Timeline of BBC Sport

This is a timeline of the history of BBC Sport.

1930s
  • 1936
    • 2 November – The BBC opens the world's first regular high-definition television service, from Alexandra Palace.
  • 1938
    • 2 April – The BBC covers The Boat Race for the first time.
    • 30 April – The BBC broadcasts television coverage of the FA Cup for the first time.
  • 1939
    • 1 September – The BBC Television Service is suspended, owing to the imminent outbreak of the Second World War.

1940s
  • 1940 to 1945
    • No events due to television being closed for the duration of the Second World War.
  • 1946
    • 7 June – BBC Television broadcasts resume.
  • 1947
    • 8 February – A non-final match of the FA Cup is broadcast for the first time when the BBCs how's the fifth round match between Charlton Athletic and Blackburn Rovers.
  • 1948
    • 1 May – The BBC broadcasts the Rugby League Challenge Cup final for the first time but then did not show the event again until 1952 and began annual coverage in 1958.
    • 29 July-14 August – The London Olympic Games is televised and the BBC broadcasts extensive live coverage.
  • 1949
    • No events.

1950s
  • 1950
    • No events.
  • 1951
    • No events.
  • 1952
    • No events.
  • 1953
    • No events.
  • 1954
    • 8 April – The first edition of Sportsview is broadcast.
    • 16 June - 4 July – The FIFA World Cup is broadcast by the BBC for the first time with selected matches shown live.
    • 30 December – The first BBC Sports Personality of the Year is awarded.
  • 1957
    • No events.
  • 1958
    • 10 October – First broadcast of the United Kingdom's multi-sport Saturday afternoon television show Grandstand.
  • 1959
    • No events.

1960s
  • 1960
    • 26 March – The BBC broadcasts live coverage of The Grand National for the first time.[1]
    • 25 August – The BBC shows live coverage of a non-UK Olympic Games for the first time.
  • 1961
    • No events.
  • 1962
    • No events.
  • 1963
    • No events.
  • 1965
    • 2 May – Sunday Cricket is broadcast for the first time. The programme, which runs throughout the afternoon on BBC2, features full coverage of a match "played under knock-out rules".[2]
    • 6 October – The first edition of the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy is broadcast, bringing rugby league to television screens on a regular basis for the first time. The competition is designed specifically for television.
  • 1967
    • 1 July – Regular colour TV transmissions begin on BBC2, starting with the Wimbledon tennis championships.
  • 1969
    • 23 June – The BBC once again becomes the exclusive broadcaster of the Wimbledon Championships. Since 1955 the BBC had shared coverage of the tennis tournament with ITV.
    • 23 July – Snooker tournament Pot Black launches on BBC Two. It is used as a way of showcasing colour television which had recently launched on the channel.

1970s
  • 1970
    • No events.
  • 1971
    • No events.
  • 1972
    • No events.
  • 1974
    • August – Lunchtime preview show Football Focus launches. It is broadcast as a segment within Grandstand. ITV had been broadcasting its own lunchtime football preview programme for the previous six years.
  • 1975
    • The BBC shows darts for the first time when it covers that year's British Open.
    • 9 August – Sportscene is broadcast for the first time, mainly to show highlights of Scottish football although the programme also covers other sports.
    • 16 August – The first edition of Scoreboard is shown on BBC One Scotland. It is an opt-out from Grandstand to provide fuller coverage of the day's Scottish football news.
  • 1976
    • No events.
  • 1977
    • No events.

1980s
  • 1981
    • 29 March – The BBC covers the inaugural London Marathon although it wasn't until 1984 that the BBC shows the event live and in full.
    • 17 May – Sunday Grandstand launches. It broadcasts during the summer months on BBC2.[8] The programme includes weekly coverage of Sunday Cricket which had been shown on BBC2 since 1965.
  • 1983
    • 28 October – The BBC shows the first of five live matches from the 1983-84 football season as part of a new joint BBC-ITV deal to show live league football.[11]
  • 1984
    • No events.
  • 1985
    • ITV takes over from the BBC as broadcaster of UK athletics meetings.
  • 1986
    • 12-13 April – The BBC shows live coverage of the The Masters golf event for the first time, showing coverage of the final two rounds.
    • 19 November – As part of the BBC's new daytime television service, a Wednesday afternoon sports programme, Sports Afternoon launches.[12] The programme broadcasts on Wednesday afternoon during the winter months BBC2 from around 2.35pm until 3.50pm although it is sometimes extended when love sport is being shown.
  • 1987
    • 22 May-20 June – The BBC shows mostly recorded coverage of the first Rugby World Cup. This is the only time the BBC has ever shown the competition - ITV has held the rights ever since.
    • 9 October – Sports Afternoon is renamed Sport on Friday. As well as a change in broadcast day, the programme now runs for 90 minutes, beginning slightly earlier at around 2.15pm, although it is sometimes extended to show additional live coverage.
  • 1988
    • The BBC shows a live Division 1 football match for the final time as coverage of football's top division moves in its entirety - both live and recorded - to ITV for the new season. Consequently, Match of the Day ends as a weekly programme.
    • Summer – The BBC announces that it will end all coverage of darts apart from the World Championships. ITV follows suit later in the year.
    • 17 September – The BBC starts to use a BBC Sport ident at the beginning of all sports coverage and this is broadcast for the first time at the start of the first programme covering the 1988 Olympic Games.[13] This is also the first time that the BBC shows the event live and in full, providing more than 12 hours of live coverage each day. Previously the BBC had only shown live coverage of the major events with no more than six hours of live coverage each day.
    • The BBC becomes the sole broadcaster of the FA Cup and Match of the Day, which now only broadcasts on Cup weekends, is renamed Match of the Day: The Road to Wembley.
  • 1989
    • 7 January – BBC Scotland launches an extended Saturday teatime results programme. Rather than opting out of the last few minutes of Grandstand, the programme, called Afternoon Sportscene, runs for the entire duration of the time allocated for the day's results, starting at some point between 1 and 5 minutes before the network's English counterpart Final Score begins.
    • 23 July – The BBC broadcasts what was to be its final coverage of the rugby union British & Irish Lions when it shows live coverage of the final test match of the Lions’ 1989 British Lions tour to Australia.[14]
    • 11 August – Friday Sportscene launches as a Friday night preview of the weekend's Scottish football.[15] – 25 May 2001 [16]

1990s
  • 1990
    • 24 January–3 February – The BBC broadcasts the 1990 Commonwealth Games. BBC1 stays on air all night to provide live coverage. This is the first time that BBC1 has provided full live coverage of an overseas Commonwealth Games.
  • 1991
    • No events.
  • 1992
    • 15 August – The start of the Premier League sees the return of Match of the Day on a weekly basis due to the Corporation obtaining the highlights package to the new competition. The weekly coverage is supplemented by the BBC's ongoing coverage - both live and recorded - of the FA Cup, riots which the BBC also shares with Sky Sports.
  • 1993
    • 24-26 September – The BBC shows live coverage of golf's Ryder Cup for the final time as from 1995 the coverage transfers to Sky Sports.
  • 1994
    • 15-17 March – The BBC shows The Cheltenham Festival for the final time.
    • 18 May – The BBC shows the 1994 European Cup Final. This brings to an end the BBC's association with football's premier European clubs tournament which had dated back to when the competition began almost four decades earlier.
    • 30 October – Sportscene Rugby Special launches on BBC Scotland's to cover Scottish rugby union with the live matches & highlights broadcasting on BBC Two Scotland on Sunday teatimes. [17]
  • 1997
    • March – ITV takes over as the broadcaster of Formula One motor racing. It shows full coverage of qualifying as well as the race itself, something that the previous rights holder, the BBC, generally did not do. ITV also obtains the FA Cup and England International football highlights rights from the BBC at around the same time, resulting in the return of the FA Cup to ITV screens for the first time since 1988 although the Corporation does manage to hold on to highlights of the FA Cup.
    • 21 March – The final edition of Sport on Friday is broadcast, the programme ending after a decade on air.
    • 14 May – After nearly 30 years on air, the final edition of Sportsnight is shown on BBC1.
  • 1998
    • 25 January – Sunday Grandstand becomes a year-round programme. Previously it had only broadcast between May and September.[18]
    • February – For the first time, the BBC does not show England's matches in the Five Nations Championships. Live coverage is on Sky Sports and highlights are on ITV.
    • 22 September – The final edition of cricket magazine Gower's Cricket Monthly is broadcast following the announcement that the BBC has lost the right to show English cricket to Channel 4[19] with the final domestic live action being shown on the BBC at around this time.
  • 1999
    • May – Domestic athletics returns to the BBC after more than a decade.
    • 20 June – The BBC broadcasts live cricket for the final time for more than 20 years when it shows live coverage of the 1999 Cricket World Cup Final, bringing to an end of sixty years of continuous cricket coverage on the BBC.

2000s
  • 2000
    • 20 May – Due to the loss of many major sports rights in recent years, the BBC does not broadcast this week's edition of Grandstand – ITV was showing the FA Cup Final.[20] Apart from when Christmas Day fell on a Saturday or a major national event taking place, this had been the first time that Grandstand had not been broadcast on a Saturday afternoon since the programme's inception in 1958.
    • 15 June – The latest contracts for football's Premier League are announced which reveals that ITV has won the rights to the highlights package from the BBC at a reported cost of £183 million.[21]
    • 18 November – After six years on air, the final edition of Sportscene Rugby Union is broadcast. The programme ends due to the BBC losing the rights to Scottish rugby to ITV.[22]
    • BBC Sport Online launches.
    • The BBC returns to live coverage of boxing. However this ends after a few years and subsequently, BBC Television only covers the sport on radio, apart from during multi-sport events such as the Olympic Games.
  • 2001
    • 9 June – For the first time since 1979, the BBC shows the The Derby[23] as the contract for Epsom had previously been held by ITV and later Channel 4.
    • 11 August – Football Focus and Final Score become programmes in their own right. Previously both had been a segment within Grandstand.
    • September – The rights to the FA Cup and the England football team return to the BBC with the Corporation showing live coverage of the national team for the first time in a decade.
  • 2003
    • The BBC wins the rights to the MotoGP World Championship. Previously, the Corporation had only covered the British leg of the championships.
    • 24 May – The BBC's coverage of the Heineken Cup ends. It had shown rugby union's European clubs tournament since the late 1990s.
  • 2004
    • May – BBC Scotland's two seasons of showing live Scottish Premier League ends after the rights are sold to Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports.[26]
    • 14 August – To co-inside with the BBC regaining rights to highlights of the Premier League, BBC Sport launches an afternoon-long football scores service Score Interactive. The programme is broadcast from 14:30 until 18:00 on the BBC's interactive service, the BBC Red Button. The BBC had operated an in-vision scores service on Saturday afternoon the previous season.
    • 15 August – Match of the Day 2 launches to show highlights of Sunday Premier League matches. It is called MOTD2 due to it being shown on BBC Two.
    • 26 November – It is announced that the BBC loses the rights to The Boat Race to ITV. It had covered the event since 1938.[27]
  • 2005
    • After nearly 40 years on air, Rugby Special ends although it does return on an ad hoc basis a decade later.
  • 2006
    • 1-5 August – The BBC shows Glorious Goodwood for the final time, having covered the event for the previous 50 years. This is the latest horse-racing event the BBC loses to Channel 4.
    • The BBC broadcasts cricket for the first time in more than seven years when it shows highlights of the 2006-07 Ashes series.
  • 2007
    • The BBC shows coverage of the NFL for the first time.
    • 28 January – The final edition of Grandstand is broadcast. The programme ends after 49 years on air.
    • 13 March-28 April – The BBC broadcasts cricket for the first time in more than seven years when it shows highlights of the 2006-07 Ashes series and the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup. The BBC also shows highlights of the 2011 event.
    • May – The BBC Trust approved plans for several BBC departments, including BBC Sport, to be moved to a new development in Salford.[28]
  • 2008
    • The BBC loses the rights to ITV to the FA Cup and the England football team after seven years on the BBC.[29] Consequently, the BBC has no rights to any form of coverage of the FA Cup for the first time in seven decades.
  • 2009
    • 29 March – Formula One returns to the BBC after twelve seasons on ITV. [30]
    • Live coverage of the Football League returns to British terrestrial television when the BBC securing 10 live Championship (second tier) games per season, as well as Football League highlights after Match of the Day. This is the first time that the BBC held the rights to the second tier - they had been with ITV since 1992.[31]
    • December – The BBC broadcasts the end of year ATP Finals for the first time.

2010s
  • 2010
    • 18 January – The BBC launches a regional football show to supplement its coverage of the Football League. Called Late Kick Off, the programmes follows a magazine-style format.[32]
    • 3 April – The BBC once again becomes the broadcaster of The Boat Race.[33]
  • 2011
    • 8 January – The BBC launches a children's football magazine show Match of the Day Kickabout.
    • 28 October – The BBC loses the rights to tennis' French Open to ITV, The corporation had shown the event, albeit in very limited form, for many decades.[34] ITV will show full live coverage, mainly on ITV4, as opposed to the partial coverage shown by the previous rights holder, the BBC.
    • The BBC also loses the rights to the World Athletics Championships to Channel 4. Initially Channel 4 bought the rights to the 2011 and 2013 events but due to poor reception of Channel 4's coverage, and the broadcaster's decision to focus on Paralympic Sports, the BBC won back the rights to the 2013 event, The 2011 championships is the only edition that BBC Sport has not shown.
  • 2012
    • 5 March – BBC Sport starts broadcasting bulletins from MediaCity UK in Salford.[35]
    • 27 July-12 August – The 2012 Summer Olympics take place and with the exception of news programming BBC One is devoted entirely to live coverage of the Games. However, the BBC does not show the 2012 Paralympic Games as Channel 4 had won the rights to the event and gave it far more coverage than the BBC ever had done in the past.
    • August – Match of the Day 2 moves to BBC One.
    • December – BBC Sport shows horse racing for the final time ahead of Channel 4 taking over as broadcaster of all terrestrial horse racing from the start of 2013. [36] The BBC had scaled back its horse racing in recent years, gradually losing more and more events to Channel 4.
    • During 2012 the BBC loses the rights to the Scottish Open, and BMW PGA Championship to Sky Sports.
  • 2014
    • After five years without any FA Cup coverage, the BBC regains the rights to the FA Cup, which it shares with BT Sport.[37]
  • 2015
    • 25 May – Following the loss of rights to the Football League to Channel 5, The Football League Show and Late Kick Off end after six seasons. The principal reason for losing the rights because the BBC screened the highlights late at night whereas Channel 5 offered to show them at 9pm.[38]
    • June – The BBC's Wimbledon Tennis Championships highlights programme changes format and name, to Wimbledon 2day, with a new lighthearted magazine format, but after only one year, the format was abandoned for 2016.[39]
    • July – The BBC and ITV join forces to stop Sky Sports from picking up live coverage of the Six Nations Championship. The two terrestrial broadcasts will share coverage of the event from 2017 onwards.[40]
    • 17-20 July – After 60 years, the BBC shows live coverage of The Open Championship for the final time as from next year, live coverage of the event transfers to Sky Sports although the BBC does continue to show two hours of highlights each day.[41]
    • 21 December – Budget cuts result in the BBC deciding to end its coverage of Formula One. The rights transfer to Channel 4.[42]
  • 2017
    • February – The BBC and ITV begin a five-year contract as joint broadcasters of the Six Nations Championship. They had joined forces to prevent the tournament being sold to pay television.
    • 3 November – The BBC announces that it has signed deals with a number of different sports to bring 1,000 extra hours of live sports coverage each year. The increase in free-to-air sport will be seen through the BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer and includes the early rounds of the FA Cup, more matches from Wimbledon and women's football Super League fixtures as well as coverage of the entire Rugby League Challenge Cup. Olympic sports including hockey, swimming and basketball, are also expected to receive more coverage.[45]
  • 2018
    • The BBC's coverage of the PRO14 Rugby ends when the rights are sold to Premier Sports. The BBC had covered the competition since its inception in 2001.[46]
    • June – The BBC airs all its matches from the 2018 World Cup in 4K UHD and VR to a limited number of viewers.[47] This is the first BBC Sport broadcast in 4K HD.
    • 2-12 August – The BBC shows live coverage of the inaugural European Championships (multi-sport event).
    • 15 December – The BBC begins its coverage of Formula E and shows most of the races on the BBC Red Button.
  • 2019
    • 12-13 April – The BBC shows live coverage of the The Masters golf event for the final time, showing live coverage of the final two rounds. Coverage of the entire event - the BBC had shared coverage since 2011 - moves to Sky Sports. This ends all live coverage of golf on the BBC.
    • 9 May – The final edition of The Premier League Show is broadcast.
    • November – The BBC loses the rights to Britain's Davis Cup tennis matches to Eurosport, having held them since the late 1990s.[48]

2020s
  • 2020
    • June – With the resumption of play in the 2019–20 Premier League due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the Premier League announces that it will show all remaining matches on British television, split primarily across Sky, BT, and Amazon. Also, four matches are shown on the BBC and is the first time in 32 years that the BBC has shown live coverage of top-tier football league.[49][50][51]
    • July – Regular coverage of cricket returns to the BBC when it succeeds Channel 5 as the broadcaster of highlights of English cricket.
    • 19 August – The BBC broadcasts the World Seniors Snooker Championship for the first time.[52]
    • 20 August – The BBC shows live cricket for the first time in more than 21 years.[53]
    • 8 September – It is announced that all of September's Premier League fixtures will be shown on TV due to fans not being into stadiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with one game shown on BBC One.[54] The BBC shows an additional game in December after the Premier League confirms that the broadcasting of matches that all games in December and January will be shown on television.[55]
  • 2021
    • January – BBC Sport shows South American football for the first time when it broadcasts the semi-finals and final of the 2020 Copa Libertadores.
    • The BBC and ITV will become joint holders of rights to the FA Cup. Consequently, this will be the first time since 1988 that the competition has been shown fully on terrestrial television.

See also

References
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  2. BBC Genome Project - BBC2 listings 2 May 1965
  3. "Search: Sportsnight - Oldest first". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  4. "Silver Jubilee for Ski Sunday". BBC Press Office. 11 December 2002. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  5. "BBC Two England - 7 May 1978 - BBC Genome". bbc.co.uk.
  6. Tim Bradford When Saturday Comes, London: Penguin, 2005, p.882-83
  7. "Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain: A Social and Cultural History by Tony Collins".
  8. BBC Genome Project – BBC2 listings 17 May 1981
  9. "BBC One London – 3 October 1982 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  10. Midgley, Neil (16 January 2013). "Breakfast television: the revolution embraced by the nation". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  11. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 28 October 1983
  12. BBC Genome Project - BBC2 listings 19 November 1986
  13. TV Ark: Branding | BBC Sport
  14. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 23 July 1989
  15. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000445/19890811/014/0002
  16. The Guardian - 19 May 2001 - Page 282, via Newspapers.com
  17. The Guardian - 30 October 1994 - Page 99, via Newspapers.com
  18. BBC Genome Project - BBC Two listings 25 January 1998
  19. "Channel 4 wins rights to home Tests". BBC News. BBC. 16 October 1998.
  20. Mcleod, Maurice (17 May 2000). "Sport-free BBC shelves Grandstand on Cup final day". The Independent. London. Retrieved 24 May 2014.
  21. "BBC 'sour' over football deal". BBC News. BBC. 15 June 2000. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  22. The Guardian - 18 November 2000, Page 405, via Newspapers.com
  23. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 9 June 2001
  24. Brown, David. "BBC reclaims Six Nations rugby from Sky with £70m three-year contract". The Independent. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  25. "SPL signs BBC deal". BBC Sport. BBC. 31 July 2002. Retrieved 27 March 2008.
  26. BBC loses Scottish football rights
  27. Plunkett, John (26 November 2004). "BBC loses Boat Race radio rights" – via The Guardian.
  28. "BBC move to Salford gets green light". BBC Press Office. 31 May 2007. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  29. Tryhorn, Chris (30 March 2007). "ITV to pay £275m for FA Cup". The Guardian.
  30. Gibson, Owen; correspondent, media (21 March 2008). "F1 returns to BBC but ITV wins Champions League". The Guardian.
  31. "Football League coverage on the BBC". BBC Press Office. 15 July 2009. Retrieved 20 July 2009.
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  33. "ITV drops Boat Race for football". BBC News. 9 December 2008. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  34. Deans, Jason (28 October 2011). "ITV nets French Open tennis TV rights". The Guardian. London.
  35. "Sport news bulletins start in Salford". Ariel. BBC. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  36. Greg Wood. "Channel 4 confirms takeover of Derby, Grand National and Royal Ascot". the Guardian.
  37. Gibson, Owen (17 July 2013). "BBC and BT Sport to share FA Cup TV rights". The Guardian.
  38. "Channel 5 win Football League Rights". Digital Spy. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  39. "BBC says controversial Wimbledon 2day will not return".
  40. Rees, Paul (9 July 2015). "BBC and ITV join forces to stop Sky winning Six Nations broadcast rights". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  41. Rumsby, Ben (3 February 2015). "BBC loses live rights to broadcast The Open Championship to Sky Sports from 2017". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  42. "The BBC wins rights to UK Formula One coverage". formula1.com.
  43. "Champions League of Darts: BBC to broadcast inaugural tournament". BBC Sport.
  44. "Thirty-two BBL and WBBL games to be broadcast live on BBC Sport | BBL". bbl.org.uk. Archived from the original on 4 January 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
  45. BBC fights back with 1,000 extra hours of live sports coverage
  46. "Pro14 rugby broadcasting deal confirmed". BBC News. 30 April 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  47. "BBC - BBC announces live Ultra HD and VR trials for World Cup - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk.
  48. "Davis Cup 2019 news - Eurosport to Show Revamped Finals event". Eurosport. 4 November 2019. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  49. "Premier League to resume on 17th June with Man City v Arsenal". SportsPro Media. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  50. "Amazon's four Premier League matches to be made available free". SportsPro Media. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  51. "Amazon's Premier League games to air on Twitch for free". SportsPro Media. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  52. SOTB (18 August 2020). "BBC to broadcast World Seniors Snooker Championship". Sport On The Box. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  53. "BBC broadcasts live cricket for the first time in 21 years and break viewership records". 1 September 2020.
  54. MacInnes, Paul (8 September 2020). "All 28 Premier League games in September to be shown on live TV". Retrieved 29 September 2020 – via www.theguardian.com.
  55. Premier League confirms scrapping of controversial pay-per-view model
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