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Posts
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It looks like another weak field for BBC sports personality of the year with no stand-out candidate.
Suppose Ryan rides the Queen’s horse to victory in the Derby and then perhaps does something else of note like win the Arc or become champion jockey.
Would he then be in with a shout?
On balance I think he would need a very good PR machine to get behind him but I wouldn’t rule him out completely at this stage.
He won the Oaks, Derby and Arc last year and wasn’t nominated. For so many reasons – and none of them are negative about Ryan Moore – no.
If Sam Waley-Cohen had won the GN, however, the chance of a campaign might have been different……
Can he win SPOTY? Yes
Will he win SPOTY? NoHe isn’t known at all outside of horse-racing, even to sports fans. He could win the Derby blindfolded, and every other race on the calendar, and he still wouldn’t get a nomination.
He will doubtless win many awards in the sporting world, but BBC Sports Personality of the Year – as voted by the general public – will not be one of them.
Do you not have to have a personality to win SPOTY?
NO
Blackbeard to conquer the World
No I think it should go to Henry Cecil followed by a Knighthood for services to racing and for having the best horse in training Frankel who turned the 2,000 Guineas into a procession…Jac
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...I tend to agree with most posters here that it is highly unlikely.
It’s strange in a way though as jockeys get quite a lot of TV coverage and racing is a popular sport. And I would say a jockey’s job is at least as demanding as being say a Formula 1 driver or golfer or darts player. So it’s really a PR failure.
But let’s not forget Zara Phillips won once and AP won last year so maybe the tide is turning.
I tend to agree with most posters here that it is highly unlikely.
It’s strange in a way though as jockeys get quite a lot of TV coverage and racing is a popular sport. And I would say a jockey’s job is at least as demanding as being say a Formula 1 driver or golfer or darts player. So it’s really a PR failure.
But let’s not forget Zara Phillips won once and AP won last year so maybe the tide is turning.
AP was as near to a household name as you will find in horse racing. Ask non-horse racing fans who Ryan Moore is and they won’t have a clue; even those who like sport will probably say an American golfer.
It’s incredible to think that Moore is a multiple champion jockey, has won many big races, and yet is virtually unknown outside of the sport in which he excels.
Ask non-horse racing fans who Ryan Moore is and they won’t have a clue; even those who like sport will probably say an American golfer.
It’s incredible to think that Moore is a multiple champion jockey, has won many big races, and yet is virtually unknown outside of the sport in which he excels.
Not incredible at all on the evidence of the disdain he appears to show towards racing fans.
I know little about golf, but I’d hazard the American is a little more respectful towards the general sporting public than the British one.
I tend to agree with most posters here that it is highly unlikely.
It’s strange in a way though as jockeys get quite a lot of TV coverage and racing is a popular sport. And I would say a jockey’s job is at least as demanding as being say a Formula 1 driver or golfer or darts player. So it’s really a PR failure.
But let’s not forget Zara Phillips won once and AP won last year so maybe the tide is turning.
AP was as near to a household name as you will find in horse racing. Ask non-horse racing fans who Ryan Moore is and they won’t have a clue; even those who like sport will probably say an American golfer.
It’s incredible to think that Moore is a multiple champion jockey, has won many big races, and yet is virtually unknown outside of the sport in which he excels.
That’s probably because the coverage of sport in this country has been ‘dumbed down’. 90% of it is football – the other 10% is all the other sports put together. We’re becoming a one-sport nation…
- Total Posts 17716
That’s probably because the coverage of sport in this country has been ‘dumbed down’. 90% of it is football – the other 10% is all the other sports put together. We’re becoming a one-sport nation…
That is true for the
meja
, which takes virtually no notice of the impressively wide spectrum of sport/game fans.
Fu’bol
is by no means so dominant as the coverage allotted to it in the printed and broadcast
meja
suggests.
The reality is that sports such as cycling, motor bike racing and horse racing have huge fan bases which the
meja
hardly nods towards.
Perception is everything, of course. The pressure on other sports is to spend endless money and energy attempting to look more like
fu’bol
and less like themselves. This wouldn’t matter, if it weren’t that embarrassing campaigns to go the
fu’bol
route by promoting individual "personalities" and fake ‘team’ events such as the appalling Shergar Cup only make Racing look naff to the adolescent males they’re supposed to attract.
Major on the horses, folks, not the jocks. And emphasise the family-friendly aspects of the live experience, not the beer tents and pop gigs
(Newbury, I’m talking to you)
.
Mr Moore has quite as much "personality" (and considerably more grey matter) than his English
fu’bolling
contemporaries. But – as another thread has amply demonstrated – it’s the wrong sort to suck up to the
meja
, or the people who are brainwashed by those worthies.
I tend to agree with most posters here that it is highly unlikely.
It’s strange in a way though as jockeys get quite a lot of TV coverage and racing is a popular sport. And I would say a jockey’s job is at least as demanding as being say a Formula 1 driver or golfer or darts player. So it’s really a PR failure.
But let’s not forget Zara Phillips won once and AP won last year so maybe the tide is turning.
AP was as near to a household name as you will find in horse racing. Ask non-horse racing fans who Ryan Moore is and they won’t have a clue; even those who like sport will probably say an American golfer.
It’s incredible to think that Moore is a multiple champion jockey, has won many big races, and yet is virtually unknown outside of the sport in which he excels.
That’s probably because the coverage of sport in this country has been ‘dumbed down’. 90% of it is football – the other 10% is all the other sports put together. We’re becoming a one-sport nation…
Couldn’t disagree with you more. If you have the Sky Sports channels then you can watch virtually any sport you like. Take today for example; golf and tennis get far more hours than football.
Every single horse race in the UK can be seen on TV if you have both ATR and RUK. In fact, horse racing is a hell of a lot cheaper to watch in this country than top-flight football. You don’t have to subsribe to RUK but providing you have a set-top box you can still watch stacks of racing coverage on ATR. The only way to watch live football in this country is subscription to either Sky Sports or ESPN (other than the odd game on BBC and an international on ITV).
The reasons Ryan Moore is not a household name – despite his lofty position in the sport he participates – is two-fold. One, PR is crap, and two, he is not very outgoing. And possibly a third reason is that horse racing is seen as a form of gambling rather than a sport, and is therefore not immensely popular.
- Total Posts 17716
OneEye
, you are quite right to point to the sport diaspora available through satellite and cable TV, which better reflects the true spread of interest. The fact that RfC for example are so hung up on terrestrial TV and tabloid paper media coverage is a sign of their hopelessly inadequate and outmoded PR and marketing ability.
Globally, Racing is the second most popular sport on the planet. The commercial gains are more widely spread and in a greater number of hands than in other sports (which is in fact a very good thing, although not in the eyes of the media, who like to focus on a Blatter or Ecclestone-type evil demon figure) but that is no reason to ape the "personality" cult of football – unless of course you are talking about the horses themselves.
It’s not that long ago that more people in the UK had heard of
Red Rum
or
Desert Orchid
than could name the then-current Chancellor of the Exchequer.
That
is the PR which RfC should be banking, not the astute and quiet little men on top of the horses, admirable though many of them are.
Ordinarily I would agree that horse racing would be best served by promoting the horse as opposed to the jockey but it’s absolutely possible for a jockey to be a household name,
Frankie Dettori for example.
Lester Piggott, probably the most famous Jockey of all, is still a household name throughout the UK.
I am not so sure Ryan Moore is that well known outwith racing circles. It would take a giant leap of faith to foresee him as nominee for SPOTY, let alone a winner.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I am a big fan of Ryan Moore and think he is at least as meritworthy in a sporting sense as say Stevie G, Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton etc on the usual criteria of success, skill, professionalism etc.
But I can’t foresee a set of realistic circumstances where he would ever win a Sports Personality of the Year. It’s partly a personality issue – he’s rather taciturn and guarded in what he says perhaps for professional reasons and perhaps because he’s not an extrovert. But more importantly it’s hard to see how he could do something so noteworthy that might bring sufficient public attention. I can’t see him emulating AP’s dominance or Frankie’s magnificent 7. I don’t think being champion jockey or winning the Derby again would make much difference. Perhaps his best hope would be some sort of lifetime achievement recognition towards the end of his career.
So there we have it. One of our finest sportsmen, arguably the best jockey in the world, in a major spectator sport, who doesn’t seem to get much public recognition.
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