Ed Warner: Why sports will have to change to stay down with the kids November 28, 2024 A leading cricket journalist bemoaned the lack of Test cricket on terrestrial TV to me recently, trotting out the well-worn argument that the England Wales Cricket Board had severely weakened the sport when it signed coverage over to Sky back in 2005. That’s as maybe, but if long-form cricket was free to view on mainstream [...]
Ed Warner: Gold rush for athletes as sport venures into crazy territory November 21, 2024 Too much money chasing too few goods spells inflation. In the madcap pursuit of novel sporting ventures it is the athletes whose prices are swelling.
Champions League was meant to get more exciting. It’s anything but November 14, 2024 Uefa has deepened the financial well of European club competition but its waters may have been poisoned in the process.
Ed Warner: Chair the football regulator? No thanks, not even for £130k November 7, 2024 The job ad for the chair is being circulated widely by opponents of the concept of a regulator in the hope that a moderate rather than a zealot will land the role.
Ed Warner: Have sports missed esports boat – or was there never one to catch? October 31, 2024 Ahead of the League of Legends Worlds 2024 in London this weekend, Ed Warner wonders whether sports have got esports all wrong.
Ed Warner: Are we witnessing the slow death of the transfer fee? October 17, 2024 Football transfer fees for superstar players make headlines, but in years to come we may look back on them as a quirk of history, argues Ed Warner. Another international break in the football calendar. Time for managers to fret about risk of injury to “their” players while away on national duty. Chairmen, too, to worry [...]
Arsenal are overachieving in the Premier League, but do fans appreciate it? October 10, 2024 In a parallel universe, Arsenal have already beaten Manchester City to the title. Forget Pep and Mikel’s inflamed war of words in this season’s scrap for the Premier League trophy; the Gunners have bagged the prize for outperforming their playing budget. Football, though, must ultimately be about fans’ dreams, not investors’ and bank managers’ bottom [...]
Ed Warner: My 10 sports for a slimmed down Commonwealth Games October 3, 2024 The self-styled ‘friendly games’ are no longer quite so friendless: it appears Glasgow will indeed host a slimmed-down edition of the Commonwealth Games in 2026, although still we await official confirmation. The trouble is that 20 into 10 won’t go, and boxing’s political turmoil is holding up a decision on which sports will be left [...]
Ed Warner: A player power reckoning is coming for football and cricket September 26, 2024 Whether or not Rodri truly believes over-worked footballers are close to taking strike action, his comments have certainly had cut-through. Athlete strikes are not without precedent, in football and elsewhere. Think of the four strikes in the NFL’s history plus its owner lockouts, and Argentina’s football strike of 2017. Back in 2001, English footballers voted [...]
Ed Warner: Seb Coe, Gary Glitter and the most powerful job in sport September 19, 2024 Seb Coe, newly confirmed as one of seven candidates for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is regarded as a serial vote winner. It wasn’t always thus. Witness his single term in office as the MP for Falmouth and Camborne in Cornwall, ousted by Candy Atherton as Labour swept to power in 1997. [...]
