The great thing about historic events such as Wimbledon is that they always throw up moments to remember and some of them come away from the action on the court.
For example this year you can buy a Ralph Lauren Umpire’s blazer with the Wimbledon logo on the pocket, it will however set you back GBP895.
The Wimbledon towel has always been a best seller, and that retails for GBP29 at the on-site shop. Interestingly the players opt to take with them as many as they can during the tournament despite being in a position to buy them in bulk. These are they claim for family and friends. However to give the players competing at Young Wimbledon something to aspire to, they are only allowed to have one towel each to take home!
Many will remember the day at Wimbledon when two high class ‘ladies of the night’ found their way into the Royal Box to watch the tennis. It turned out that they had been given the tickets by a former World Champion boxer who was too tired to attend. They caused quite a stir.
One man who always caused a store in his playing days did so again this year when he arrived in the Royal Box wearing full military attire from his days in the Romanian army, his name was Ilie Nastase. In former times he worked in the Ministry of Defence when his country was under communist rule.
The television coverage of Wimbledon has always been the industry benchmark for Tennis, yet there has even been a storm over that this year. The BBC opted to air the highlights show from a set at the venue for corporate hospitality, the Gatsby Club. It did not go down at all well with devoted fans and has been relocated to Centre Court. This is in spite of the fact that the BBC still has to pay the estimated GBP25000 for the use of the club.
A small price to pay to get it right. Maybe the BBC should follow Channel Nine’s lead in Cricket and start flogging Wimbledon towels and aforementioned Ralph Lauren jackets and then they may well soon recoup their wasted costs.
