The Gardeners' World Blog

One of the things about my role here as "head of the future" is while almost everyone else is totally focused on the World Cup, I spent half of today talking to colleagues about what we do afterwards.

We hadn't really thought there was life after July 10th, such is the way Germany has occupied every waking hour. But today we wondered - what do we do once the trophy has been handed over? Even the FA have worked that one out now!

The list of tasks is already pretty long so there's no time for much of a rest - last week's plans for BBC Sport and the current rethink of the website are both rather important for us.

Hopefully if you’re reading this you also think so....

A lot of comment this morning about the new Premier League rights deal, which will bring in £1.706 billion over three years. Something of a tribute to the business skills of the FAPL, we reckon...

But it prompts some thoughts about balance within the sports broadcasting market. The explosion of choice in recent years is a good thing - and it was inevitable that some sport would move to subscription channels. (And the Premier League has actually never been live on free-to-air.)

At the BBC we're pleased we still have a strong portfolio with the TV events that bring the nation together like the World Cup and the Olympics; and unbeatable support from our radio and online services.

But there are a couple of points that need to be made about the future.

First, there's a seductive argument that the British government's listed events won't matter when we're all in a digital world - that there'll no longer be a need for major sporting moments to be guaranteed for the whole of the population.

But that argument is wrong...