New studio, new facial hair ? but Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson are struggling to provide added value
It was an unfortunate week for the Match of the Day team to be growing moustaches for charity because their stubbly appearance made them look like the kind of toothless unfortunates who approach you at mainline railway stations, breathe lager fumes over you and tell you a tale of woe, usually ending in the line: "So I am just �1.67 short of my train fare back to Doncaster".
In reality we know the MotD boys could travel to Doncaster ? or somewhere even nicer if they wanted ? in a solid-gold car, chauffeur-driven, smoking Havana cigars personally rolled on Fidel Castro's thighs, after a couple of papers revealed Alan Hansen's fee for MotD is �40,000 a programme, prompting the unworthy thought that charities might benefit more if the boys, instead of growing facial hair, just donated a small sliver of their enormous wedges.
A couple of caveats, though; by appearing unshaven on TV, the team raise awareness of the moustache-growing charity, and in the highly competitive world of fundraising that is probably more effective than hiring students to hang about in Tottenham Court Road with clipboards, annoying shoppers. And as far as Hansen is concerned, I don't think he leaves the studio after each show with a big bag of money.
Someone has divided the bottom line on his annual contract, which is whatever it is (I really cannot be bothered with exact figures, that is what we have investigative journalists for), divided it by the number of programmes he appears on, and come up with the forty grand. I expect the annual contract also covers promos, the odd documentary, sticking his face on the website and all that, and it buys the BBC exclusivity ? apart, obviously, from the national newspaper column and the Morrisons ads.
Someone at the BBC will have worked out the market value for having a hot property like Hansen on board, and, hey presto, a sum not unadjacent to a hell of a lot keeps appearing in the left-hand column of the former Scotland international's bank statement every month.
It will probably not startle you to learn that I was not the guy who sat down in The Ivy with Hansen and his agent to negotiate this figure, but if I had been I might have pointed out that if the charismatic Scot were to move to Sky, say, it is less likely Morrisons would come calling ? the canny grocer likes to hire people from family-friendly BBC programmes, the One Show's Chris Evans being the latest ? so why don't we just knock a nought or two off, and does anyone want a dessert?
A Radio 1 disc jockey told me years ago that it would actually have been worth his while to pay the BBC to work for it, because of the profile it gave him for ancillary activities. Admittedly a lot of the work he used to do ? opening supermarkets, and making personal appearances at Shaggers nitespot in Macclesfield ? has disappeared, but the principle remains and might have been worth mentioning to Hansen's people over the Cornish sea bream.
In the meantime, what are we getting for our 40K, or whatever it is? Saturday may not have been a good night to judge MotD, as it was the first show from its new home in Salford, and nobody looked too comfortable. The new set seemed too bright and garish by half, and very square. It was all sharp edges, with none of those curves that persuade supermarket tsars these are the cuddly kinda guys to flog tuna chunks to Mr and Mrs Average. And the post-match graphics, with the manager shown split?screen at an angle, seemed pointless and distracting to me.
To mark the move to Salford a chunk of the show was given over to the Salford-based football manager celebrating 25 years at Manchester United, glossing over the seven years when he refused to speak to the BBC ? Sir Alex, the Wilderness Years, as they are known in what we may have to learn to call Media City. Mark Lawrenson said Ferguson's record was "superlative", but his words came from the value shelf, I suspect, and we awaited something from the premium range.
"Well, absolutely, superlative is the right word," said Hansen.
All agreed that the fairly lacklustre performance with which United followed the celebration of Ferguson's reign, was a case of "after the Lord Mayor's show", but as Jonathan Pearce had already made the same not blindingly original observation in commentary, and thousands of fans had probably had the same thought in the stadium, one could argue the highly paid MotD team were not really delivering quality first ? or even second.
Moreover, if the BBC is looking to economise in these difficult times, it is worth noting that Steve McClaren is currently between engagements, and probably highly available. On Football Focus, he said of Ferguson's success: "It's all about players, at the end of the day." An MotD chair awaits, Steve.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/06/alan-hansen-match-of-the-day-lineker
No comments:
Post a Comment