Off The Ball may be obsessed with English and European football, to the detriment of coverage of the Irish game, but its bright presenters can sometimes go places that RTÉ sports folk don’t realise exist.
In this case, it’s a discussion yesterday evening sparked by the hoo-ha over Chelski Corporation hinting at selling naming rights to its stadium. Unfortunately, there’s no direct link to the audio file, so you’ll have to look for it in the Nov 5 OTB Football Show on Newstalk’s nasty media player, about 20 minutes in.
The news, incidentally, has not pleased one or two sanctimonious Irish, er, scousers, who suddenly have developed a fine-tuned, if comically selective, sense of place, and sniff a sellout to crass commercialism.
It’s also got OTB football corr Ken Early animated in a refreshingly end-of-civilization kind of way, and he almost, though not quite, brings himself to lambast the forces of capitalism for destroying the fabric of the game.
Not sure how that would go down with his boss, and sponsor of the Irish international manager, nobody-loves-business Denis O’Brien. Happily, every time Early approaches the point where he is about to say it, his anchor wisely intervenes. (Newstalk also is a name sponsor of the LoI, not that you’d know it from their coverage.)
Anyway, Early, even if he is being kept on a mustn’t-sound-too-radical-on-national-radio leash, uses the opportunity to open a rather interesting debate about the role of filthy lucre in sport, and the growing tension between authenticity and economic viability.
The New York Review of Books, no less, gets an outing here, with a story about baseball stadiums turning into malls with sport, as opposed to stadiums with merchandising. The fact that food now competes with baseball as the main attraction at the new Yankees and Mets stadiums horrifies Earley. (Unfortunately, economics intervenes here too and the article will cost you $3 to read.)
It seems that the new stadiums are designed not to expand capacity, as one might assume, but to allow for greater consumption by a wealthier, higher-spending clientèle, modern-day social climbers. Try out the ‘Audi Yankees Club’ for size (and Audi also sponsor ManU).
Alas, we’re not just talking about greedy American capitalism Disnifying the game; this dastardly plot to squeeze as much as possible out of consumers applies to the new Aviva Lansdowne Road and Wembley stadiums too, says Early.
And those holier-than-thou ‘real fan’ Hiberpudlians are in for a shock: the architect of those tacky €1,000 a seat ballparks state-side is also, it seems, the designer of the new Liverpool stadium, or as Earley puts it, ‘the new Anfield.’ Firmly in the back of the net off a stray beach ball there, methinks.
It’s all a long way from the sport, a long, long, way from the football, and it’s a very long, long way from smelling the grass in the League of Ireland.
Epilogue:
Immediately after OTB’s diversion into high-minded discourse, asked what he would buy with a €100 Lifestyles Sports prize voucher, Early, who clearly is gifted in the art of compartmentalising his thoughts on the game, says, ‘Tickets for the Emirates!’
Cue Arsenalish banter.
Cue ad for weekend football coverage, voiced by a woman who surely sounds like she has never been to either a football or baseball stadium, and complete with background of fake-hysterical, English-accented commentary …
‘In the early kick-off in the Premier League this week, there’ll be plenty of Irish involvement as Hull take on Stoke at half one…
‘… at four, the top two meet at Stamford Bridge as league leaders Chelsea go head-to-head with defending champions Man United.’
Cha-ching!. Pizza anyone?
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