Oxbridge over troubled water

This weekend the crowds will be packed on the banks of the Thames, suitably loaded up on booze waiting for the one minute where two boats are in visible sight to pass so that they can go back to their normal Saturday routine. And then it is over for another year.

Call me an old fogy, but the Boat Race has perhaps the least amount of appeal than any sporting event that will be televised this year.

This is a race, remember, popular only due to its history. In this day and age, is there really that much public interest in Varsity sport? Perusers of digital sports channels during off-peak times, such as students like me, will have seen the Oxford-Cambridge Rugby League match on Sky Sports only a few weeks ago. Rugby League, that is the sport scarcely popular below the Midland belt, just to reiterate. So why even the most hardened rugby fan would want to watch two teams from the suburbs of London playing such a geographically misplaced sport is well beyond me.

Moreover, surely one of the fundamentals of sport is that there should be the opportunity to support one side over another. I have no national or personal persuasion to support either side in a tennis match between Nadal and Federer, yet I can find a reason to support either one. The Spaniard due to his age and physique, and the World Number One for his sheer class and elegance. Why would anyone from outside the two universities, unless they have a link somewhere in their life, give two hoots about which side wins?

It blows my mind to think that broadcasters are having a tug of war for the rights to the annual event. Perhaps the reason for this is that the cost is loose change compared to the Champions League or English Test Cricket, rather than it being THE event of the year for the UK’s sports viewers.

Perhaps there is a deep-rooted antagonism in my inner psyche that I am unaware of caused by Oxbridge rejection, yet which side one would cheer to victory is a non-sensical choice to have to make. So when the two teams cruise under Barnes Bridge with a quarter of a million people watching from the banks, 7 to 9 million people on TV in the UK, and an estimated 120 million globally, am I the only one who really could not care less?