BBC Sport - History

History

The BBC has broadcast sport for several decades under individual programme names and coverage titles. Grandstand was one of the more notable Sport programmes, broadcasting sport since the programmes launch in 1958. The BBC first began to brand sport coverage as 'BBC Sport' in 1988 for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, by introducing the programme with a short animation of a globe circumnavigated by four coloured rings. This practice continued throughout the next two decades. Upon the launch of the BBC News website in 1997, sport was included in the BBC's online presence for the first time.

In 2000 BBC Sport became a separate department of the BBC based at BBC Television Centre in London. As a result, the BBC Sport website was launched, although close ties were retained between the editors of the BBC Sport and BBC News websites. The website contained the details of several sports covered by the BBC, including key sports and other smaller specialist sports.

In 2006, the department gained Mihir Bose in the newly created Sports Editor position to improve the sports coverage. BBC Sport also began to experiment with High-definition television, namely broadcasting the 2006 Football World Cup on BBC HD, as part of larger experiments within the BBC. Following the official launch of the BBC HD channel, BBC Sport expanded their HD coverage of sport, with Director of Sport Roger Mosey announcing in January 2009 that the BBC's aim "is for all our sport production to be in HD by 2012 at the latest".

In June 2008, an interactive service was launched by BBC Sport on the BBC Red Button service. Available on all major television platforms, the service relayed both sports results and other sport video feeds currently not allocated broadcast time. The best example of this is the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon, where matches on other courts are only broadcast as part of highlights or in full on the BBC Sports website and BBC Red Button.

In 2009, Mihir Bose and Roger Mosey both left to be replaced with David Bond as Sports Editor in December and with Barbara Slater becoming the new Director of Sport in April 2009.

In May 2007, the BBC Trust approved plans for several BBC departments, including BBC Sport, to be moved to a new development in Salford. The new development at MediaCityUK marks a major decentralisation of BBC departments from London and a key investment in the north of England where BBC spending in the region had previously been low. The department moved in to Quay House, MediaCityUK gradually in late 2011 and early 2012 with the first Sports bulletins being broadcast from the new BBC Sport Centre on 5 March 2012.