I understand that the surround channels provide important 'atmosphere' but could the levels not be turned down a bit? I don't believe it is my system calibration because the other Sky HD channels in DD5.1 are fine, it's just the DD5.1 sports.
The only advantage I can see t the moment as I watch the Hurricanes vs Brumbies game is that the crowd are drowning out Murray Mexted

My only simple option is to downmix to stereo, but kind of defeats the purpose of having DD at all.