Attending the Olympic Archery at Lord's, Conor and Robin discover that not all sports are football
Despite my love of Rugby I've never thought of myself as much of a sports fans, but it's hard to live in London over the last month and avoid being immersed in sports, and I have discovered that I am a sport fan, just not of a fan of the sports that we're typically exposed to.
I used to subscribe to Sky Sport but it was poor value for money for someone who just wanted to watch Rugby. My desire to pay to watch the few Rugby games available was subsidising the much greater coverage Football received (and Football is not a game that needs my financial help), but the straw that broke the camels back was the Saturday morning Sky Sports switched coverage of a live international Rugby match to a channel they don't make available to my cable TV provider. Paying over £30 a month for Sky Sports apparently didn't entitle me to watch the full game, and before that match had ended I had phoned Virgin Media and cancelled my Sky Sports subscription.
But it turns out there's a whole world of great sport outside the wall to wall Football coverage. While I discovered an interest in many sports during the 2012 London Olympics the one sport that still doesn't interest me is was Boxing, despite the fact that Boxing accounted for 80% of Ireland's Olympic medals, and our only Gold, I've still not a boxing fan, I've never enjoyed the idea that to win you were aiming to knock another competitor unconscious.
Watching boxing is fine when Katie Taylor is winning, but I find it to truly horrible to watch Joe Nevin, my country man, being knocked to the floor. All those cheering fans take on a rather ominous tone when they're cheering the fact that the athlete representing your country is lying injured in the ground. You won't see a French Cycling fan cheering because Bradley Wiggins misjudged a corner, fell off and is lying on ground dazed and confused.
Despite reaffirming my dislike for boxing the reason for my new found appreciation of sport was easily explained by the simple fact that it wasn't football. But just six days after the closing ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics, the football season has started and to quote the Guardians's Geoffrey Wheatcroft;
We return from the loyalty and fair play of our cyclists, rowers and runners to that vast carnival of cheating, brutality and avarice known as the Premier League.
Anyone who happened across the BBC's incredible Olympic coverage, which permitted us all the ability to watch any sport we chose live on the BBC website, is keenly aware that the technology now exists to allow sports fans to watch any sport online, we just need the willingness to cover it.
It's technically possible to provide coverage without the need for traditional broadcast infrastructure and as a fan of major sport that still fails to find decent coverage in the face of the commercial might of Football all I can say is, I want to spend money to watch the sport I love, who wants to provide that service and take my money!
