The Multi-Sport European Championships Pioneers: Ron Chakraborty
With Munich 2022, the second edition of the European Championships, just three months away, we asked Ron Chakraborty, Executive Editor, Major Events at BBC Sport, to look back on the challenges and rewards of broadcasting the inaugural multi-sports event in Glasgow and Berlin in 2018.
For the BBC, European Championships Management’s vision of combining the European Championships of some of the continent’s most popular sports “made sense,” says Ron Chakraborty. Already in 2018 a veteran of managing the BBC’s coverage of several Olympic and Commonwealth Games, he explains that, “Like a lot of people we’d been waiting for a European multi-sport event. There’s the Asian Games, the Pan American Games, the Commonwealth Games, and it was always a conversation you had: ‘Why isn’t there a European multi-sport event?’”
Following a meeting with ECM senior executives, at which they presented their vision, Chakraborty says that the BBC was also attracted by the concept of “not going too crazy, not trying to do a European Olympics and having 20 or 30 sports. So, you showcase those sports [that are on the programme]. With an Olympics or Commonwealth Games, there are sports in there that you never show!”
The BBC contributed to the extensive free-to-air coverage across Europe through national generalist TV and digital channels – members of the European Broadcasting Union. “It involved partnering everyone up, and making sure everybody’s rights deals were in synch, but with it being in the UK we were keen to showcase a lot of it and we had big-name athletes in pretty much all of the sports involved, so we were into it from the start and the EBU were very supportive,” says Chakraborty.
From the point of view of the Championships themselves, the participation of the likes of the BBC was essential, Chakraborty says, adding: “If you wanted to get it on the map, getting it on free-to-air with the biggest possible audiences was crucial. We were keen to deliver on that and I think it was really helpful for the European Championships that very early on, in all those meetings with the federations, we turned up to say, ‘We support this event’, and it gave them some momentum to be able to say, ‘Let’s try this out’.”
Despite the BBC’s experience of Olympic and Commonwealth Games, with the European Championships, “We almost had to start from zero,” Chakraborty says. “With a new event you’re constantly having to explain what it is, because there wasn’t a history to it.”
Measuring success
So, given its ground-breaking nature, was the event considered a success for the BBC, and if so, how was that success measured? “Definitely, it was a success,” Chakraborty says. “The phrase you hear a lot with the European Championships is making the whole bigger than the sum of the parts. The number-one metric was, was the peak audience for the swimming, the athletics, the gymnastics higher than the individual version of that event the last time we showed it? And in five of the sports, it was.
“So we got 6.4 million viewers for Dina Asher-Smith [the British sprinter who won the gold medal in the women’s 100 metres, as well as in the 200 metres and 4 x 100 metres relay]. I think it was only about 5 million for the individual event previously. I think it even got a higher peak than the World Athletics Championships.”
“On the final day we got to 20 million for the overall audience reach, which is brilliant”
The individual sports across the board in Glasgow and Berlin scored high ratings. “The triathlon got 2.7 million,” Chakraborty continues, “way more than any of the World Series we show. On the final day we got to 20 million for the overall audience reach, which is brilliant. It ranked really highly among all the other events we showed that year, only just behind the Commonwealth Games, which has more days anyway.”
One of the main reasons that viewing figures improved for the individual sports as a result of being part of a multi-sports event was, “it’s wall to wall,” according to Chakraborty. “We were on from nine in the morning until nine at night and as a result you’re constantly trailing what’s coming up: ‘Don’t forget, tonight, Dina Asher-Smith in the 200 metres!’
“With an individual event, you’ll just come on air at seven o’clock in the evening and people like athletics fans will tune in for it, but [with a multi-sports event] you’re capturing all those general sports fans. You build it up on the website – that live page on the BBC Sport website is there all day, it doesn’t just appear at seven o’clock. That noise around the event is massively different. It’s so prominent for so much more time.”
At the European Championships 2018, the athletics competition took place in Berlin, while the six other sports (cycling, golf, gymnastics, rowing, swimming, and triathlon) were in Glasgow. What challenges did this present? “Occasionally it was complicated,” Chakraborty says. “We did our athletics presentation from the Glasgow studio, even though the event was in Berlin. I remember walking down the street with [track and field pundits and former stars] Michael Johnson and Greg Rutherford in Glasgow and you could see people thinking, ‘I didn’t think the athletics was in Glasgow’!”
On average everyone in Europe watched for more than an hour.
Must-have programming that beats the usual market shares.
The Live TV coverage for the European Championships 2018 delivered over 3,000 Hours of Programming.In many markets across Europe this was more than 10 hours a day for 10 days.
Looking forward
Looking forward to this year’s European Championships in Munich (11-21 August), all nine sports (athletics, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, cycling, gymnastics, rowing, sport climbing, table tennis and triathlon) will take place in and around the city and the Olympic Park, a legacy of the 1972 Olympic Games which the city hosted.
Does the BBC plan to follow the same blueprint that it established for Glasgow and Berlin in 2018? “Yes, absolutely,” says Chakraborty, “that’s one of the advantages of having a European multi-sport event. You’re usually dealing with roughly the same time zone [from edition to edition], so your plan is live, live, live.
“You know you’re going to be on air at some time between eight and ten in the morning and finish at some point between nine and eleven at night, whereas when you’re dealing with a global event, let’s say the Olympics, you go from Paris – ‘okay, brilliant, it’s all in our time zone’ – to LA, when the men’s 100 metres is at five or six in the morning, and you’re trying to build your schedule around that, to Brisbane where it’s overnight and you’re trying to work out what your catch-up strategy is, both on TV and online and social media, and where you have your daily highlights show in the evenings …”
However, even though all events will take place in the same location, Munich 2022 will present the BBC with some extra challenges because of the broadcaster’s busy summer sports schedule caused, in part, by postponements of major events because of the Covid pandemic.
“This summer we’ve got such a packed schedule of sporting events, with the women’s Euros, then Wimbledon, the World Athletics Championships, Commonwealth Games and the European Championships,” says Chakraborty, “so there’s a lot of sport, but the great thing is you can use each of them to cross-promote each other.
“We’ve done one planning visit to Munich and it’s a fantastic set-up at the Olympic Park there”
“We’ve got a 56-day period when we’re on air from nine o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night, so we can constantly be trailing what’s coming up. And then it’s about giving the event an identity of its own. We’ve done one planning visit to Munich and it’s a fantastic set-up at the Olympic Park there. The Germans have invested in it as much as, if not more than, Glasgow did. It’s going to look spectacular, so selling the event and giving it its own identity should be quite easy.”
Chakraborty began his career in newspapers, before joining the BBC as a trainee assistant producer in 1998. “Around that time, you either headed towards football and [the BBC’s iconic soccer highlights programme] Match of the Day or you headed towards Grandstand, which was our great Saturday and Sunday afternoon multi-sport programme.”
Chakraborty chose the latter course and so, he continues, “I was working on events like the Six Nations, Wimbledon, Grand National, and obviously the Olympics and Commonwealth Games and they all became individual programmes after that.”
Taking up his present position upon the retirement of his predecessor after the London 2012 Olympics, Chakraborty retains his affection and enthusiasm for multi-sports events. “They’re still wonderful events to work on,” he says. “All the great storylines, the way they inspire the nation, even though London was special, you see the same thing happen with other events, these brilliant moments that get everyone talking and get everyone inspired and we’re lucky to have the privilege of taking them to the nation.”
Fondest memory
So, what is his own personal fondest memory of the European Championships 2018? “For two reasons,” he replies, “it was probably [British swimmer] Adam Peaty breaking that world record [100 metres breaststroke]. Number one, it was great to see him break a world record. But it also just gave the event a bit of clout. It was on the national news that night. It showed how important it was to Adam as well. He thought, ‘I’m not just going to cruise, I’m going for the gold medal’. And suddenly the event had an extra authority.
“It was a great sporting moment, but it was brilliant for the event as well and we just felt the momentum took a massive step up and it never really slackened from there.”
“If we can keep the same viewing figures, that would be brilliant”
And what are his expectations for Munich 2022? Now that the concept of the European Championships is established, can the BBC hope for comparable viewing figures? “If we can keep the same viewing figures,” Chakraborty says, “that would be brilliant because obviously a home nation event will always do well, and Glasgow had that appeal. Crucial to it all, particularly with the track and field athletes, is what events they choose to go for and therefore what stars, what appointments to view, you’ve got, because athletics have got Worlds, Commonwealths, Europeans back-to-back, and then the gymnasts, the track cyclists … have got back-to-back events as well.
“Then as they choose which events to enter for the European Championships, we can work out what we think those audience peaks are going to be. But in a lot of events, they’ve already committed to compete in the European Championships ...”
The importance of collaboration
And finally, what advice would Chakraborty give to the organisers of Munich 2022 and future editions of the European Championships to ensure the success of their events? “I think it’s just encouraging everyone to be collaborative,” he replies. “No one putting their hands up and saying ‘I’m more important than anyone else’.
“What you don’t want is the politics and the egos taking over. If everyone can work together towards the common goal, that’s it. We saw how successful it was in Glasgow and Berlin and it should really be a lesson that if you actually buy into this, and make the odd compromise, it’ll all be worth it when it comes to the final impact of the event.
“We saw how successful it was in Glasgow and Berlin and it should really be a lesson that if you actually buy into this, and make the odd compromise, it’ll all be worth it when it comes to the final impact of the event.”
“So with Munich it’s just a bit of patience when it comes to dealing with those individual sports, and when it comes to the politics. It can be a challenging event to put together because of the nature of it, but if everyone’s willing to listen to each other it can continue to be a success.”
As for the BBC, looking back on the European Championships 2018, “It was such a great headline to be able to say that 20 million people tuned in for a new event that didn’t have any track history. Because of Covid, we’re having to do some work to re-establish Munich 2022 this year, but I think once it starts people will be reminded of Glasgow and Berlin, they’ll see that European Championships logo and I hope we’ll capture that momentum again, come this summer.”