A Moment Of Malaise

I wish I could write.

That’s a tough admission for someone who writes for a living, and wants to do so for some time to come.

I am a journalist, for radio, and if you want a four-sentence, 100-word summary of a news story then I’m your man.  Short, punchy sentences are no problem, but eloquence, verbose paragraphs and general flair are beyond me.

I’m not looking to be Shakespeare, or Norman Mailer or Hunter S. Thompson or even Bill Simmons.  I just want to be good enough to do what I want to do, what I want to be, what I always thought I was good enough to do.

I’m lazy – this blog hasn’t been updated since Jesus was in shorts.  That’s a bad habit.  It’s so long since I visited here that Google Chrome doesn’t know the URL to my own blog.  For shame Gavin, for shame.  Writers write, they work on their craft, they practice and they improve.  They learn from mistakes by making them.  I shy away from those errors.

I’m reluctant – I self-disparage.  I want myself to be the best and become disheartened by the fact that I know I’m not, and that I’m not close.  As a journalist, I don’t ‘get the story’ and as a columnist or someone who adds opinion, I make few points of worth.  It also, I imagine, is not a good sign that my first post of note in months (I’ve had a few false starts in the last while) is one in which I slate myself.  Nonetheless, I go on.

I’m inarticulate, at times – my command of the English language is not as it should be.  Where I wrote ‘disparage’ in the last sentence, I initially wrote defecate which, let’s be frank, is a lot worse than the truth.  I know I was looking for another word, I just don’t know what it was.

I’m plain – as a writer I lack humour, or wit.  I don’t believe that I provoke discussion.  I make good points at time, on twitter for example, or in general conversation, but find it difficult to expand these beyond 140 characters or an initial sentence.

I get distracted – I’m off to play Football Manager now before continuing this article.  And in the middle of that I’ll watch a field goal attempt from the NFL in 2008. True story.

I’m a poor manager – I lost 3-1 at home to Wigan.  Then again, I am Banbury United, and it is the Championship, so I might give myself a pass there.

I have a horrible attitude – that much is obvious though, huh?

I have other negative qualities, I’m sure, but you get the idea.  I also have some strong points.  I type quickly.  I’m an above-average speller too.  I even have a strong knowledge of things I write about (mainly sports, but other things too) and I can spot a story.  I also have to acknowledge that unlike a lot of people who get into this business, I’m working in a job so I must have some other qualities I am unaware of.

Despite that, and despite a number of other reasons to be happy like a loving family and relative financial comfort and a woman who loves me and a woman that I love (thankfully they are the same person), recently I find myself at a low.  I’m negative.  I’m chirpy, but I don’t mean it mostly and I become downbeat far too regularly.  Part of my life,the professional side, I would describe as being in a rut, and I see no way out of it.  I have a reasonable existence at the moment but I want more, and have no idea of how to make that a reality.

Metaphorically, I have A and B and C, but I want D, E, F and a whole lot more too.  That’s not greed, it’s ambition.  It’s a drive for more, that I have, yet that drive is something on which I do not act.  Or can not act.  I’m not sure. 

I want to be better.  I want to be happy, and to have everything.  Everyone does, of course, but I’m at one of those points in my life where I don’t know if it will ever happen, when at the same stage I should believe that anything can happen.

I want to be the writer that I want to be; I want to cover the big events, and make the points that people discuss.  I want to express my passion, and get paid for it because I’m damn good at it and because I’m worth listening to.  I want that to be true.  I don’t know if it ever will be, and while I have something not a million miles away from that now, I don’t know if it’s enough to satisfy me, and I don’t have the confidence to be sure that more will come.

I wish I could write.

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As this is a personal comments, I am disabling the comments section for this post only.  It will return.

A Venture Into The Unknown

Last March, on the same day that our rugby team won their first Grand Slam in 61 years, another remarkable sporting event occured in Ireland.

Bernard Dunne became WBA Super Bantamweight Champion in one of the best fights you'll ever see, knocking out Panama's Ricardo Cordoba in the 11th Round at Dublin's o2 Arena. I, along with the boss, was lucky to be there and we're going back to the o2 this Saturday for Dunne's first defence, against Poonsawat Kratingdaeng.

We're going to be blogging all day, about the journey up, the food, the cost, the fights and those quirky things that make a day like this memorable (this time I WILL figure out just how Marty Morrissey gets a crowd excited).  Our start time is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. but you can expect the comments to come in long, long before that and then they'll ramp up nearer to and during fight time.

I have some idea about how this will work, but not a massive amount! There will be issues, technical ones, but I hope that we'll be able to convey a sense of what's going on and give you a bit of the atmosphere live from Dublin.  I hope this will be the first of many live blogs here on the site.

To get you in the mood for the fight there'll be plenty of Bernard Dunne related stuff here on The Almost Daily Sports Blog all week. Sign up below if you want an email reminder about the event, and be sure to check back here on Saturday for all the shenanigans!!!

Fantasy Premier League Update

A big thanks to all of you who have joined our fantasy football league over at http://fantasy.premierleague.com. One week gone so far and top of the pile is Stephen Kidney and his team, Butters Apples. He's had a very, very impressive start with 148 points from the first two gameweeks. Well done!

If you're playing Fantasy Football on the site, you can join the Almost Daily Sports Blog's league. The code you need is 1007205-238235. If you're not playing, join now. There's still plenty of time to catch us all up, particularly me if my current stretch of form continues!

Here's the League table in full:





Stay tuned for an announcement on a fantasy American Football League sometime next week. If you're interested in joining, email me or leave a comment below.

Mucho Excitismo!

OK, so my Spanish isn't all that, but I'm quite excited today after learning that my friend Laura wasn't taking the mick when she told me that Muhammad Ali, yes, THE Muhammad Ali, is on his way to Ireland. And not just to Ireland but to Clare, his ancestry home, which is within half an hour of where I live.. The first of September is marked off in my calendar already. Anyone wanna come with?

Lovin' Lucas

Apologies for the comparative silence here recently. Got college results today so... you know. Havin' fun. I'm enjoying the golf though, 'cos I've a bet on Lucas Glover at rid-onk-ulous odds. Go Glover!

Setanta & The SPL - Troubled Waters For Both

I’m about to make an admission.

I’m a television rights nerd. Who shows what and how much do they pay for it are questions I regularly ask, and I don’t just mean here in Ireland. Michael Hiestand in USA Today is necessary reading (I’ve probably read everything he’s ever done on their website) and when I go to the Digital Spy forums, I’m normally only in the Broadcasting section.

We watch a lot of sport on television, and a lot of us pay very well for the privilege, so given the impact on the armchair fan, it’s only right that TV sports deals are followed. Some of the quirky facts involved in television rights deals are very interesting – did you know that BSKYB get the Lions tour for SFA because of a deal Murdoch did for the Super 14/Tri-Nations? And in the US, ESPN pay $1.1bn for 17 matches each year on Monday Night Football; answers on a postcard if you’ve any idea how they turn a profit from this. Given this nerdiness, it’s probably not surprising that I’ve been very interested in the financial health of Irish sports broadcaster, Setanta.

For the record, I am a Setanta subscriber and have been for nearly two years. I think they provide a very good service on certain sports. Their Magners League coverage is very good and they’ve done well to give boxing fans fights that otherwise wouldn’t be seen in this part of the world. It’s also nice to see a sports provider for Ireland. For many, Setanta burst onto the scene when they snatched two Premier League packages for the 2007/08-2009/10 seasons for a sum of £392m. Since then, they’ve broadcast 92 matches and they’ve done an OK job. At the very least, they should be commended for offering top-flight English football for a more reasonable price than Murdochvision.

Yet this deal, in hindsight, wasn’t their best. Setanta, quite simply, overreached on this and other occasions. Too much was paid for the PGA Tour, football internationals, an FA Cup deal, the Guinness Premiership and the SPL. From a base of low subscription fees and an all-too-low number of subscribers, Setanta’s business model floundered and it’s reported that they’re losing about £100m a year.

Setanta’s latest troubles started when they lost one of the two packages they had owned for the Premier League. From the 2010-11 season, Setanta are scheduled to broadcast only 23 matches per season, half of their current total. From then on, media commentators speculated about the financial health of the company and now, about four months later, things have come to a head. There are talks of a buy-out deal for the company from ESPN, or Bauer (not Jack), Endemol, Top Up TV or one of a host of other groups.



It looks like Setanta will survive but I’m not going to discuss the consequences of this crisis for the company. Instead, I’m going take a look at how this is going to affect sports fans, both Setanta subscribers and otherwise. Most commentators agree that the SPL would be the biggest sufferer. It is difficult to see any company willing to shell out to cover it – the BBC (previous rights holders) are cash strapped and SKY simply don’t have the space to show as many games as Setanta do, given their Premier League, La Liga and Football League commitments as well as everything else. This means that SPL clubs are in for a huge decrease in revenues, no matter if they re-negotiate with Setanta or are forced to move elsewhere.

So that means that the fans of the SPL clubs will also suffer, through no fault of their own. If their club goes down the tubes or if it is forced to go semi-professional like a lot of clubs in Ireland have done, then they will be given a lesser quality of football and a smaller chance of winning/surviving. Celtic and Rangers will struggle in Europe, while clubs like Hamilton and St. Mirren may struggle to survive. This is down to Setanta’s issues, but also due to the clubs themselves. On one hand, it’s difficult to blame them for spending money that they have budgeted for and are contractually obliged to receive. However, given that Setanta’s troubles were documented for many months now, and given the publicity surrounding the difficulties in the broadcasting sector, these issues are hardly a surprise. If yours truly, a recently finished media student with an interest in this isn’t surprised by the crisis facing SPL clubs, then unprepared clubs really do not have an excuse.

About 12 months ago, my beloved Galway United faced heavily documented financial issues. Players were released and fundraising efforts were stepped up after lower-than-expected earnings left the club falling foul of the League’s spending cap rules. The club’s Chief Financial Officer, Nick Leeson (yes. That Nick Leeson) saw a crisis coming, prepared for it and now the club are in a relatively state both on the pitch and the balance sheet. This clearly shows that clubs who are aware of what is going on can and will survive. In the coming months, we’ll see which clubs are properly prepared.