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

106 The end of a beautiful friendship? track and field events had enjoyed a whole hour live on ITV followed by a further hour live on Channel 4. A downgrade to only a half hour would not only drastically reduce the exposure of the sport but would decimate potential income from sponsors. The second, hard won, contract with ITV would run out in March 1994 so, if the sport was to have any hope of a further renewal on decent terms, and with time running out, the 1993 season would be crucial and something special was needed if anything was to be salvaged. The something special was devised by Andy Norman; a head to head contest between the two most famous sprinters in the world, Carl Lewis and Linford Christie. Lewis was the world record holder and Christie, the reigning Olympic Champion from 1992 in Barcelona, the hottest property in British athletics. Norman had been credited with guiding Christie’s career to the Olympic title and was the only man who could pull off such a clash. Norman had done his homework and, having convinced Malcolm Jones and me that the clash could be self financing, went ahead with our support. The venue was Gateshead during the Vauxhall Motors sponsored meeting on Friday evening, 30 th July, and attracted massive media interest. It seemed that every newspaper in Britain devoted column after column to the showdown, the stadium sold out and ITV, which had contributed most of the budget, was rewarded with unprecedented viewing figures of 12m. Linford Christie beat Carl Lewis to satisfy the fans and went on a couple of weeks later to take the gold medal at the World championships in Stuttgart. ITV was delighted with the event but would it be enough to clinch a new deal? It seemed so, as contract negotiations moved more smoothly and, by early October, the outline of a new four year contract was agreed with Bob Burrows and Trevor East; ITV would take 4 outdoor invitation meetings per year and would pay £7m rights fee. The AAA Championships could be sold to the BBC and, all in all, it was a good result in the circumstances, albeit a far cry from the heady days of the first contract. On 25 October, however, I received a phone call at home at 7pm from a crestfallen Bob Burrows to say that the ITV board had decided that they were not interested in athletics and that the whole deal was off. No explanation was forthcoming.