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Four Things Match of the Day Must Do to Avoid Becoming Extinct

Posted: 18/12/2012 15:16

Like Pavlov's dog I am conditioned to respond to certain things in certain ways. One of those is childlike excitement at hearing the Mariachi-style music of Match Of The Day starting up on a Saturday night.

But in recent years the BBC has conducted a ruthlessly efficient reconditioning campaign to rival that of A Clockwork Orange. The result? I am emotionally dead to MOTD.

By the time it is screened at 10.30pm I've generally seen all the goals, understand the debating points and have seen/heard the arguments on social media or on radio. Essentially, MOTD is offering nothing new.

In spite of paying more than £170m for rights to some of the most desirable sporting footage going the BBC is wasting its opportunity - and I'm not alone in suggesting it has totally lost its touch.

MOTD is a programme with no unique selling point. The biggest issues generally boil down to how bad and overpaid the presenters are or Lawro's hideous choice of shirt.

MOTD does little more than lull me into sleep - and that's a terrible failing by the BBC.

To avoid adding to the wave of negative commentary about the programme, here's four things I believe MOTD urgently needs to do before it becomes seriously at risk of extinction.

Develop the Conversation on Social Media

One thing football fans love to do is talk and debate the game, but beyond the anti-MOTD tweets it's near impossible to have an informed discussion on social media.

A verified Twitter account #BBCMOTD does exist with almost 200,000 followers, but a brief glance through the tweets from this account reveals it is woefully misused.

#BBCMOTD should be at the centre of all football debate, bossing the agenda, prompting debate and engaging football fans.

On Facebook the Match of the Day page has 1.5m likes - pretty impressive. Fans comment in the thousands, but the activity from MOTD is again, dreadful. When I looked on Tuesday 16 December, the last post was the about the programme's running order from 8 December (1,074 likes and 277 comments by the way - fans care).

Instagram drew a blank. Where's the green room pictures? Why doesn't MOTD give fans something extra?

On social media MOTD is missing a massive opportunity. That's a straight red.

Learn From BBC Question Time

#BBCQT has become THE current affairs/political event of the week. Not only does it engage its fans on social media, but it also makes its studio space work much harder.

#BBCQT does not have a fixed set, instead roaming around the country to get opinion and it works. This is something MOTD could easily achieve.

Beyond this the things which really work are: 1) the live audience and 2) the panel.

MOTD is gagging for a live studio audience similar to #BBCQT and even the 5 Live Debate. Why not have 100 passionate fans who have the chance to ask a questions based on the day's action? It works on Question Time and it would work on MOTD.

But what really gets to me and millions of others are the pundits. If reports are to be believed they are paid thousands to appear. And for what? I'm not going to go into a rant about it here, it gets boring.

What I believe would work better is a revolving Question Time-style panel of experts, from ex-players, managers, refs and writers to offer insight around the day's games and what they mean for the season. To be honest, I wouldn't be against the likes of Mr Lineker chairing.

In short, the days of a presenter and two pundits lazily running through highlights are gone.

Have a Personality

Love it or loath it, Soccer AM has a personality. It's laddish, it's silly and guess what, it's popular. If MOTD was a mate of mine I'd not know how to describe him.
'Nice bloke, but a bit dull' might be the best I could do.

Be Number One at Analysis

It constantly amazes me, when a great pundit offers insight, how little I really know about football. But I rarely get that from MOTD. It has no authority.

Gary Neville's efforts have won much praise. Please BBC learn from him.

 

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Like Pavlov's dog I am conditioned to respond to certain things in certain ways. One of those is childlike excitement at hearing the Mariachi-style music of Match Of The Day starting up on a Saturday ...
Like Pavlov's dog I am conditioned to respond to certain things in certain ways. One of those is childlike excitement at hearing the Mariachi-style music of Match Of The Day starting up on a Saturday ...
 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Frank Bevan
10:47 PM on 12/27/2012
Or you could just turn it over an not watch?

after all you say yourself by 10.30 u no the scores and all the debate points.

so dont watch it

ps

is teh old boys click on bbc --they all play golf together,and all tongue and grove each other

but as long as gabby yorath doesnt do a football show
12:14 AM on 12/23/2012
Agree that Shearer is a big negative. Seems to only be able to learn his lines for one game before the ers and ums and wheres the script start to appear. You think he would learn them in the taxi from Newcastle ;)They employed Michael Owen and that was good as induced sleep but guess they need all the help from their pals that they can muster. Often need 4 to chat about a game so over-worked are the pundits. Then Lineker was so worn out by Sports Whatsit of the Year that he's needed 2 weeks off, one to prepare and the other to recover. There should be an enquiry into this at the BBC, employing folk and over-working them ;) You get my drift and I hope they reduce his millions a little to make up for the time he needs off. They don't know how lucky they are do they.
11:59 PM on 12/20/2012
I feel Alan Shearer is the problem, he is not very bright, offers little more than banal cliches and drags down the overall standard of the punditry. Hansen & Lawrenson are both very capable when they want to be but you feel they just phone it in when Shearer is on. Lee Dixon was excellent at analysis and I was very disappointed he was allowed to leave. he made Hansen raise his game.
Gary Neville has been a revelation on Sky, but he does have the advantage of a lot more time. Revista La Liga is an excellent show and one I feel MOTD could learn from, intelligent people talking in a reasonable & insightful manner.
I don't think a studio audience is the way to go either, we have enough phone-in shows for angry fans to vent.
11:54 AM on 12/20/2012
it's a long time since carlisle have been on match of the day.(still dreaming)
11:17 AM on 12/20/2012
That's an interesting article. I too love the idea of MOTD, not least because, somewhat nostalgically, it takes me back to 'another place and time'. The music is very evocative and I love it for that but it does seem to be dead in the water. It would be a huge shame for the programme to fall into decline. What i'm not sure about is some of the suggestions, and they are only suggestions, Mr Hull makes about its revival. My big issue would be the BBCQT style approach being adopted for MOTD. I'm in danger of being accused of 'generalising' here but, rarely on BBCQTdo you get someone who is prepared to be bustled out of the studio as a result of making their point. Sadly, and I really do not mean to tar every football supporter with the same brush here but, politics does not attract the same kind of crowd that football does. You don't see anyone appearing in Court as a result of their actions on BBCQT. My fear is that we, the viewer, would be subjected to a barrage, albeit brief, of abuse about the referee or manager etc. The danger here is that the programme would be watched for its 'Jerry Springer' appeal and not its true content.
If the potential for a bun fight could be removed perhaps then the programme could move ahead in that direction. Either way, MOTD does need steering in the right direction if not a complete refit.
11:05 AM on 12/20/2012
If you dont like match of the day dont watch it!!!!!!!!!!!!
It as never been about not know a result, for decades people took down the football results at 5 o'clock to check their football coupons and then watched MotD each evening.
You "WATCH" MotD to see the goals and incidents you've heard about.... And another thing, not everyone has SKY, not everyone owns all these fancy others forms of comunication......
If you want to fix something thats broke FIX Huffington Post....... misleading headlines, pointless waste of time non stories. And on times just stories that are just plainly ~NOT TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10:16 AM on 12/20/2012
MOTD is fine, it ain't bust, and it doesn't need fixing.

I note that Huffington Post seems to be running a campaign against MOTD - this is the third time you have had a pop at MOTD.

Why? And don't tell me it's because you want to see it improve - you have another reason. What is it?
11:07 AM on 12/20/2012
perhaps he's related to Gary Neville he seems to want to have his children!!!!!!!!!!!
02:01 PM on 12/20/2012
First thing I've written about MOTD, old boy. No campaign being run, trust me. Maybe you've seen other bloggers who write for HuffPost who feel the same. Why not write a piece defending it?
03:59 PM on 12/20/2012
Yes I meant "vous" not "tu". Yes, yours is the third blog along these lines, i just wondered what Huffington Post is up to.
03:12 AM on 12/20/2012
Sport and the BBC add some royalty and we really have a recipe for sleepy time.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
outreacher
12:55 AM on 12/20/2012
Also how about reducing Radio 5 live games from being a subsidiary of MUFC where it seems every Man U game is on the radio.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Walter Duff
Sepo meliora
11:27 PM on 12/19/2012
MOTD has a panel who are echoing each other week in week out. Parrot could replace 3 of them. It could be worse, Andy Grey could end up on panel then we'd be completely brain dead.
11:12 PM on 12/19/2012
I think MOTD is fine. I haven't a problem with it. It was popular before twitter and facebook and always will be.

I don't want it dumbed down with celebrity talking heads on there and turned into some teen/early 20's orientated programme, jazzed up to the nines. And I'm not interested in other supporter's inane views. I get enough of those on Radio 5 live and Talk Radio.

All I want to do is watch the football, listen to a few comments inbetween the highlights, a couple of replays of the action like dubious decisions, etc. and I'm happy! Why complicate things.
11:28 AM on 12/20/2012
molbyJ - I'm not sure there's much scope for any further dumbing down. The programme is already dull enough. Don't get me wrong. I love MOTD in principle but it is a little like watching paint dry. I don't know why and I don't know what but something is missing. I agree, we do not need 'celebrity talking heads' but, to be fair, we do get that already when the guests are on. Some of them can barely string a sentence together. They may be great players but so many of them are not up to public appearance especially where they are expected to make interesting, insightful comment about the issue. I also agree that we do not need the views of other supporters. As you illustrate, just listen to R5 Live and Talk Radio after the final whistle. You can get that kind of 'quality' when you nip into the loo in your local pub and listen to the chat at the urinals...
Like you, I just want to watch a bit of footy (I'm no longer the huge supporter I once was) and listen to a bit, but only a bit mind, of interesting analysis. OK, thrash around a few dodgy decisions and the like but I don't want the theory of football relativity explained to me.
08:50 PM on 12/19/2012
Well for one Mark Lawrenson always looks so apathetic and down in the mouth it's almost as if he doesn't want to be there half the time. This is the guy who gets chaffeured each week from his home in Wirral to the BBC studios and back home again . Is there any valid reason why he can't travel by train or air and pay his own fares? Is it just my imagination or does he look like the son of Stan Laurel?

Alan Shearer gives the impression of having had a charisma by-pass whilst doing a great impression of a plank, and Alan Hasen although very knowledgable about the game tends to get boring after a while. Gary Lineker, ever the smug, wise cracking (at someone elses expense) chameleon type presenter who never puts forward an opinion of his own in case it may offend someone. All good footballers in their day but now is definitely the time for a complete change and a new team to run it at far less expense than this overpaid crew.
11:36 AM on 12/20/2012
sailorpedro - I tend to agree. Lawrenson is, to me at least, not required on the programme. He seems to invariably have a negative view on most points of most games (or at least his demeanour gives that distinct impression - and this is probably totally irrelevant here but his shirts, does he bet his mates that he can get away with them...)
Shearer, I could partially agree with you but he does at least give the impression he knows what he's talking about and doesn't keep interrupting unlike Hanson, who seems to love the sound of his own voice. That said, Hanson also seems to know what he is talking about.
I must disagree with your opinion of Lineker. His position, essentially as chair of the programme, does not really allow him to cast a view of any situation (unless it is clearly an issue of legallity etc. i.e. racism and the like, when he will, and should, denounce it) But with that in mind I think he carries off his role very well.
In the event of a complete change on MOTD who would you lke to see up there? I don't know enough about the game these days to know who is who!!!
06:47 PM on 12/19/2012
I, like all of my friends, never watch MOTD 'live'. We all record it and watch it next day so that we can watch the games then fast forward through the inane comments of Shearer, Lawrenson, Hansen and the very smug Lineker. These are the people who have destroyed the very essence of MOTD with their 'boys club' style of (mis)presenting a once BBC icon.
I have recently been watching some reruns of The Big Match and it reminded me of when MOTD was great i.e. we got to see lots of the game and a little comment. I have been watching football for over 45 years so I do not need some so called pundit to enlighten me. I have probably been to and viewed more games than any of them and please dont give me the line that because I have never played the game professionally I need them to tell me what is happening.
07:08 PM on 12/19/2012
Couldn't have put it better, my sentiments spot on. Why does the BBC spend licence payers money on these (so called) experts telling me whay I can see for myself? Shearer in particular puts my teeth on edge when he says things like " he could ave went" instead of... well you know the answer to that if you are an English speaker. These "experts are almost to a man very wealthy individuals, it's just jobs for the boys.
11:49 AM on 12/20/2012
I wish to be associated with the views of shieldman and dirtydingo.

BBC should be looking at ways to cut budgets ..... look no further than MOTD and ditch the over-paid and over-rated ex-pros.
05:13 PM on 12/19/2012
Get rid of Shearer and other pundits; they are boring and only repeat what each other say. Linekere is old hat. Let's have someone with "get up and go" to liven things up, and bring the programme forward by at least half an hour.
05:11 PM on 12/19/2012
If the BBC has paid £170 million for just the highlights why don't they put on an hour of highlights at about 10 PM followed by an hour of question time style debate ,should keep everyone happy