Ed Warner: Kicked off, tipped off, switched off September 8, 2022 One of the joys of writing Sport inc. is the flow of suggestions from readers of subjects to cover. In the past week alone: the highly leveraged balance sheets of Premiership rugby clubs ahead of the new season, the continuing scandal of the lack of financial support for Britain’s international basketball teams, the prohibitive cost [...]
Ed Warner: Andrew Strauss, ECB and What It Takes To Win September 1, 2022 It doesn’t yet look like a camel, but Andrew Strauss’s committee to propel English cricket to the top of the world and keep it there has come up with a discussion document that doesn’t quite resemble a thoroughbred racehorse. Once it’s been through the wringer of consultation with the members of the 18 first class [...]
Ed Warner: Does society have a responsibility to retiring athletes? August 25, 2022 We may be just days away from seeing the last of Serena Williams in competitive tennis. The US Open, which starts next week, is marked out as the retirement party for the greatest tennis star of the modern era. At 40 years old, she’s late to step away from elite sport and does so with [...]
Ed Warner: Value of hosting sport found in hearts and minds as well as spreadsheets August 18, 2022 Just what does constitute a sport? Breaking – otherwise known as breakdancing – will debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics. So how about singing with a dose of choreographed body-poppery? The unlikely combination of Vladimir Putin and Sam Ryder is bringing Eurovision to the United Kingdom in 2023. Seven cities – cut from 20 – are [...]
Ed Warner: English cricket has picked the right man to solve its problems – at last August 11, 2022 It’s only taken the best part of 10 months and two attempts, but the England and Wales Cricket Board’s search for a new chair has at last come up with the outcome that the counties identified for it from the off. Richard Thompson, until now chair at Surrey, is clearly the best person for the [...]
Advantage or hindrance? Why home comforts can be a burden August 4, 2022 England’s Lionesses surfed a tidal wave of expectation to win the Women’s Euros – a wave that would have engulfed athletes with lesser mental resilience, however great their physical and technical qualities. Who knows whether they would have triumphed had the tournament been overseas? And who cares? It was on English soil with all the [...]
‘Gen Z events may be future of Commonwealth Games’ July 28, 2022 On a flight home from a business meeting in Guernsey, I sat across the aisle from members of the island’s Commonwealth Games team. I think I spotted sprinter Abi Galpin in her Guernsey Athletics sweatshirt, while an older member of the entourage – team manager? coach? – had his nose firmly in the World Championships [...]
‘Sport and technology an inevitable crossover of present and future’ July 21, 2022 If you will insist on selling sport tickets that have to be scanned at the turnstile via your app, at least make sure that there’s enough 4G coverage for me to access mine. And don’t make the fallback an email proof of purchase when my mates – including the one who sorted our tickets – [...]
Ed Warner: Challenge for women’s football is to create year-round interest July 14, 2022 Tournament organisers are learning to do right by women’s sport. But there’s a way to go yet. An Old Trafford sell-out for England’s opening match in the current Euros was widely and rightly applauded. Sticking Belgium and Iceland into the Academy Stadium at Manchester City’s Etihad Campus feels crass. We’ll never know how many might [...]
Eyes on Eugene as gamble on host could impact future of World Championships July 7, 2022 Next week, World Athletics will discover whether its bold gamble on the future of the World Championships might just pay off. A boutique venue in the third biggest city in the 27th largest state in the United States is a radical departure from the editions that have gone before. But it’s no coincidence that Eugene, [...]
