Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

104 The end of a beautiful friendship? meetings, Andy Norman had persuaded them that an expansion of the series to include the London Grand Prix would make commercial sense. To the outside world, Great Britain had what was regarded as one of the most successful commercial packages of televised athletic events anywhere and was in a position to be envied. The attractions to the Four of joining such a package were considerable and a series of highly secret meetings was started. These usually took place at a London airport hotel with Wilfried Meert (Brussels), Svein Arne Hansen (Oslo) and Andreas Brugger (Zurich) flying in to join Andy Norman, Malcolm Jones and me; and Bromley and Murphy from TSL. Bit by bit, during the first half of 1992, a deal was worked out to expand the four into a five by adding London, but with the added ingredient that the BAF, as a strong federation, would guarantee and manage the television and marketing rights of all five. Effectively, the BAF would be adding to its portfolio the rights to the five most important athletic invitation meetings in the world. This would have given it considerable clout in dealing with television broadcasters and sponsors. Bromley and Murphy were essential partners as, through TSL, they had undertaken to procure and guarantee the worldwide television coverage without which there could be no deal. These negotiations proceeded very amicably and, by June 1992, all the main conditions were agreed in principle and draft legal contracts were prepared. Everything depended on the delivery of television coverage and income but TSL was finding this more difficult than they had so confidently predicted. In the meantime, the German UFA TV organisation was bidding heavily for the rights to the Golden Four and, to the disappointment of the BAF and TSL, the Zurich event decided to accept its offer and the other three followed suit. In the meantime, relationships with ITV were going downhill. The value of athletics within ITV was being questioned and Bob Burrows and Stuart McConachie were in despair. The BBC, although showing interest in the AAA Championships/Trials, was not yet ready to take over the whole contract, Sky and Channel 4 were interested but had no budget and this left ITV as the only remaining player, however unpalatable. The waning interest by commercial television was a consequence of a steady drift downwards in viewing figures. In the first few years of the