The Sport Thread

[RhysJR]

How bad a deal the Heineken Cup FTA coverage arrangement is illustrated by the semi finals. Three French teams and one Irish, and the Irish and U.K. (who also sells advertising in Ireland) free to air broadcasters are left with the all-French clash. Presumably BT has some sort of “first pick” rights to reserve a top game for pay TV, but VMTV has got to show two games involving Irish teams (as it happens, both of the Leinster-Bath pool stage games) out of a possible 8 fixtures. They’ll get the final of course which may involve Leinster if they beat Toulouse.

Elsewhere we got the second penalty shootout (place kicking competition to be correct) in the history of the competition (in the history of professional rugby union possibly?) in Munster v Toulouse yesterday, so some rare graphics wheeled out we possibly won’t ever see again (the first and last up until now was Cardiff v Leicester back in 2009).

To add insult to injury for us in UK/Ireland, France tv get to show both semi-finals and one of the Challenge Cup semis (Toulon v. Saracens). Not sure how beneficial it is for anyone, travelling fans especially, to have only a week between the quarters and semis either.

The place kicking competition (to give it its far less catchy official title) also meant that build-up (if there was any) and a lot of the first half of Leicester v. Leinster being shown on BT Sport Extra. Coverage ended rather quickly after the shoot-out and, despite the twwo and half hours between kick-off, BT Sport 2 still joined the Leicester match half an hour late.

So, the semi-finals next weekend...
NB Times are local time, meaning matches take place at 12:30, 15:00 and 20:00 BST.




Am I right in thinking there's no deal in place (for the full or the FTA coverage) for next season at the moment?

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Elsewhere, it seems COVID is still having a major impact on Chinese sporting events.

Late last week saw the cancellation of the Asian Games that was supposed to be in Hangzhou in early September. The Diamond League athletics events in Shanghai and Shenzen have also gone, with exsisting events in Poland filling the gap.

(PS Diamond League season starts on BBC Two from Doha on Friday)

Doubts must be growing for other events too (not sure what other majore events are left in China this year though), though the F1 has already been cancelled for this year and the WTA tennis already boycotting China.