The Sport Thread

[Brekkie]

I still don't get how Premier Sports survives on a 0.01% audience share. Even Freesports has only topped out at 35,000 viewers according to some data I saw yesterday.

[Rdd]

In many ways, as a pay-TV company, subscriber numbers are more important than audience share (although the latter is the only indication we have of the former when the former is not disclosed). But Premier and their predecessors Setanta are the proverbial cat with nine lives and have recovered from the brink more than once at this stage.

[News Engineer]

In many ways, as a pay-TV company, subscriber numbers are more important than audience share (although the latter is the only indication we have of the former when the former is not disclosed). But Premier and their predecessors Setanta are the proverbial cat with nine lives and have recovered from the brink more than once at this stage.

They really needed the LaLiga contract after losing all the ice hockey they had - especially the NHL - which was a big schedule filler.

Whilst neither of those is likely to lead to huge numbers of subscribers they were, especially for ice hockey, the place where fans of that sport would need to go to.

Perhaps there is enough interest in GAA (and income from Irish pubs) to keep the lights on?

[BcastCornwall]

Archie Rhind-Tutt challenging the encoders tonight

[Jon]

Seems a lot better being stadium studio based, and a quick reference to Love Island at the beginning.

[Brekkie]

Premier Sports putting the two Wales v Netherlands fixtures on BoxNation tomorrow and next Tuesday, with the Belgium match on Premier 1 at the weekend, so a nice little bonus for viewers who get BoxNation through BT instead.

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That promotion graphic for The Bridge following the game during a bit of downtime in the match is a bit on the large side.

[Newshound47]

The coverage has rated well but has received some cultural war style negative feedback in the press. But the ratings are the more important for Channel Four.

[RhysJR]

[Brekkie]

BoxNation taking World Feed commentary for Wales v Netherlands with Jim Proudfoot and Dave Edwards. Crashed into it late too.

[BcastCornwall]

Watching WALNED via BT Sport App on AppleTV4K, video appears to be in HD which is odd considering the norm for Box Nation on BTTV is SD. If it is SD it's damn good SD.

[Rdd]

Isn’t it the case that Box Nation is only available on SD anywhere though? At one point (a good few years back) there existed a Box Nation HD which as I recall was actually a totally separately programmed channel to the main SD service on which they showed some of their bigger live fights (back in the days when they actually had any).

[RhysJR]

[bkman1990]

Jason Knight of The Republic of Ireland had said the f word during a live post match interview with Tony O'Donoghue on RTÉ2 before the current ad break.

Ukraine won the match 1-0 against the ROI in Dublin tonight. Well done Ukraine. We hope you enjoyed it.

[RhysJR]

Another golf story is that the new Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf have announced their broadcast team and coverage.

Live coverage will be on the event's website, Facebook and YouTube channels, as well "on a global roster of leading premium and free-to-air broadcasters providing coverage in 138 territories around the world" that "will be made available later this week on LIVGolf.com". The tournament starts in less than 72 hours so not announcing broadcasters doesn't sound particuraly promising. Seriously doubt any broadcaster of note in the UK would want to be involved due to that hatred of the event within golf and the wider implications of a Saudi-backed sporting project, but worth noting that FreeSports have showed the Saudi-backed Asian Tour this year, including its first event outside of Asia near Newcastle last week.


The broadcast innovations (below) don't sound amazinly innovative on first glance. The live scoreboard thing is allready done by most mainstream broadcasters and tracers are also used often throughout other golf broadcasts (maybe they'll be used more frequently?).

 LIV Golf’s shotgun start will feature the 12-team, 48-player field teeing off all at once, and more than 50 cameras will capture every moment from start to finish. The broadcast will present views from 16 different towers, drones, and mobile steady cameras, with tracer technology highlighting the action throughout the course. Fans will also hear the sport like never before through more than 60 microphones incorporated from tee to green on every hole, including player and caddie mics that will bring fans inside the competition. Meanwhile, on-screen graphics will showcase innovations to the viewing experience while keeping fans updated in real time on the teams and individuals leading the field. Additional modernizations to the broadcast will be unveiled throughout LIV Golf’s inaugural season.

And to the commentators. Quite a surprising lead voice in Arlo White, who was most recently NBC's lead Premier League commentator (it is heavily rumoured/all but confirmed that Peter Drury will take up that position from next season, leaving the world feed). Jerry Foltz has also left NBC (Golf Channel) to become the lead analyst. Dom Boulet (who covered last week's Asian Tour event with the likes of Dougie Donelly), Su-Ann Heng and Troy Mullins ("as an on-course reporter and social influencer for LIV Golf") complete the on-air team. Not that different to a standard broadcast by the looks of things, bar the addition of White. Probably a positive they haven't tried the route of bringing in social media stars to attract a new audience like a start-up new player would often do.

A few offscreen names mentioned in the press release too, including David Hill, who I'd presume would be best known in the UK for being part of the foundation of Sky and Sky Sports.

https://www.livgolf.com/news/liv-golf-an...for-global

Now confirmed to be on DAZN in the UK, and the most random variety of channels globally (details in spoiler due to size of image). It was appearing on Mola TV's website until Wednesday, so no idea why it changed channel at short notice.

Haven't checked each broadcaster, but Sky in Germany and SuperSport in South Africa at least are listed by LIV and also show the PGA Tour (and I see no mention of it on Sky Germany's schedule).

 

[RR]

Haven't checked each broadcaster, but Sky in Germany and SuperSport in South Africa at least are listed by LIV and also show the PGA Tour (and I see no mention of it on Sky Germany's schedule).

DAZN have two linear channels on Sky Q in Germany (in the same way BT and Premier Sport do on the UK version). The golf will have no connexion with the PGA broadcasters (Sky and Eurosport), beyond the channels on the Sky platform.