The new look Soccer Saturday titles remind me a bit of mid-2000s Sky Sports News, for whatever reason
So this is probably my last post and an interesting year coming up for sports broadcasting and presentation with the winter World Cup in November/December. Sports broadcasting undergoing big changes as we say goodbye to Premier Sports (at least in the U.K.) and in due course BT Sport too and hello to Viaplay and the new Eurosport/BT joint venture. Further ahead there’s the run in to the next Rugby World Cup. Will the Six Nations ever get new graphics? And if they do will they be better than the ones recently used for the U20s/Womens? Who will get the warm up games. Further afield there’s the massive changes to NFL broadcasting in September with three of the four networks having new commentary teams and a new player in Amazon. In Ireland there’s new GAA rights deals to be announced too.
And lastly as Premier Sports exits, it seems the end of the journey for the cat with nine lives, Setanta Sports. Two Irish lads in London who just wanted to see the third Republic of Ireland game in Italia 90 (up against England’s last group stage game) approached the BBC and asked nicely for a sub license of the U.K. rights to the game and got them. And that began a journey that at one stage involved having U.K. and Ireland rights to the Premier League and overseas operations in several countries. In recent years they’ve retrenched, selling their last Setanta branded operation at the end of last year. It’s unclear if the Irish operation (which is basically the U.K. channels less GAA and with added Premier League) and the Asian rugby focused streaming service have been sold too but if is the end it’s been quite the journey.
And it’s also been quite the journey on TV Forum and TV Live Forum over 20 years. Enjoyed chatting about TV and Sport in particular and best of luck everyone, and may your favourite teams win many trophies to come.
So this is probably my last post and an interesting year coming up for sports broadcasting and presentation with the winter World Cup in November/December. Sports broadcasting undergoing big changes as we say goodbye to Premier Sports (at least in the U.K.) and in due course BT Sport too and hello to Viaplay and the new Eurosport/BT joint venture. Further ahead there’s the run in to the next Rugby World Cup. Will the Six Nations ever get new graphics? And if they do will they be better than the ones recently used for the U20s/Womens? Who will get the warm up games. Further afield there’s the massive changes to NFL broadcasting in September with three of the four networks having new commentary teams and a new player in Amazon. In Ireland there’s new GAA rights deals to be announced too.
And lastly as Premier Sports exits, it seems the end of the journey for the cat with nine lives, Setanta Sports. Two Irish lads in London who just wanted to see the third Republic of Ireland game in Italia 90 (up against England’s last group stage game) approached the BBC and asked nicely for a sub license of the U.K. rights to the game and got them. And that began a journey that at one stage involved having U.K. and Ireland rights to the Premier League and overseas operations in several countries. In recent years they’ve retrenched, selling their last Setanta branded operation at the end of last year. It’s unclear if the Irish operation (which is basically the U.K. channels less GAA and with added Premier League) and the Asian rugby focused streaming service have been sold too but if is the end it’s been quite the journey.
And it’s also been quite the journey on TV Forum and TV Live Forum over 20 years. Enjoyed chatting about TV and Sport in particular and best of luck everyone, and may your favourite teams win many trophies to come.