BBC Sport’s Barbara Slater has picked up an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to sports broadcasting.
The former international gymnast has been with the corporation’s sports department for more than 30 years and was appointed into her current position of director of BBC Sport in 2009, becoming the first woman to be appointed into the role.
Slater, 55, who competed in the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal for Great Britain, began her career with the BBC in 1983 as a trainee assistant producer in the Natural History Unit in Bristol, before joining the sports department in London the following year.
Rising through the ranks with BBC Sport over the next two decades, she has spent most of her career as a producer in BBC Television Sport, specialising in outside broadcasts and overseeing the production of a range of sports including tennis and golf.
She held senior positions as head of production and head of general sports for the department before being chosen as the successor Roger Mosey as the BBC’s head of sport in 2009.
In her role as director of sport, Slater oversees the BBC’s coverage of major sporting events and is responsible for leading negotiations with governing bodies for sports rights.
She has also overseen the division through the move from London to Salford in 2011 as well as the BBC’s successful and critically acclaimed coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, the corporation’s biggest ever production for a single sporting event.
Speaking of her appointment in 2009, director of BBC North Peter Salmon, previously head of BBC Sport from 2000-2005, said: “Barbara was the outstanding candidate for the job at one of the most exciting moments in BBC Sport’s long and distinguished development. Her passion, commitment and skill as a supreme sports producer clinched the role.”
In her time as director of sport, Slater has helped the BBC secure long-term rights deals to some of its biggest sporting properties, including Olympic Games, World Cups, Wimbledon, Six Nations, The Open Championship and Premier League highlights.
She has, however, overseen the loss of some of the BBC’s biggest sporting events including the Grand National and Royal Ascot, to Channel 4, and the loss of exclusive Formula 1 rights to Sky Sports; though in a major coup last year, Slater played a key role in bringing back live FA Cup football to BBC screens from 2014/15 season onwards.
Other names to be recognised from the world of sport in the Queen’s Birthday Honours include golfer Laura Davies (Dame), England cricket captain Charlotte Edwards (CBE), Wales rugby union coach Warren Gatland (OBE) and Winter Olympics gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold (MBE).
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