BBC sets aside £60m extra for sport

The BBC has set aside £60m to cover major sporting events this year, including the football World Cup in South Africa, which begins next month. BBC1 has been handed the extra cash in its budget for the current financial year, which ends on 31 March 2011, according to information published yesterday by the BBC Trust . The money will also be spent on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi later this year, the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona and the Ryder Cup, the biennial golf tournament between Europe and the US. BBC1 has had its £1.166bn budget boosted by £60m because it is a "sports year", according to the trust, which published new licences for the corporation's 28 TV, radio and online services today. The channel would otherwise have received £1.106bn for 2010-11. "Expenditure on BBC1 follows a two year cyclical pattern reflecting the playout of major sports," the trust said. Many events shown on the BBC, including Formula 1 and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, take place annually, but several are biennial or every four years. These include the winter or summer Olympics, the football World Cup, European football Championships and the World Athletics Championships. A BBC spokeswoman would not reveal what proportion of the additional money is likely to be spent on the World Cup, but emphasised that the increased budget will cover several sporting events. She pointed out the figure includes money spent on events covered on BBC radio as well as TV, such as the Ashes Test series to be contested by England in Australia this coming winter. The cost of major sporting events to licence-fee payers has proved contentious in the past. In March BBC executives outlined plans to send up to 295 staff to cover the 2010 World Cup , 15% fewer than the number who covered the last tournament in Germany four years ago, in an attempt to head off criticism about expenditure. ITV, which will also screen 32 of the tournaments 64 games, is expected to send between 120 and 140 staff. The BBC was criticised by the National Audit Office earlier this year for spending £250,000 on a studio in Vienna for Euro 2008. BBC executives rejected the purpose-built studios provided by the tournament organisers because they did not like the view. There has been fresh controversy this year over plans to build a similar studio on Tabletop mountain, which overlooks Cape Town. The vast majority of rival broadcasters will be based at an International Broadcast Centre in Johannesburg with views of Soccer City, where the opening match and final will be played. However, the BBC said its Cape Town studio will be a "flat pack" facility that will be dismantled after the tournament ends so it can be reused elsewhere. The BBC also came under attack for sending 437 people to cover the Beijing Olympics in 2008. BBC Sport declined to give an overall figure for the World Cup 2010 budget. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".