Disney+ opening-night Hangout for Women’s Champions League draws criticism after dog and pasta quiz
Max Rushden wrote on 24 September 2026 that the opening night of Disney+’s coverage of the Women’s Champions League featured a Hangout show hosted by Alex Scott alongside Lianne Sanderson, Tyra Mills and Alex Bailess and included a golden retriever called Barley Boy.
Rushden began with a personal disclaimer about his broadcast record: “Disclaimer: I have made a lot of bad TV programmes.” He said he has produced below-average radio shows and numerous podcasts, acknowledged having had both good and poor ideas that did or did not make it to air, and noted varied levels of editorial control across his presenting career.
The Hangout’s format combined former England internationals with content creators and unconventional segments: a quiz about Italy asking viewers to guess the Italian name for football and what pasta the reporter in Milan was cooking, plus an image of the panel staring at farfalle displayed on a screen normally used for team lineups or match incidents. Rushden also pointed out that Barley Boy, the golden retriever, “at the time of writing has 82,000 more Instagram followers than I have.”
Reaction from established followers of the women’s game was immediate and often hostile. Rushden cited Kathryn Batte’s critique for the Telegraph and quoted Flo Lloyd-Hughes’s post 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.”
He quoted broadcaster Marva Kreel’s post on X to summarise a recurring complaint about mixing analysis with content-led segments: “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.”
Rushden set the show’s choices against his own experience presenting live football and other formats, arguing that live match coverage is technically simpler than some other broadcasting tasks but acknowledging that attempting a hybrid entertainment-and-analysis programme is difficult. He described the likely commercial and audience pressures behind such experiments, saying broadcasters have had to work out how to harness social media and recalled seeing at Sky “a Facebook livestream filmed on an iPhone in the green room would get as many views as the show itself with the costs of studio/lighting/sound/producers etc.”
He defended the individuals on screen, stating that Bailess and Mills “came across as very personable and fun” and that one cannot criticise people for accepting work; he also noted Alex Scott often finds herself at the centre of cultural debate. Rushden reflected on public reaction to presenters joining new shows and recalled critical responses to his own broadcasting roles, adding: “It’s much more accurate to accuse me of turning Soccer AM woke, with my clarinet, lefty snowflake opinions and inability to flirt on live television.”
The dog did not return for the second night of coverage, and Rushden reported that the producers appeared to move toward a more traditional setup on Wednesday. He said the change suggested a response to viewer criticism while the broadcaster prepares further episodes of its Women’s Champions League coverage.