BBC pundits are making “controversial and outrageous” statements to raise their profile, advertising experts told MailOnline after Harry Kane He asks former footballers to think twice before attacking current players.
American sports shows have long relied on shock moments that are then amplified on social media, with former players like Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards gaining huge audiences on American networks like CBS.
In Britain, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have been among the harshest critics of Gareth Southgate’s team in recent days, with both former professionals offering harsh criticism on the BBC following England’s draw against Denmark on Thursday.
Lineker doubled down on his own podcast, The Rest Is Football, where he called the team’s performance against Denmark “shit.” This earned him the annoyance of Kane, who lashed out at attacks from experts who knew what “wearing the shirt” was.
Listeners have noted the more frank tone Lineker and others have adopted this summer, and one sports producer attributed it to the launch of his podcast in August.
Gary Lineker has been among the harshest critics of Gareth Southgate’s side in recent days.
American sports programs have long relied on shock moments that are then amplified on social media, with former players such as Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards gaining huge audiences on the CBS network.
“He’s much more frank and rude, and in that format Lineker is more able to express his opinion,” they said. The times. “Plus, I think he knows this is his last tournament and he doesn’t give a damn.”
Advertising expert Rochelle White said pundits were increasingly drawn to hard-hitting commentary they knew would generate more engagement than dispassionate analysis.
“They see how far they can take it so they go viral and people talk about them,” he told MailOnline. ‘The more scandalous and controversial the comment, the more viral it will go, which means more eyeballs.
“Commentators know that if they say something on a big platform like the BBC or Sky they will get more followers who they can target for their podcast.”
Viewers have complained that Euro 2024 pundits compete with each other to generate clicks with exaggerated commentary and analysis.
These segments are often filmed for social media, with the ‘Commentary Cam’ being a BBC favourite.
For example, Linker’s BBC reprimand of Kane for “barely moving” during the Denmark match was quickly clipped and shared on social media, where it soon generated more than a million views.
Some fans believe that pundits and broadcasters are keen to use the euros as an opportunity to boost their social profiles, mirroring the so-called ‘Roy Keane’ effect in which Sky Sports have used their snippets to produce viral content online.
PR guru Mark Borkowski said that compared to previous generations, there is now “a lot of money in football”, which has led pundits to focus on creating commentary that benefits their other media activities, such as podcasts.
“Now we have people with lots of different business interests, so people will say one thing on the BBC and a different thing on their own podcast,” he told MailOnline.
“That’s why people are looking to create clever clickbait to generate income for their media followers.”
Harry Kane asked former footballers to think twice before attacking current players
Despite this, he insisted that the current generation of experts was “really quite dull” compared to what was seen in the past.
‘People like Brian Clough used to be much louder, but the difference is that now we have social media to broadcast their comments and generate outrage.
‘If anyone from that generation had access to social media, we would have a revolution on our hands.
“People want experts to have an opinion, but nowadays many of them don’t say anything because they have access to agents and players and they want to preserve it.”
Shearer referred to the criticism he and Lineker had received when they appeared on the Rest Is Football podcast yesterday after England’s 0-0 draw with Slovenia.
In a radical departure from his verdict that England were ‘s***’ against Denmark (a comment that sparked much backlash from current stars), Lineker turned on the praise.
Lineker believes England are “improving slightly” and showed “energy” in the second half against Slovenia, he said on the latest episode of his The Rest Is Football podcast.
The BBC presenter and former England star admitted to drinking three glasses of red wine before filming.
“I think there were signs in that performance that I quite liked. In the second half, I thought you could see that if this team keeps pushing hard, the opportunities will come,” Lineker said.
“We may have been playing that way because Slovenia knew that a draw would get them through, so they were cautious and sat back a bit, I understand that.
But I saw enough to suggest that England are improving slightly. I think there were downsides, but I think there were real positives.
Lineker struck a more measured tone when discussing the England-Slovenia game yesterday.
“I thought when Cole Palmer came in, and we’ve said this many times, we know we have a lot of talented young players, this guy could very well be the best of them all.
“We were still unbalanced on the left and it was a bit disconcerting that he (Southgate) waited so long for Anthony Gordon to come on. “Foden was playing there and switching with Bellingham and I don’t think that helped either of them because they were neither here nor there .
“What I saw in the second half, trying to put a positive spin on it, was energy. In the other performances I have not seen energy beyond the first half hour of the first game.
He added: “There is enough in the second half to make me think that for the first time this England team has some energy.”
At that point, Shearer intervened to suggest that Lineker was chickening out after being criticized for his comments about England following the draw with Denmark in their second group match.
He said: “If you were a cynic, you’d say he’s afraid of being criticized again.”
Lineker denied it and said: ‘Me? Are you afraid of being criticized? Never in my life. I tell it as I see it and I was watching it during the second part.
“I thought the first half was really terrible and again there wasn’t a lot of pressure, occasionally a couple of little moments that were really bad. I didn’t like the team selection, I thought it was incredibly conservative.”
The BBC declined to comment.