The Sport Thread

No, it ended in 2009 or 2010. They were going to be brought to Surfers Paradise by the motor racing I follow, Australian V8 Supercars, to replace Champ Car at the Surfers races of the V8s. Alas, A1GP folded, and then the V8s had to go it alone at Surfers.

F1 has much of a marketable and distinctive brand than those sports though.

In terms of launching a channel though it's much more about quantity than quality - 3 hours of action every fortnight isn't much to base an entire channel around.

Exactly, these legends programmes are going to be on a perpetual loop, repeated ad-nauseum. If it had Rallying, Touring Cars, MotoGP, Superbikes and other forms of motorsport it might be a more viable proposition. (perhaps that's the plan).

But for most It'll be a dip in channel for the live races, then that's pretty much it.

From what I seen on The F1 Show earlier apparently they will be showing GP2 I believe on SSF1

Agree with a lot of the sentiment here. I will be watching the races when possible on the BBC this year. For me it would make more sense having a dedicated golf channel. If they did this they would be guaranteed 4 days of live television almost 52 weeks of the year. In contrast there are 20 f1 races on this year which means the station will be almost viewerless for 90% of the year.

I'm sure this has got a lot to do with trying to please the ego Bernie Ecclestone, as well.

You could also argue that Prem Plus could have just been carried on Sky Box Office but it made sense to have it's own channel within the Sports section.

One reason for the channel is, I doubt they'd want to stick it on 'Sky Sports 3, 4 or even 5' when it's the iconic brand.

If you can't stick every race on Sky Sports 1 and 2, the only place to stick it where it doesn't look like it's an afterthought, it's own channel.

Without meaning to make this an argument about sport, I have no idea how you have worked that one out.

Even if it could become a motorsport hub though most - if not all - of them follow a weekend race pattern so many would either be covered through additional interactive streams or delayed coverage.

One issue Sky have too is the feeder events are generally support races in an F1 weekend - they could kind of do with an associated but separate series to air in non-F1 weekends.


They thrive on each others existence - take one out of the equation and it undoubtedly has consequences for the other. It's not like a regular business where you opposition going bust opens up a new market for you to exploit.

Well television revenues would go down, perhaps not so much sponsorship as they might pick up some cash spent on Rangers. I think it's safe to say they certainly won't win any Rangers fans.

SSF1 will show GP2 and GP3 - I think they also have plans to show classic races, so I imagine that most of the week you'll be seeing F1 Show and race loops, alongside races from the 60s to 90s.

Alongside pleasing Bernie, the channel may have been launched to please some F1 fans - it certainly shows that Sky are taking it seriously and spending an awful lot of money on it. I heard £500 million over the next 6 years? A whole channel is certainly a useful PR tool.

Not seen this before (but I assume others have, but not been in a position to post)...

http://home.vis-is.co.uk/data/grabs/bbcsportrings.png