Gary gets set to hang up his boots

Sport has to be the quirkiest ‘product’ ever ‘sold’ to its loyal customers. Think about it: you’re essentially buying ‘hope’- through subscriptions or match tickets - and the value of that purchase is judged entirely by how well your team performs. In any other business, that’s where the transaction ends. You wouldn’t, for instance, grab your weekly shop at Sainsbury’s, and then spend hours discussing the individual length of each sausage or if you should have chosen a slightly different shape of pasta. But in sport? Oh no. The endless rehashing of “what if's” and “almosts” is part of the ‘purchase’.Enter Alex Kay-Jelski, the new BBC Head of Sport, who’s apparently keen on shaking things up. The plan is to dial down the post-Lineker punditry on ‘Match of the Day’ and instead simply present fans with the red meat: online goal highlights before the show even airs. Sure, it might fit with the BBC’s ambition to woo a younger crowd, but does it really do the game - or the 'buyer's contract' - justice? Let’s be honest, half of your investment in the commodity is in the punditry - the banter, the disagreements, the inexplicable obsession with stats. Without it, the whole ‘purchase’ is incomplete. It would feel a bit like buying all your groceries only to find the cereal boxes empty and the wine bottles mysteriously half-consumed!