SKY Sports

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. I remember when Channel 4 came on the air some years earlier I had desperately wanted to get the commentary position but it didn’t happen. After a couple of years Channel 4 decided that they would no longer broadcast basketball.

Their efforts had not been a success.

Those of us involved in the game could see a number of reasons why it had failed. The quality of the commentary team was just one of a long list. Showing only the second half of games was probably the most significant.

When Sky Sports arrived everyone in basketball was hoping that they would take our sport seriously. Here was a channel that would do justice to sport. I was an avid Sky Sports viewer and Monday night football was a staple for me.

I had interviewed an old colleague of mine, Richard Keys when I worked on Sunset and had been praying for them to get involved in ‘the fastest growing sport in the UK’.

Sitting on the end of the phone to Mark Sharman, I was stunned. Is this for real? I kinda of mumbled, thanks…yea I do a bit of commentary. The conversation did not last very long. He said “I want to see you at 12 noon tomorrow at the Sky offices. Bring any tapes that you’ve got” Yea OK, ” I’ll see you then”.

I immediately did my next link and went up to see the boss, Julian Allitt to see if I could get the following day off. When I told him what it was for, he said, “no problem”.

After finishing the show, I rushed home to find any tapes that I had which might impress Mr Sharman. I didn’t have much but I did have a few bits. I had done a couple of commentaries on basketball games for Screen Sport, which was another satellite channel which no longer existed.

Anyway I got together whatever I had and headed for London Town. Was this what I had been waiting all these years for?

If the phone call from Mark Sharman was short, then the meeting was positively brief. He had a quick look at the tapes and said yes that’s fine. We’d like you to do the games.

Would you like to be the presenter or the commentator?

I said, “To be honest, I think you might find it easier to find another presenter than another commentator”. So it was decided that I would be the lead commentator for the first 10 games that Sky would be doing. I told him that I had been waiting years for a telephone call like this, he said “oh good, you’ll do it for nothing then”.

I don’t think so,” I said, so we agreed on a fee for the 10 games which would culminate in the Championship weekend at Wembley and the Championship Finals. To be honest, I didn’t really need a car to get back to Manchester ’cause I just kinda floated.

All we needed to do now was to get my favourite team, the Manchester Giants into the final four and I could be commentating at the Wembley Finals with Mark Robinson, Trevor Gordon and the rest on the basketball court. At the end of it all I was also going to get paid. I didn’t think it could ever get much better than this. I must admit that I cannot even remember where the first game was or how it went. I do know that the games up to the finals had a number of difficulties, not all of them of my making.

We used different Directors, Producers, cameramen etc, and every game was like starting from the beginning.

Again, those of us involved in the sport realised that Sky was probably not happy and would probably not continue with basketball after the final games of the season. So we arrived at Wembley for the Championship weekend and yes, the Manchester Giants were in the finals so were the London Towers, the Worthing Bears and the Sheffield Sharks.

The broadcast crew was Andrew Castle, hosting, Suzanne Dando, courtside and me, Mike Shaft doing the commentary. The semi-finals would be Worthing versus Sheffield and Manchester v London. There was definitely a feel amongst the commentary crew that this would be the last basketball games Sky would broadcast.

We need not have worried. Sky had taken a massive gamble and given us the whole Saturday evening to cover the two games live and the first semi-final tipped off in the early evening. It was not a great game.

The Sheffield Sharks who had already won two trophies undoubtedly ran out of steam and were beaten by the defending Champions the Worthing Bears 84-72. It would be another appearance in the final for two of the legends of the British game, Alan Cunningham and Colin Irish.

So to the second semi-final and the Manchester Giants would not only have to face an awesome London Towers team but a massive home crowd as well.

The Towers had required three games to get past the Leopards in the play-offs while Manchester had a relatively smooth passage winning in two against the Doncaster Panthers. The game was sensational and at the end of regulation the scores were tied. Overtime! An extra five minutes were required to separate the teams.

I remember having to apologise to the viewers that the Cricket which was to be the following programme would be delayed. Somehow we managed to get all the excitement of that Saturday night encounter onto the Sky Sports screen and into the viewer’s homes. It was wonderful and many of us believe it was this game which persuaded Sky to seriously get into Basketball.

The Final did not live up to the second semi-final game and Manchester were defeated by the Bears who continued their fantastic winning streak. At the end of the game I remember Mark Robinson saying they’d be back. They were, but would have to wait until 2001 to actually win the Big Dance.

At the end of the weekend, everyone involved in basketball was delighted with what had gone out on Sky Sports. That second semi-final proved what an exciting game basketball really was and what a tremendous television spectacle it could be.

The greatest moment for me on that weekend was another one of those moments which will live with me forever. The BBC were recording the games for future broadcast and their commentary was led by Stuart Storey. One of the most accomplished broadcasters in the UK.

When we arrived for the final on the Sunday, Stuart came up to me and told me that his wife had watched the semi-finals on Sky the previous night and she thought the commentary was excellent. I was absolutely made up. My experience has told me that wives are usually the most critical viewers and to get this sort of praise from a person who has probably critiqued some of the top broadcasters and broadcasts in the world was sheer delight for me.

Prior to the start of the next season, Sky Sports took the decision to feature basketball seriously and to set up a production unit under Executive Producer Sue Ashworth. This is where the broadcasting of British Basketball has been based since then. We have now completed our third season. Hopefully this will not be the last.

UPDATE – SKY lost the contract to broadcast British Basketball in 2001 and BBL games were broadcast on the ITV Sports Channel with commentary provided by Daniel Routledge and Andre Alleyne. The ITV Sports Channel eventually went out of business.