Sir David Attenborough, the legendary broadcaster, historian, conservationist, and author, celebrates his 100th birthday today (May 8). While best known for his nature documentaries, Attenborough also made a profound impact on the world of sports, particularly tennis at Wimbledon and snooker, during the 1960s.
The Fluorescent Tennis Ball Revolution
Attenborough is credited with introducing fluorescent tennis balls to Wimbledon, making them far more visible on broadcast television. Until the 1970s, tennis balls were either black or white. Attenborough suggested that a fluorescent ball would be much easier for cameras to capture, especially as colour televisions grew in popularity. The International Tennis Federation conducted extensive research to find a colour visible on both colour and black-and-white TVs, eventually settling on a greenish-yellow shade known as optic yellow. Today, approximately 55,000 of these balls are used during the Wimbledon tournament. While the ITF introduced yellow balls in 1972, Wimbledon itself did not make the switch until 1986.
Championing Snooker on Colour Television
In 1969, Attenborough gathered the BBC's most senior executives to push for colour television broadcasts. He pitched snooker—then a sport in decline—to Bryan Cowgill, the BBC's head of sport. This led to the creation of the tournament Pot Black, which soon became a nationwide hit. Attenborough later recalled, 'I had a few colour cameras in existence, and I was absolutely strapped as to how to employ them. I wanted to put stuff on BBC Two that didn't appear on anything else. But then I realised I could do 48 hours of transmissions in three days on that one simple screen. In terms of production of colour pictures it was an absolute godsend.' Cowgill, who had previously created Grandstand and helped launch Match of the Day, found his defining moment with Pot Black. The programme transformed snooker from a pastime associated with smoky working men's clubs into a televised sensation, ranking among the channel's most-watched programmes.
