The Sport Thread

[BcastCornwall]

Olympics 2026, 2028, 2030, 2032

European rights announcement likely before the end of the month. No real clues as to whether WBD will retain or the EBU win them back. Feeling EBU might have an edge, the surprise factor that Discovery pulled last time being missing. Bidding has been in process since March.

[Brekkie]

Fingers crossed they return to the BBC via the EBU in their full glory.

It's not even just that the Discovery effort was behind a paywall, it's just that it was very poorly curated and nowhere near as smooth an experience to watch as it was via the BBC. Both the linear additional channels and the streaming service has issues.

[Tom]

Hopefully the BBC will have full access for the upcoming Olympics as at the Tokyo Olympics last year as the BBC were limited in the coverage they could show (only 2 live streams IIRC).

[bkman1990]

And to add to that complexity; if the Olympics rights goes to WBD this time around within this rights cycle; it will be offering a combination of various pieces of streaming infrastructure from behind the scenes from two different major players within the broadcasting industry. I don't actually know which one is more reliable here but I would take a guess that WB own streaming infrastructure is the most reliable hardware on offer to provide better live streaming capability of this event other than Discovery/Eurosport who would probably see WB hardware capability as being more superior.

[DeMarkay]

Surreal seeing Sky Sports graphics on BBC Two. As I understand it, they’re sharing domestic rights, with BBC Two showing the highlights?

[Scratch_Perry]

Hopefully the BBC will have full access for the upcoming Olympics as at the Tokyo Olympics last year as the BBC were limited in the coverage they could show (only 2 live streams IIRC).

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think they will.

IIRC, the Beeb had to take a hit as regards coverage for the 2020 and 2024 games, otherwise it could have ended up in ITV's hands, and with the 2024 games being in Paris, the time zone would have been absolutely perfect for them as regards (selling) advertising space.

---

Surreal seeing Sky Sports graphics on BBC Two. As I understand it, they’re sharing domestic rights, with BBC Two showing the highlights?

Since the resurrection of televised cricket coverage on UK soil on the BBC, for the highlights of the white ball games, they have always used Sky's graphics for some reason (but they use their own for the test matches).

Sky graphics on BBC highlights is nothing new; when Sky used to have the live England Rugby Union Autumn Internationals, the BBC highlights had the Sky graphics.

[Newshound47]

There was talk of the entire Olympics being put on the protected list which would have ended the ability for streams to be behind a paywall.

[Brekkie]

It technically already is on the crown jewels list, which states such events are protected in their entirety, but that seemingly counts for nothing. I think other than a couple of recent womens events the list has remained largely unchanged since the 90s despite things slowly moving towards pay TV that were taken for granted as being on free to air, such as The Ashes, The Open, Champions League Final etc. I think there is a strong argument to add one match per round of the FA Cup (3rd round on) for live coverage and also Premier League highlights on the B-list too.

[Rdd]

Some talk tonight that Viaplay is mulling a bid for Premier Sports.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ier-sports

[BcastCornwall]

Some talk tonight that Viaplay is mulling a bid for Premier Sports.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ier-sports

Trying to 'dig' on this, seemingly just the Bloomberg article so far or redrafts of it. No corroborative articles from other sources. If this is to happen doing so now would get over the competition issues as ViaPlay doesn't do anything here currently so it'd be an acquisition only and not affect the market.

[Rdd]

There may be nothing to it, but Bloomberg seems a fairly authoritative source. It would be an odd end to the Setanta lineage.

[thebigdog2022]

It technically already is on the crown jewels list, which states such events are protected in their entirety, but that seemingly counts for nothing.  I think other than a couple of recent womens events the list has remained largely unchanged since the 90s despite things slowly moving towards pay TV that were taken for granted as being on free to air, such as The Ashes, The Open, Champions League Final etc.    I think there is a strong argument to add one match per round of the FA Cup (3rd round on) for live coverage and also Premier League highlights on the B-list too.

Something that should be looked at 100%, only real change in last few years is Women equivalent of events being added such as the Women's World Cup & Euros and the Paralympics.  There was a review in the dying days of the Labour Government under David Davies and it was proposed to add Home Nations European Qualifiers, the Ashes Home Tests, the Open and Wales 6 Nations matches and drop Challenge Cup, the Derby and Winter Olympics but the election in 2010 stopped this in the track.

[Brekkie]

You do have to wonder if expanding the World Cup might see pressure put on to remove complete exclusivity of the event considering the increase number of matches and the lower level contests that looks set to result in, in return perhaps for putting all the Home Nation games in the Rugby World Cup (currently it's just the final) on the list.

I'm never quite sure about the qualifiers though - certainly think any play offs should be free to air. TBF I think Sky have usually struck a deal for them to be, and there has been clear movement in recent years for pay TV to be more willing to share rights where there is national interest.

[madmusician]

Hopefully the BBC will have full access for the upcoming Olympics as at the Tokyo Olympics last year as the BBC were limited in the coverage they could show (only 2 live streams IIRC).

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think they will.

IIRC, the Beeb had to take a hit as regards coverage for the 2020 and 2024 games, otherwise it could have ended up in ITV's hands, and with the 2024 games being in Paris, the time zone would have been absolutely perfect for them as regards (selling) advertising space.

Well, that’s not quite her full story. The BBC had the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 games sewn up, following their own deal with the IOC (not via the EBU), announced around the start of London 2012. Then, in 2016, came the bombshell that Discovery had won rights for the whole of Europe for the 2022 and 2024 games (and for the 2018 and 2020 games in countries that hadn’t yet had their own rights sold).

It was clear that Discovery was going to have to sub licence FTA coverage, and this is where ITV entered the fray. You’re right to say that they showed interest in the 2024 games, especially, as it is an ideal time zone and without the pressure of running all the streams (which Discovery would be doing) it was a more natural fit for ITV.  

So, as a negotiating chip that ITV did not have, the BBC came to a deal with Discovery whereby they would sub license the BBC exclusive rights to 2018 and 2020 to Discovery, making Discovery the exclusive home of the multiple streams, and the BBC would have access to two simultaneous channels of coverage (but no more). Discovery sublicenced the BBC the two simultaneous channels of coverage for 2022 and 2024, whilst keeping their rights for the streams etc. The BBC also paid Discovery a large sum for the 2022 and 2024 rights.

So, the BBC gave away the rights to last year’s games (and the 2018 Winter games), but they did so to safeguard the Paris games, especially, as the argument is that they might well have lost the FTA rights to ITV had they not bargained with the 2018/20 rights that they already owned.

---

Surreal seeing Sky Sports graphics on BBC Two. As I understand it, they’re sharing domestic rights, with BBC Two showing the highlights?

Since the resurrection of televised cricket coverage on UK soil on the BBC, for the highlights of the white ball games, they have always used Sky's graphics for some reason (but they use their own for the test matches).

I’m not sure this is entirely correct, as I’m pretty sure that they did use BBC graphics on all of the highlights programmes in 2020 (white ball and red ball) and it was last year that we saw Sky graphics on the white ball matches. Indeed, last year we also had Sky commentary on the white ball highlights, whereas this year they appear to have dubbed radio commentary over the Sky pictures instead.

For the test match highlights, there is a bespoke BBC TV commentary being produced (using, by and large, the same personnel as the radio coverage, but on a different rota) with BBC graphics being used, and the highlights edit being cut together from a clean Sky feed, at least two BBC cameras and various ISOs, by Whisper. For the white ball games, Whisper are still making the highlights, but are cutting around the dirty world feed instead.

I personally feel that the white ball highlights being produced in this way is a significant downgrade from what we were given by Channel 5 for years, but I suppose that this is the price we pay for the other benefits that having the BBC back on board gives us - cross promotion, the superior iPlayer infrastructure, etc.

[Jon]

In the first season, I think they only used Sky’s graphics for women’s non-live white ball games, the following season it was all Sky graphics on both mens and womens.