This might not be breaking news but it is the first time I have gotten around to blogging about it. I was going to let it slide but when I saw Charles Sale calling the former left back a ‘celebrity’ then I knew it was blogging time. The columnist at the Daily Mail has a thing against former sportsman going into TV as we’ve seen before as he continuously witters on about the BBC celebrity commentary pairing of Martin Brundle & David Coulthard. Not too sure they are huge celebs but saying that Scott Minto is a celebrity is really walking on the fine line between accuracy and lunacy.
I have put it out there before that I didn’t see why Sky Sports sacked Mark Bolton. He had been doing a fine job on Spanish football and it felt like a different atmosphere to the straight laced coverage we have on domestic football but having decided to not continue using the services of Mr Bolton they had to decide what way forward they would go. They could either get an exciting new hire to keep the style the same or get some non-entity in house guy to come in and bore the pants off viewers.
They chose the latter.
I have no issues with Scott Minto and it is still early days but it looks very likely he’ll just be a bland non-personality fronting the coverage. There is no spark from him and I’m guessing that might just be what Sky Sports were after. The last year has been by far the most turbulent for Sky Sports football department since they got the Premier League coverage back in the early 1990s and having lost it’s presenter and main analyst of the best part of two decades coverage has led to a clear change of on air talent policy.
Sky have always been keen to go in house instead of going out and hiring the best talent from other networks when it has come to football. They brought in Ian Payne from BBC Radio 5Live a few years back but he just never settled into TV and has since returned to radio and Ben Shepherd came in last year after leaving GMtV but has found himself on the outside looking in after Richard Keys left as in house options Ed Chamberlain and David Jones got the nod for the top games.
So Sky don’t want any personality. This is a shame. I won’t stop watching obviously but it is annoying when dull safe options are preferred to exciting personality driven ones. Whatever the case the mere writing of the words ‘celebrity Scott Minto’ are about as funny and accurate as writing that I am caught in a situation with Sophie Ellis Bextor. I’m really not (Yes a Sophie Ellis Bextor analogy – it has been a week or so…).
My view on this hire…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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