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

90 A poisoned chalice? encouraged him to launch a bid to break the BAF’s dependence on television based revenues. Firstly, an application for a £2m annual grant from the Sport Council for 1997 and onwards was submitted (up from £300,000) and, simultaneously, a £4.5m annual bid for coaching and elite athlete preparation was made to the National Lottery fund. Whilst these efforts to provide a more secure future funding were being made, the current difficult financial situation was exacerbated when ITV failed to broadcast an event from Crystal Palace, preferring to screen a “soap”, and then curtailed the coverage of an event at Gateshead. This meant that sponsors had to be repaid and a hole opened up in an already weak budget. This was made worse when another sponsor failed to pay, resulting in a bad debt write off. Thus a budgeted deficit for 1996 of a manageable £100,000 turned into an overall loss of £640,000 (BAF and the Foundation combined) for the year. There was clearly a need to get a firm grip on a deteriorating situation and a plan to reorganise was developed. To create a greater focus on where monies came from and how they were spent, the first part of the plan was to hive off the televised events to a wholly owned subsidiary company, to be called Concept Athletics, the management of which would be shared with the international athletes; thereby giving them a direct stake in the success of the events that were so important to them and to the sport. Radford’s conciliatory approaches to the elite athletes after the black days of 1995 had borne fruit and a new spirit of co-operation had grown, thanks particularly to the leadership shown by Roger Black and Geoff Parsons and supported by others such as Shaun Pickering. This work had been so successful that a new British Athletes Association was formed to represent the interests of the top international athletes and to work with the BAF. As we shall see when discussing television, this spirit of co- operation was to prove crucial in securing a contract with Channel 4. The second element in the reorganisation was to set up a further subsidiary (Performance Athlete Services) to manage coaching and other assistance given to athletes for their development and to enable them to achieve their full potential. Encouraging sounds were emerging from Sports Council sources that a very substantial increase in funding may be forthcoming and the establishment of Performance Athlete Services would enable this money to be ring fenced and clearly identified.