up. EPL? Fork out. World Cup? Sell wife's
remaining jewellery. You can either prostrate yourself before a
boss for a raise or cull a sport from your list.
Of course, it's all our fault. If the EPL is selling its rights
for $6 billion, a sure sign that the sporting apocalypse is upon
us, it's because we're gaga about it and they know. Passion always
has a new price.
We titter about player wages - which is what we should truly
protest about - but in fact we are paying them. The more we're
hysterical about football, the more the EPL can demand, the more
the clubs get as a cut, the more we have to pay.
Sports is no longer just a series of romantic episodes from a
Mills & Boon factory - ironically, they first published sports
books - it is now also a brutal business.
In the past week or so, Rafa has perspired in Paris, Tiger Woods
is wearing his Mount Rushmore face in San Francisco, Lewis Hamilton
reminded us only in football are the English boring, LeBron James
and Kevin Durant duelled in the air and Manny Pacquiao got caught
by age. If you had to see it all, your monthly cost would be
roughly $150.
Still, the affluent among us will shrug, bitch and buy. But not
everyone can. If you're not on cable, then you feel like an
extra-terrestrial. Unfairly locked out of the sporting planet.
Here, in this no cable-little sports world, instead of that daddy
called Federer, you get a 40th re-run of The Mummy.
But the movie actor and the sports star are separated by a
valuable gap in authenticity. Brendan Fraser's chases require
special effects; Fernando Torres produces an effect which is
special. He inspires. But only if you can see him.
Sports, we might argue, is primarily entertainment and thus like
movies in a hall must come with a ticket price. But sports also
does more, it binds, it teaches, it connects, it raises
possibilities.
In India, even though cricket rights are prohibitively
expensive, all one-day internationals are shown free on the local
broadcaster, Doordarshan. And when an Indian colleague travelled to
Kashmir, riven with troubles, she found kids watching cricket,
playing, aspiring, because they had found an inexpensive route to
connect.
It is this balance, in an expensive viewing world, we must
strive for. A strong percentage of Singapore homes may have pay-TV
(but can they afford most sport packages?), but there is still a
reasonable number who see a blank when Mario Gomez does his goal
ballet.
What is unarguable is that only the deeply hungry morph into
champions and hunger often arrives from adversity. To turn viewing
into an elitist activity which keeps sports away from those who
find the strongest inspiration from it defies the idea of a wider
sporting culture, and spirit, that we keep chirping about.
And it matters more in a nation where you require television
because there's no constant fix of world-class sports at a stadium
down the road.
Some level of sports on terrestrial TV would restore a balance.
Not everything, but something beyond two-footed Lions and netball
reruns. Every man need not be a vain picture of five juggling
remotes. But just one will suffice, where a person can click, and
find sports for free, and fantasise. A watcher connected to the
world's most inclusive pastime instead of being remote from it.
There is a lovely story about a runner in the marathon at the
1992 Olympics. Valentina Yegorova came from a small farming village
in Russia named Iziderkino which had no television set.
So the mayor decided that each of the 500 households would
contribute and an ancient black and a white TV set was purchased.
It was positioned on the doorstep of Yegorava's house, but facing
outwards so everyone could watch. But at least they watched.
Yegorova went on to win Olympic gold and the effect of this
moment worked both ways. It offered the village the idea that
anything was possible. And it offered her the power of support, or
as she tearfully said once: 'The people watched the television and
prayed for me.'
Except if this was in Singapore, and you didn't have cable, and
a kid from your locality was involved in the London Olympics - of
which only parts apparently will be on terrestrial TV - it is
possible you might miss this. Might not be moved. Might not become,
for a short while, one vast united village. And it would be a
pity.
think, The Sunday Times, June 17 2012, Pg 41
