Gary Lineker once revealed his insistence on making a change to Match of the Day that many of us probably take for granted now when the BBC regained the Premier League’s highlights rights.
Lineker has led the BBC’s football coverage since 1999, taking over the reigns from legendary anchorman Des Lynam.
The now 63-year-old’s media career followed his time on the pitch which saw him represent hometown club Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur and Japanese side Nagoya Grampus.
Lineker also scored 48 goals in 80 caps for England, leaving him as second highest goalscorer for the Three Lions upon his retirement, before he was overtaken in the standings by both Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane.
The BBC have not always had the rights to broadcast highlights packages for the Premier League, though.
Between 2001 and 2004, these were shown on ITV’s programme The Premiership and ran for three seasons, with Lynam and Gabby Logan presenting, supported by pundits including Ally McCoist, Andy Townsend, Barry Venison, Ron Atkinson and Terry Venables.
However, the rights returned to the BBC for the 2004/05 season onwards and Match of the Day has hosted the English top flight’s evening highlights package ever since then.
But the format on ITV was different to that which we are now used to with modern Match of the Day.
Getty)
The original format of the highlights package was that clips of only certain games were broadcast, and at times this was reduced to just showing goals.
However, upon the BBC regaining the rights, Lineker appealed to bosses at the broadcaster to try and find a way to show the highlights of all the games played that day.
It was something that was achieved after Lineker advocated for it and is something which many would likely believe to be unthinkable now, that highlights of their team in action would not be shown.
As per the Daily Express, Lineker told BBC Breakfast: “When it came back, when we got the rights back, I said, ‘Is there any way we could show all the games?’
“We found a way of doing it and I thought we finally won’t get people moaning that they’re never on Match of the Day.”
He added: “Of course then it becomes about where they are on Match of the Day, on the running order! ‘We’re always last’.”
You can’t please everyone, it seems.