There was a surprise guest at the annual Sports Journalists Association awards gala on Thursday. Linford Christie made a rare public appearance to honor Zharnel Hughes for breaking the 30-year-old British 100m record, and whatever the controversies of the past, the long selfie queue that soon formed was a reminder of an indisputable fact.
Athletics once stood alongside football in the nation’s consciousness, and serial winners like Christie were among the country’s most famous people.
The day before, UK Athletics had announced an annual loss of £3.7 million and its chairman, Ian Beattie, was forced to explain how the sport is now running without a main sponsor and even had to partially subsidize the BBC’s splashy Diamond League coverage this year. Summer. Around £1.8m has been cut since last year and with the Olympics just seven months away, a “much weaker organisation” is predicted.
“Obviously it was a tough time,” Beattie said.
A current athletics international puts this more clearly.
“Everyone I talk to says it’s a complete mess,” the British athlete said. Telegraph Sports.
One executive describes a sport historically full of change-resistant traditionalists, long torn between lucrative structures like football, golf or Formula 1, and Olympic disciplines that can realistically only expect a sunny day every four years.
“Athstics in the UK risks becoming a quadrennial event that people remember enjoying but then forget,” the manager said.
But how many traditional Olympic sports can still attract 50,000 spectators for a single day event, as athletics meets at the London Stadium for the Diamond League in July? Or will the following month, when Katarina Johnson-Thompson regains the world heptathlon title, bring in three million television viewers that will surpass even Easterners?
It remains a sport that is truly global in nature and has the potential to catapult the likes of Johnson-Thompson, Keely Hodgkinson, Zharnel Hughes and the next golden generation of middle-distance runners into another stratosphere in Paris next summer. .
Despite the support of home fans, the London Diamond League has faced losses approaching £500,000 this year. The same meeting last year ended up being £800,000 in the red, while the indoor World Tour Event in Birmingham – dropped from next year’s program – lost £500,000. Big stars command five- and sometimes even six-figure appearance fees, as well as expenses and prize money, leaving no chance of breaking even without major commercial and broadcast partners.
So why can’t athletics sell itself in this country?
Conversations with large numbers of people within the sport always lead to two issues. The first of these is the loss in 2020 of the £3 million annual contract with the BBC to show local highlights.
The other is the mismanagement and distracting infighting outlined in an independent review by Dame Sue Street three years ago, informing a “general culture of mistrust” and insiders’ view that “the situation couldn’t get any worse”.
Ed Warner, who was president until 2017, also wrote a harsh assessment at the beginning of this year, calling the situation “scandalous” and criticizing “unnecessary politics, pursuit of vanity projects, timidity and simple carelessness.” He cleared Beattie and CEO Jack Buckner of wrongdoing after they had been in the job since 2021 and 2022 respectively, but specifically noted how the BBC deal had been canceled rather than renegotiated well before it was due to expire.
“Now the BBC is thinking: ‘Do we need to renew? Where else will UK Athletics go?” said another industry insider. “Sky may spend money but when you sit down with a big potential sponsor like Aviva, Sainsbury’s or Muller they want a few million eyes to watch. It’s a virtuous cycle. “If you don’t have a showcase, you can’t bring in the sponsor.”
Following the departures of Niels de Vos and Warner as respective UKA CEO and chairman in 2018 and 2017, each more than a decade later, their roles have been replaced by nine different incumbents.
The longest CEO tenure between De Vos and Buckner was that of Jo Coates, who arrived just days before the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 and resigned in October the following year following a major disagreement over shielding policy. Coates says that the BBC’s decision to withdraw was known two years ago and points out that the organization has almost reached the breaking point in its 2020-21 calculations.
“Unfortunately, there was a group of people in athletics who were actively working against me,” he says. Her main regret was reviewing whether the distances in the men’s and women’s cross-country races should be equalized, admitting that she had created an unnecessary storm in the sport.
This also led to great instability among coaches. Neil Black was the long-serving director of performance but resigned shortly before his death in 2020 after coming under criticism for his support of Sir Mo Farah’s now disgraced former coach Alberto Salazar. Sara Symington and Christian Malcolm came and went just weeks after leading England to 10 medals at this year’s World Championships, before Stephen Maguire’s shock departure as manager last month.
I’m only picking potential top eight finishers branded ’embarrassing’
Sources say this happened after disagreements over where the cuts would be made. Paula Dunn was recently appointed interim head coach and will be aware of athletes’ unrest on the fringes of UK Sport-funded programmes, particularly for potential Olympic medalists.
Telegram Sports A “them and us” atmosphere has been spoken of, with even free access to training facilities in Birmingham and Loughborough reserved for the athletes selected for funding, while others balance their training – and all associated costs – with various jobs.
There is also deep controversy over a policy in which only athletes who potentially finish in the top eight at the World Championships or Olympic Games are selected. This means world-ranked athletes are not in Budapest over the summer, even at some events where Britain is not represented. One athlete this week described the policy as “disgraceful” and said some athletes were missing out on thousands of pounds of sponsorship bonuses for taking part in a major championship as a result.
“Not only does the British athlete lose out on experience and potential earnings, but this also translates to a lower-ranked athlete from another country,” the athlete said.
UK Athletics will continue to focus primarily on athletes judged to be capable of reaching the finals ahead of the Olympics, alongside the relay programme, which won four medals at the World Championships despite major tensions behind the scenes.
Saying that the Olympics and World Championships will not provide the best development for athletes below the high qualification standards required by UKA, Buckner says, “You create a positive momentum for success in this environment.”
With confidence in the Olympics present and backed by a still-strong club scene, the European Cross Country Championships in Brussels on Sunday demonstrated deep potential. Innes Fitzgerald, Megan Keith and Will Barnicoat were among the individual gold medalists at Under-20 and Under-23 level as part of the record-breaking haul that brought team gold in four of seven events.
A new partnership with the London Marathon and Great Run is being discussed which could see athletics events, including those organized by the UKA, brought together in a broadcast offering.
Buckner, who has also pitched a documentary-style Olympic series to the BBC, says there is “no magic pot full of gold” but they will continue to do the “tough shot” in developing their products and pitching them to broadcasters and sponsors. His tenure will be judged largely on what deals are ultimately struck, and a renegotiated deal with Nike at least helped avoid bankruptcy.
This means that UKA had £6.5 million of cash in the bank as of 31 March 2023, which does not appear in the final profit/loss statement and that the organization plans to reach breakeven from 2025.
Frank Dick, director of coaching when British athletics was at its peak from 1979 to 1994, now emphasizes the need for stability and long-term planning. After all this acrimony, there is also a passionate defense.
“We’ve got great athletes, great coaches, good managers; for God’s sake, you’re all in the same game, on the same team, wearing the same colors, the same badge,” he says. “We are dependent on each other. If we don’t move forward together, we will die separately.
“This sport is amazing; It changes people’s lives for the better, and we should extol its virtues.
“I have 100 percent confidence in Jack; he did an incredible job in triathlon, he did an incredible job in swimming. He will do an incredible job in athletics. “The problem is he has a ship with a hole in the side.
“Their ability to be a captain is being compromised. He can’t do this on his own. And hopefully all his energy won’t be used frantically to get the water out.”