BBC Sport and their departments explained.
Written by ERIC team.
You know when something’s there, but you have no idea what it actually is?
Like that random person who turns up at every family gathering but you have no clue who they actually are? Well, BBC Sport is probably one of those things too. You’ve most likely used it before - hell, you might even use it regularly - but I guarantee you don’t know how it works and how many things it makes available to us as consumers.
So here’s a breakdown of the different departments at BBC Sport and what to expect in other companies in the media and TV industry.
TV
Oh, it is so much bigger than just Match of The Day. BBC Sport TV is at the heart of nearly every major sporting event worldwide - The Olympics, the World Cup, Wimbledon… if it exists, BBC sport probably covers it. Hundreds of hours of sport are delivered into homes across the UK, week in week out, and behind this insane amount of coverage is a team of creative, quick-thinking individuals who can clearly keep cool in high-stress situations.
Red Button & Live Streaming
Being dragged away from the tennis on TV to another family function (who knew your mum had so many cousins and you still don’t know who they are)? Lucky for you, with live streaming you can watch the match on the go, wherever you are with the BBC app. Tennis isn’t your thing? From the Women’s World Cup to wheelchair basketball, Red Button & Live Streaming always has something to satisfy your tastes - you don’t need to look any further for top notch quality coverage of live sport.
Online
With more than 27 million browsers a week (crikey), BBC Sport online is the largest online destination for all things sports; live sports and sports news coverage, great sports entertainment, quizzes, videos - and it has its own app! And if you want to keep UP-up-to-date with core sports news and live coverage, then look no further than BBC Sports Twitter, Insta, and Facebook pages. Go hit that follow button asap.
TV Sport News
TV Sport News makes the sports bulletins you see on BBC Breakfast, the BBC News Channel, BBC World and BBC1. They broadcast straight from their own set in the middle of the newsroom (must be HECTIC there) and have a versatile and talented team of presenters, producers, journalists and journalism coordinators (who make graphics that go into the bulletins). FYI, journalists script, voice and edit all of their own VTs and since the team has to operate 24 hours a day (when do they sleep?), the grind really don’t stop.
Radio Sports News
These are the sports bulletins for Radio 5live, 24 hours a day (there seems to be an underlying trend of non-stop work here) that showcases BBC’s best sports journalism and live event coverage. The best part is that they don’t just cover results, there’s a lot of coverage on the stories behind them, so expect a lot of remarkable human interest stories and interviews with sports men and women at the world’s biggest sporting events, all across the globe. Investigative journalism in sport? Yes please.
Sport Archives
The Sport Library has well over 100,000 hours of digital sports footage - that’s more than 4,000 days of non-stop sporting videos. Operating 24/7 (I told you these lot are hard workers) to ensure that all footage is brought into the Sport Production System,
footage is safely stored in archive after an extensive process involving media managing and adding MetaData (don’t look at me, I don’t know either??). Working in the Sports Archive is a great place to start as you get to know all the other areas - perfect for moving around BBC Sports and understanding different roles.
Follow BBC Sport on the ERIC app to keep up to date on their new entry-level roles.