A Question of Sport was once one of the BBC’s most popular shows, but a disastrous, failed relaunch in 2021 destroyed its credibility and ran the series into the ground
A Question of Sport was canned in 2023 following a failed relaunch of the show, starring Paddy McGuinness, Sam Quek and Ugo Monye(Image: BBC/James Stack)
The BBC has overseen its fair share of catastrophic relaunches through the years – from Top Gear to The Generation Game – but A Question of Sport could well crown the list. Once the globe’s longest-running television sports quiz, it stood as a cherished national institution.
Throughout its extraordinary 55-year run, the programme boasted a parade of sporting legends-turned beloved national treasures as presenters and team captains, including Sue Barker, David Coleman, Ian Botham, and Ally McCoist. However, its lengthy reign came to an abrupt end in 2023, after a disastrous rebranding attempt two years prior – a decision Botham described as the BBC having “made a pig’s ear of.”
In a bid to refresh their supposedly outdated format – and aesthetic – the corporation removed the adored threesome of Barker, Matt Dawson, and Phil Tufnell, substituting them with Paddy McGuinness as presenter and Sam Quek and Ugo Monye as captains. The verdict? Audiences were far from thrilled.
Viewing figures crashed – tumbling from approximately four million during Barker’s final series to merely 800,000 by 2023. The BBC ultimately cancelled the programme – which they’d inexplicably retitled Question of Sport – citing “inflation and funding challenges.”
Speaking to The Telegraph, cricket icon Botham – who led a team between 1988 and 1996 – pulled no punches. “They made a complete and utter pig’s ear of it,” he said. “It lost its direction.” Regarding new presenter McGuinness, he remarked sharply: “I think he likes himself too much.”
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Fellow former team captain Bill Beaumont, who served from 1982 to 1996, echoed the criticism. “The problem was that he [McGuinness] tried to make it showbiz,” he said.
“But actually people wanted to see sportsmen and women in a different environment than the rugby field, the athletics track or the swimming pool. And if you were invited on as a guest, you thought, ‘Wow, I’ve made it!’ There was a real kudos in being on the show.”
Another factor behind the programme’s downfall may have been the BBC’s diminishing grip on sports broadcasting rights, alongside a shift away from securing knowledgeable, appropriate guests. “It was a different age,” Beaumont said.
(L-R) Bill Beaumont, David Coleman and Ian Botham were the face of A Question of Sport for years(Image: BBC)
“The BBC owned every sport, whether it was Test-match cricket, the Grand National, the Five Nations. Life was probably much more straightforward back then. And you also had David Coleman, David Vine, Sue Barker. They were genuine, genuine professionals who truly grasped and were enthusiastic about sports.
“The producers would pair the guests with the sporting timetable, so that the episode for the week of the Grand National would feature a jockey on.”
Botham and Beaumont spent almost a decade battling as rival team captains on A Question of Sport. Beaumont, the former England rugby skipper, joined the programme in 1982. Six years later, he was accompanied by Botham – widely considered as one of the finest all-round cricketers of all time.
The show retained its popularity in the 2000s, with Sue Barker, Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell hosting(Image: PA)
The duo were mainstays until 1996, when they handed over the baton to Scottish football icon and now beloved TNT Sports commentator Ally McCoist, along with former snooker world champion John Parrott.
Beaumont’s impressive 16-year tenure on the panel made him the second-longest-serving team captain in the show’s history, only surpassed by fellow England rugby legend Matt Dawson, who joined in 2004 and remained until the unfortunate rebrand in 2021. For the majority of this period, his counterpart was ex-cricketer Phil Tufnell – evidence, perhaps, that the rugby-cricket dynamic was always a winning combination.
After more than a quarter of a century apart, Botham and Beaumont have reunited to launch a podcast, Old Boys, New Balls. The inaugural episode, featuring Piers Morgan as a guest, is set to go live this week – a timely reminder that some legends never go out of style.
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