We get that he’s not for us. TNT Sports didn’t offer Rio Ferdinand a new contract with middle-aged, middle class lefties in mind.
They know that him shouting ‘BALLON D’OR’ several times while watching Vinicius Junior will garner the sort of clicks and social media eyeballs to make grumbles from what is probably actually – if we were to venture beyond our scoffing echo chamber – a minority of viewers, easy to shrug off as breakage in their bid to move with the clippable times.
People complain, but not enough to stop watching. Their monopoly on European football ensures that.
And while we don’t like the thought of TNT Sports chiefs prioritising divisive, anger-inducing pundits rather than than those with erudite and interesting opinions, our news writers won’t be typing the name of some stats nerd into Google tomorrow in a bid to drive traffic, while ‘Rio Ferdinand‘ will be one of their first ports of call.
Whether you agree that he’s earned his place in the pantheon of pundits whose thoughts are valued or not, that’s the reality, and has been key to him making such a success of his ‘Rio Ferdinand Presents’ YouTube channel.
He’s appealing to a younger demographic and while his occasional 30-year slide to become a member of that demographic – the orgasmic noises that might have preceded a finger snap in the face of a ‘merk’d’ teammate in simpler times – is incredibly jarring on commentary, it’s earned him 1.3 million YouTube subscribers who clearly enjoy and value what he has to say.
And we get it. We don’t eagerly await the latest video or seek out his opinions if we’re not looking for traffic-driving news clicks, but there’s definitely something about Ferdinand that demands attention if he pops up during a late-night doom scroll to blind rank legendary footballers and no-one can deny that he genuinely loves and is obsessed with football, which is a charming quality.
That presence and football stock among fans will continue to serve him well in the sideline endeavours that will now be his focus, and should have been sooner in what has turned into a decade-long stint as one of the regular voices on major broadcasters.
Having been unbearable during PSG’s victory over Aston Villa earlier in the season, co-commentating like he was pushing a revolutionary fat-burning supplement on TikTok shop, Ferdinand was relatively reserved while watching PSG destroy Inter Milan in Bayern Munich.
We were waiting for something, and when it duly came, presumably in the knowledge that we won’t have to endure similar soundbites next season and beyond, we confess to smiling rather than rolling our eyes.
“Do you know what? I just got chills,” Ferdinand told us as Ousmane Dembele and Vitinha combined to set Desire Doue up for PSG’s quite brilliant third. Pointless but harmless. But that can’t be said about his quite extraordinary claim after Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored the fourth.
We don’t expect Rio to be holding the officials of governing bodies to account for allowing nation states to buy football clubs and put PSG in a situation where they can spend billions of pounds and win the Champions League; we don’t even expect him to mention it.
But claiming “this is a win for football” is stunning and damaging evidence of successful sportswashing; deplorable in that encourages millions of people watching to be similarly blinded to the reality of the problem of this victory by the undoubted brilliance of this wonderfully talented football team.
While Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Jamie Caragher, Owen Hargreaves and other players of his generation have become part of the furniture of football punditry on Sky, BT, TNT or whichever other highest TV bidder they’ve represented, Ferdinand’s never felt like a natural fit.
It’s not for him just as much as he’s not for us. But we can think of somewhere for him.
It feels almost too perfect for Ferdinand to be stepping down from TNT Sports duties ahead of the United States hosting Club World Cup next month, a year before being one of three host nations for the proper World Cup.
CBS Sports’ Golazo has gone from strength-to-strength to illustrate the potential that a switch to American broadcasting has, and a banterous, often cringeworthy studio like the one that has become a vehicle for producing 30-second moments for social media, feels like a far more suitable setting for Ferdinand’s talents.
Probably not CBS Sports, though we can absolutely see the allure of a weekly reignition of a war of words with Jamie Carragher that serves as a perfect example of what we’ve got Ferdinand to thank for.
But we won’t miss him on TNT Sports, because he isn’t for us, never was and probably never should have been.
