No British X-posure for X Games

Image Courtesy of BBC

I confess to your all, something very strange happens to me twice a year. I become gripped by the urge to throw all my eggs in one basket, go to a ski resort and try and improve my skills in the park. No coincidence that these urges collide with the X Games, first in Aspen, USA and then followed in March by its European counterpart in Tignes.

The bright lights, the baggy clothing, the incredibly level of skill, it’s all just so appealing to me. Dream Job? Probably doing the X Games broadcasts, which are done with ESPN and Canal +, who are both doing a fine job of showing off this extreme sports event to the max, what a shame then, that no many people in the UK really have any idea that it’s on.

I know, I’m talking about a niche sport here, I know not everyone is fascinated by just how many spins are possible when flying through the air, but you have to admit that freestyle skiing is pretty impressive to watch. So impressive that every time I excitedly show my mother the latest competition on TV she looks at me in fear and begs me never to try doing it myself (too late, but that’s for another day).



Ed Leigh and Graham Bell - Courtesy of BBC



Here in the UK our snow sports programming is limited essentially to Ski Sunday, who have also brought in token snowboarder Ed Leigh. They’re doing a pretty good job, trying to bring snow to the masses in the UK, but let’s not forget where ski Sunday started, with ski racing, and it now seems to be more of a ‘One Show on Snow’ although it’s distinctly improved from a few years ago, the showing of competitions seems far less at the forefront of the producers minds than displaying Graham Bell in some far flung European Resort doing things that his audience won’t ever get a chance to do in a million years.

The X Games are shown on the formidable Extreme Sports Channel, who are very good at giving a platform to all the obscure things my friends and I seem interested in. In the winter, it’s dominated by snow sports and urban ride events and in the summer it switches to motocross, surfing and skating. All of this is highly watchable for an extreme sports fan, but for access to Joe Public, not so great.

I’ve been lucky enough to see the first run of ESPN covering the Aspen X Games in 3D, and it was impressive. It needs work, but it’s the first time it’s been done in that format, and there are a lot of 3D firsts still to come. I personally think a lot of snows ports lend themselves to 3D, but certainly for freestyle, the execs in the big offices need to remember that the bit in the air is the part you want to see and the part that looks the best. For all intents and purposes the landing isn’t so crucial, this seems to have been a prevailing factor certainly for the big air competitions, in that we’re losing all the impressive qualities of 3D because we aren’t getting close enough to the air time and then suddenly the rider has landed and you’ve lost the feeling of 3D perspective.

In order to get these events right, the broadcasters need to start working with the athletes. Consulting them on footage and working with them to decide where the best shots will be. These riders have for the most part been in tons of movies with very experienced snow sports directors, they will have picked up something, believe me. They want to look good to the audience too, so why can’t sports broadcasters accept they don’t know everything sometimes and get some fresh eyes on board. These competitions are different to football, golf etc so you need to look at it as something entirely new.



Katie Summerhayes @ MK Snowdome
Courtesy of SCUK



But back to the original point, despite all this impressive technology, these riders and these competitions just aren’t getting the exposure. In the UK we have some promising talent competing around the globe and we will have 3 competitors in the X Games Europe, which you’re even less likely to see here in the UK than you would its big American brother, simply because its a much smaller operation (although a great atmosphere, I attended last year and very much enjoyed it!).

At the end of the day, the sad fact is that British sports broadcasters are increasingly sticking to the big guns. Football, Rugby, Golf, Tennis and Boxing, and everyone else is suffering. Minority sports can’t expect to get funding and exposure if they aren’t given a chance to sell their wares on the big stage. Snow sports are selling a product, but it’s two very specific ones; to the rich people on chalet holidays or the kids who are stomping tricks at snowdomes every week and their parents, and which of these groups will be driving forward funding and exposure for our young athletes, well I’ll leave you to decide that one for yourself.

London 2012 – Are We at Risk of Repeating Montreal in 1976?



As a very keen supporter of the Olympic movement, nothing made me more proud that the moment that we successfully won the bid on the 6th of July 2005. Seeing the Parisians look mournfully at their champagne as it all went off in Trafalgar square was in a horrible way, fantastic. We had beaten the French who were so sure that they had it in the bag, and London was full of enthusiasm to bring sport’s greatest event to the London stage.



Fast forward 6 years with overspend increasing every day, a stadium that is the subject of a bitter battle between two London premier league teams, an aquatic centre that can’t be a leisure centre post-games because the roof is too low and a general discontent from many in East London regarding the handling of events and facilities. London appears to have lost its enthusiasm for 2012, which is such a shame considering how much we wanted it. At the moment it feels like the only sliver of redemption for the Olympic committee is the Velodrome, which has received widespread praise from the cycling community as it nears its completion date. It’s hard to believe that the venue that looks like a giant pringle crisp is the one holding up our hopes at the moment.



The London 2012 Velodrome

As we wait today for the OPLC decision on whether it will be West Ham or Tottenham Hotspur who will be the preferred bidder for ownership of the stadium once the games have ended, you have to ask as to whether all the public sniping has only further worsened the prospects of the games in the eyes of many Londoners.



The 'Big Owe'

In 1976 the Montreal Olympics changed the face of Olympic organisation and funding. Due to construction and venues being unfinished only a year before the games the final push to get things ready the debt when everything was over totalled around $1 billion, and the city was still paying off that debt 30 years later. The stadium which generated most of the cost was known as the ‘Big O’ due to its shape, but thanks to it being mostly unused since the games and its massive debts, residents of the city have renamed it the ‘Big Owe’.

Of course the stadium is over budget, you would be naive to think that any Olympic Stadium wouldn't be. Granted we are not in the position of the organisers in Delhi for the commonwealth games who were struggling to finish the running track as the athletes arrived in their accomodation, but we need to address issues like the funding for the 'wrap' around the stadium which was scrapped from the public funding in order to save money.

Montreal has suffered from its Olympic legacy, which is something we don’t want to happen here in London. The 1984 games in Los Angeles changed the face of Olympic funding as it looked to corporate support and sponsorship to put on one of the most ostentatious events in Olympic history, but a city needs both corporate and grassroots backing to make sure the legacy is in tact many years after the gold medallists have left.
 

West Ham's Impression for the Olympic Stadium





The Olympic organisers are already alienating the local public, by deciding not to run the marathon through east London and through London’s more significant sights gives a clear signal that East London is only really important because it had the space to accommodate the Olympic park and its various other needs, not because it’s an area that is worthy to see the world’s best battle it out on the roads around the park. Indeed, if the bid for the stadium goes to Tottenham Hotspur then it will be a second snub to East London, due to the West Ham bid being planned in conjunction with and financed by Newham council, who are looking to retain a legacy for their borough.

I personally believe that the bid should go West Ham’s way. As a West Ham supporter (ok, QPR are first in my affections, but the Hammers are a close second) it does worry me that we don’t really have the financial capacity to support the bid, and we are battling anyway to stay in the premier league, but the fact is that knocking down the Olympic stadium would be a travesty. Montreal’s stadium may have been an absolute disaster, but the demolition crew didn’t move in despite its troubles.

Although Spurs do propose to retain the legacy for athletics elsewhere in London rejuvenating Crystal Palace’s neglected athletics arena, the honest truth is that the Crystal Palace complex needs an entire makeover. What used to be at the forefront of sports development here in London is now a rather sad looking complex that would need a complete overhaul to compete with the facilities that are available elsewhere around the world.

We cannot expect greatness from our athletes if we are not prepared to provide for them at grassroots and give them access and support to facilities and staff. We now have excellent results in cycling, rowing and swimming with the gymnasts also pushing for glory once 2012 comes around, but can we really expect young athletes to keep going in distinctly average facilities once the lure of a home crowd has gone? Manchester Velodrome is looking a bit worse for wear and all credit to our swimmers who have fewer 50m swimming pools in the entire country than the city of Melbourne is Australia.

It would be a shame to see a world class athletics facility be ripped out all in the name of good seats to a football game. It can be viable to host athletics and football in the same place and it seems like Spurs, although producing an excellent bid, have forgotten the point of the Olympics. It’s about opening sport up to all and the excellence of the amateur. What better way to exclude the amateur athlete by ignoring its original purpose and making it a premier league football club.

The Curse of Interning

Thought I might write about something a bit more interesting/serious this week, and it’s something that I think is so important to know. Anyone reading this who works in the media industry will have no doubt come across the joy of interning and work experience, and it’s astonishing how few people realise they are being exploited by this practice as a whole.

My former tutor at Leeds told me about one of the present students who had done some work experience at the dominant local radio broadcaster in West Yorkshire, the student had finished work experience, but then they offered the student shifts but didn’t pay the student for the shifts he was working. They let this go on for 9 months, giving the student no payment whatsoever for his hard work, and no indication that it would be rewarded.

First and foremost, this kind of practice is ILLEGAL. Anyone working is entitled to the national minimum wage, unless they are a student in full time education where they may undertake WORK EXPERIENCE as part of their education and studies or where the broadcaster/company is a registered charity, so for example youth projects or hospital radio. So in the case above, the student’s initial placement was fine, but the shifts offered following the end of the placement was in no way in line with current UK employment law.

Speaking as someone who knows many people who slave away as interns, with the expectation of the job appearing at the end of it, it’s so difficult to change everyone’s view on this kind of thing. We all intern and we all accept that the only way to bolster your CV or even stand a chance of getting into some large companies is to offer your services free of charge until ‘something comes up’.

Interns frequently are the people working hardest in an office, always keen to impress and all in the hope that the company they are being exploited by will wave a magic wand and give them a job, or that someone will see it on their CV and deign them to be experienced enough to have a full time job.
I understand the importance of getting experience in the industry, but it feels like entry level jobs have now become unpaid jobs, and so anyone looking to crack into the media, particularly production, magazines and advertising must accept months to a year of working for free after university before they will even be considered. Entry level jobs ask for 6 months experience, but I ask how can you get that valuable experience without living on tinned soup trying to pay rent for a long term period.

It’s even more difficult if you are being paid a salary but are looking to switch jobs. It would seem all your previous skills become irrelevant and you must go from a permanent position to unpaid work experience to even stand a chance of being considered by any potential employers. This is making our industry particularly inflexible, and possibly a wealth of talent is slipping under the radar because they feel that they cannot possibly afford to go back to being unpaid for the chance (which is very difference to a definite) of a job offer. It's good to see media websites like Media UK and The Unit List trying to help and posting up guidelines for people who are looking to break into the media and for people who might already be working and be unaware of the rules.

So as a whole I think the practice of interning needs to be reviewed, but in all honesty, all it would take would be an intern at the end of their tether and a very generous employment lawyer to take up their case and take it to court in order to get the media to stop condoning what sometimes seems like slave labour, and give people a chance to be rewarded for their hard work and the skills they bring to the table.