Golden retrievers and guess-the-pasta: Disney's quirky Women's Champions League debut sparks punditry backlash
Disney+'s first night covering the Women's Champions League was unlike anything the competition has seen before — and plenty of fans wish it hadn't been.
The opening-night show, 'The Hangout', was hosted by former England internationals Alex Scott and Lianne Sanderson alongside content creators Tyra Mills and Alex Bailess, and — quite inexplicably, in the eyes of many viewers — a golden retriever named Barley Boy, who at the time of writing has 82,000 more Instagram followers than veteran broadcaster Max Rushden himself.
The show included a quiz about Italy — including guessing the Italian word for football and identifying which pasta the reporter in Milan was cooking. One now-famous still image shows the panel staring at a pile of farfalle on a screen normally reserved for team lineups or key match incidents.
The immediate reaction from seasoned followers of the women's game was a mix of bewilderment and fury. The Telegraph's Kathryn Batte wrote an understandable critique, while broadcaster Flo Lloyd-Hughes posted on X: "Disney's new UWCL coverage is the closest we've seen to CBBC football (derogatory). I wouldn't be surprised if we see someone gunged for making a wrong prediction or perhaps Raven will make a cameo. Keep stopping to remind myself this isn't a dream."
'You get one show, so they try to do it all'
Consistent across all the criticism is a simple truth: the men's Champions League would never be covered this way. Broadcaster Marva Kreel articulated one of the core issues in her own post: "I think a lot of the problem with the debates in women's football broadcasting over analysis and punditry v content creation and gimmicky fun, is that in men's football you can get both – and in different shows. In women's football you get one show, and so they try to do it all."
Writing in the Guardian, Rushden — a self-confessed veteran of bad TV — offered a sympathetic but honest assessment. He said he understood the thinking behind the concept, imagining executives telling producers they wanted to bring in a younger audience, and noted that Disney could argue most of the criticism came not from young people but from people who expect the game to be covered a certain way. "Disney may be being cynical – people are talking and writing about it. The hardcore will watch anyway," he wrote.
He also defended the on-screen contributors: "From what I saw, Bailess and Mills came across as very personable and fun – which was clearly the brief – and you can't criticise anyone for taking a job." He expressed sympathy for Scott, who he says "perpetually finds herself in the middle of some sort of culture war", referencing the troubling discourse that surrounded her departure from Football Focus.
A quiet retreat by night two
The clearest signal about how Disney judged its own experiment? "The dog did not return for the second night of coverage," Rushden noted. The second night's show subtly moved towards a more traditional setup rather than doubling down.
His conclusion was measured: "You can't magic up an audience, but you can make people feel like you respect the game, you can do it in an entertaining way without introducing animals, and people will come back and watch you again."