4 Fuks Saké

Televised Football But Not As We Know It

“Interesting. Very interesting!” screamed Barry Davies on Match of the Day back in the day. Who would have thought the same could apply to Adam Lallana running round in circles, or Martin Skrtel clearing his nasal passages?

On Wednesday evening Liverpool play Sevilla in the Europa League Final, Europe’s also-ran club tournament – and a chunk of UK football fans will be watching the game live on YouTube.

The match itself is unlikely to be memorable (although it’ll be enough for me to forgo watching the wash-up of Peggy Mitchell’s death). BT’s decision to make the game available as part of its “wider digital strategy”, throws up all manner of interesting thoughts and discussions about where sport, TV, digital platforms, broadband providers and hardware manufacturers are heading (other than the UEFA hospitality boxes in Basel).

There’s the digital platforms themselves. YouTube aren’t messing about, and their intentions are clear. CEO Susan Wojcicki got straight to the point with North American advertisers a fortnight ago, stating YouTube reaches “more 18-49 year olds during primetime than the top 10 TV shows combined.” Its claim for the mass audience – real people you meet in the pub, street or in the office – starts clouding things for the men running sports banking enormous cheques from TV companies.

Take the English Cricket Board for example. It picked up a BAFTA for its coverage of England’s last Ashes win, yet as Sean Ingle pointed out in The Guardian, more people watched a 1974 episode of Colombo on ITV3. In December, Joe Root failed to make the short list for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and team sponsor Waitrose called it a day.

If YouTube is ‘normal TV’, where does that leave the likes of the TV companies currently staying in the game by borrowing money from the City?

It’s here we can poke around the “wider digital strategy” hinted at by BT. Whatever channel or platform the sport is on – it’s got to get into our home or onto our tablet somehow – and that requires a network. The greater the demand for content via a network, the stronger and more reliable that network needs to be.

So if you’re a telcomms company with a best-in-market broadband and mobile network, pumping stuff into peoples’ homes whatever its source; that’s not a bad place to be.

It also puts you in a more robust position. What happens if Tim Cook wakes up tomorrow and says, ‘right, next, let’s do Apple Sport?’ Or Google’s Eric Schmidt says to YouTube’s Wojcicki, “would you like me to call Richard Scudamore?”

On the one hand, they don’t need to. They may wish to wait and allow the sports bodies to continue to approach them. US sports continue to make overtures with the NBA big advocates of YouTube, and the NFL agreeing a deal to screen games exclusively on Twitter. Sport isn’t rational though – and it has a habit of making men do stupid things with their money, through the blind love of it all. Why else would we get up at 4am to go to Sunderland?

People in grey-glassed offices will start to shift uncomfortably – but for fans, that’s a day to be welcomed. More eyes on more sports at more accessible prices and on more accessible platforms? What’s not to love about that?

Into The Confectionery Stall And Out Again

I lost both my grandfathers by the age of seven. Today I formally request that Richie Benaud takes on the role. There is nobody out there in the aged 80+ bracket that I would rather turn to for professional, personal or spiritual advice.

If you have a job that requires you to communicate, I recommend listening to BBC’s Voices Of Summer now on iPlayer. In it, Richie explains how he goes about television cricket commentary.  If you have to carry a room of people with you to get something done, then the advice is equally valid.

Typically, he delivers his advice from the perspective of what he has learned from others. Professional, understated, but utterly in command of his craft.

If you’re not interested; “Welcome to the highlights,” as Richie would say.

- “Use as few words as possible. The best supply a caption to a picture. ”

- “Never ask a statement. Too many times I hear a statement that ends with ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘doesn’t it?’”

- "Never use the phrase 'Of course.'"

- “Always remember the value of the pause,” (taught to him by Australian PM Bob Menzies).

- “Never talk down to people.”

- “Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

- “Always have fun.”

Marvellous.

What's Happening Now?

This is very nice. 

Who Still Wants To Be An Astronaut?

I have a pretty good job. I try to persuade people to drink more booze, eat more food and watch more telly. It gets demanding though, and at times of extreme stress my mind naturally wanders to what I'd rather be doing. David Gower's job as main anchor on Sky Sports, or the bloke that chooses the music for the goal montages on Football Focus are obvious first choices. More prosaic careers such as being a lorry driver pop up - probably the time and space you get I imagine. The process of travel has always been strangely alluring - perhaps flying a commercial airline might be an option.

I am not alone.

KidZania in Tokyo is a theme park which is targetted at 2-14 year olds. It shoudn't be for kids - I'm 36 and I want to go. Originally launched in Mexico, it's no surprise to see it a roaring success in Japan.  It's a replica town where you can have a go at doing the job you fancy doing. You can get into uniform, fly a replica jet, work the post office, marshal the traffic - whatever needs to be done, you can do it.

After Disney's takeover of Marvel, and the certainty of another 100 years of character-based theme park-to-fast food tray juggernauts, it's nice to see that there's a place for simplicity. Nintendo always said that everyone likes playing games however old they are and they're right. 

Knock down Chessington down the road from me, and stick one of these up.

(Pic: guardian.co.uk/Getty)

Darts. Important.

Tradition in the 4 Fuks Saké household at New Year means two sporting events. Late night watching of Channel 9's Test cricket from Australia, and Alexandra Palace for the PDC World Darts Championship.

Stephen Fry recently suggested that darts was perhaps the most exciting, almost perfect of sports. From the moment the MC yells "Game On," every dart is crucial. Not a single second is wasted. There is no ebb and flow, no break for a throw in, a substitution, or a quiet passage of play. There's lights, sweat, tension and a roar. Skill, mental strength, anguish and ecstacy every 2 minutes or so. It's fat blokes throwing tungsten at a mat some argue. Simon Barnes in The Times does greater justice to the players.

"The art of darts is in perfect stillness of everything save the forearm of the throwing arm: the big frame, anchored to the ground by adipose tissue, makes this possible on a consistent, endlessly repeatable basis. Watch Phil Taylor. When he throws a dart, nothing moves but his right forearm and an eyebrow....It is the pursuit of excellence."

It's all of course set against a soundtrack of Sid Waddell, calling the game and dropping references to Wittgenstein, Alexander of Macedonia and Galileo.

The PDC World Darts Championship, Sunday, 7pm on Sky Sports. You won't be disappointed.

Completely Irresponsible. Indignant With Rage.

One universal truth about UK kids  is that, by and large, they don't have much respect for their elders. At school, kids develop a canny ability to spot vulnerability in people who should have authority. A successful lesson meant driving a failing teacher to explode in rage, or erupt in tears of frustration via quality goading. They were supposed to be in charge. We brought them down. Result. Perhaps that behaviour explains why our English ancestors led the world in the establishment of liberal democracy. Who knows, and who cares? This blog is about how people sell shit.

Anyway, it's a link into a quality bit of work from EA today in the UK, who have used the same trick to sell a video game to kids. The authority this time, appears to be an "indignant with rage" MP, and a load more "angry residents," queuing to use words like "completely irresponsible." Mercenaries 2: World In Flames available now on Amazon for £24.99 on PS2 features "Venezuelan-style fuel riots." EA offered free fuel to people. It was over-subscribed massively. A "Venezuelan-style fuel riot" then takes place in Hornsey, North London - just like it was in the picture above. Except it wasn't really - it was a bit of a traffic jam. Coverage appears for the game on the front page of BBC Online. It'll be elsewhere too. Outstanding.

Going For The Jugular With A Feminine Touch

They must be shitting themselves inside the Xbox and Playstation marketing teams, and rightly so. Nintendo is my favourite company in the world right now, and this report from The Guardian which says that Face Training is on the way, makes me clench my fist for them just a little bit harder

Having spent four or five years of my life at the sharp end of their PR machine in Europe when things were shit, (I ran the UK & Europe account at Cake between '99 and about '04 desperately trying to hack GameCubes and Game Boy Advance) it's utterly refreshing to see the company deliver the ethos it always promised, with Wii and DS consoles.

This is a company that is nothing but odd. Now I'm told, Japan's second richest company based on cash in the bank, Nintendo has always been clear. It is an entertainment company. Has been for 100 years. Video games were just the next extension of that in the 1970s. They make money and sell things based on a simple premise: will this game be fun?

Having sat on the receiving end of 3rd party games developers getting wet about how the grass moved on a football pitch, or the flickering of an eyebrow on a Uzi-armed terrorist, it is rather gratifying to see how an entire industry is now paying for metaphorically and physically taking its eye off the ball. The disparaging 'kids stuff' put-downs in the direction of Mario and his mates have dried up.

What would send chills through my veins the most is the manner in which Nintendo, with Christmas is approaching, is going for the jugular - aggressively targeting anyone but spotty boys in bedrooms. The latest spot is the one of the most direct forms of TV advertising I've seen for a while....slow, orderly gameplay followed by a strapline which might as well say, 'these are games for girls.'

Nice work lads.

What Goes Around Comes Around, Again.

Blogging, Web 2.0 - God it's so dynamic and fresh. Gizmodo have just posted on Nintendo's Gameboy (sic) shoes.

Me and a couple of mates of mine at Cake made those for Nintendo back in 2000. We were trying to suggest that older, cooler people might play Game Boy other than the kids we'd weaned onto Pokémon.

Creatives 1 Technocrats 0

My boss was the first person I remember who said about 2 years ago, 'ah, blogs - we should pay attention.' 12 months ago he gave me and my colleagues a copy of Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" 12 months on Pink's words are starting to bear even more fruit.

Pink's now well-read book can be summed up in two sentences, thus. In this age of automation, cheaper labour in Asia, and abundance; the winners in business in the 21st century will be the right-brainers: the empathisers, the artists and the story-tellers. Conceptual thinking will defeat linear thinking.

Nintendo v Sony v Microsoft is my favourite latest case study. I worked with Nintendo during the N64/GameCube era and the atmosphere was very different. At the time, a games producer from one of the large all-format software publishers showed me a demo of a sports game with such pride, because the grass blades on the pitch flickered that much more than version 3. 'Who gives a shit?" I suggested politely, "what does that do for the game?" I interpreted his private thoughts as 'this guy just doesn't get it.'

The video games industry went nuclear when Sony's Playstation brand granted social acceptability to the sector. The figures speak for themselves. But Nintendo have been entertaining people for 100 years. Playing cards, games, dabbling in a taxi company, eventually moving into video games in the 1970s - they are a compelling and fascinating example of a Japanese creative company. Nintendo have never needed to remind themselves to get back on track by chanting glibly 'content is king.' It's in their blood - and it's their ability to see the bigger picture in gaming - to symphonise to use Mr Pink's terminology - which is bringing them financial success now.

Games are about having fun. Wii meets that basic human need for all ages - without getting into a technocrat arms race. It's conceptual. It's right-brained. It's profitable and they can't knock them out quickly enough.

The technocrats have been given a bloody nose, and they won't be the last.