The Sport Thread

Press launch of the European Rugby Champions Cup in Dublin today - among the videos that were posted by EPCR today was this one, which if it isn't in fact the opening titles sequence for TV, I'll eat my hat - it uses the exact same edit of "Industrial Revolution Part II" that last years ERC titles did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tv654n1qCPM

Meanwhile France Televisions has got the French free to air rights for the Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup and will broadcast one game each week from each tournament. Having the French on board lends the possibility of a second Challenge Cup game being televised though obviously this will depend on what the Sky-BT accord provides for.

Major Rights Retention ....

BSB retain rights to Australian Rugby Union matches including internationals. Allegedly defeating an 'aggressive' BTS bid.
(Sydney Morning Herald re-versioned report - Expecting confirmation from BSB tomorrow)

ITV 4 are showing Brazil vs Argentina this Saturday a friendly from China. Also live coverage of the European Qualifier between Germany and Poland at 7:25 is ITV 4's chosen game not involving the home nations of the round, will be interesting assuming both matches have studio presentation whether they'll have tim to redress the set to change generic branding to European Qualifiers branding or whether they'll just use one for both. Shouldn't take too long to do though probably only a case of changing some panels.

Enhanced Rights Retention - BT Sport

EuroLeague Basketball

EuroLeague Basketball have announced that BT Sport will show more games of this season’s competition as well as the weekly magazine show: One Devotion.

BT covered the Final Four in Milan back in May and have now committed to broadcasting regular games of the elite European tournament. The coverage will build up to the Turkish Airlines Final Four although the extent of how many games shown throughout has not yet been revealed.

..... and Basketball

NBA Global Games tonight in Berlin - the local side are playing San Antonio BTS2 are covering, seem to recall ESPN (old style) doing the same previously. As ESPN did, BTS are not taking full advantage of the intra quarter ad breaks. It's US coverage throughout, so we are getting effectively locked off camera shots during these breaks and background audio. All rather odd.

Some details have been released about BBC Sport's coverage of the 2014/2015 FA Cup not sponsored by Budweiser.

Seems the BBC have the first picks from every round. But the most exciting thing is Final Score specials during Rounds 1 and 2, which can pretty much be described as 'live highlights' shows. 8 games from those rounds will move to Sunday at 2pm and BBC will show the big moments just after they happen and they will have the ability to go to games live when penalties are given for example.


Also the draw programmes are moving to 7pm on Monday nights and to be shown on BBC Two from locations around the country.
http://sport-onthebox.com/2014/10/09/fa-cup-coverage-set-for-major-bbc-revamp/

Also the FA WSL title decider is to be shown free on the BT Sport website this Sunday.
http://sport-onthebox.com/2014/10/10/fa-wsl-2014-title-decider-free-to-view-on-bt-sport/

Most of the FA Cup information has been known for a while, the one bugbear I have is that it'd be fairer if a televised match is replayed then the replay should be offered to the opposing broadcaster. By doing this it would spread coverage across the broadcasters and in the case of a FTA only viewer, would ensure that more teams got coverage FTA.

Lets say the third round threw up Chelsea v Man City and Arsenal v Tottenham, obviously the Chelsea match would be chosen as first pick, leaving the Arsenal match to a pay broadcaster. If both went to replays, I'd like the choice removed and the match at Tottenham being allocated to the FTA broadcaster and the Manchester match allocated to the pay outlet.

I noticed Sky Sports News HQ were doing that for the second half of midweek Championship games, showing goals just after they happened. I think that's new.

That doesn't seem very fair at all to the FTA viewer. It may work in that example but what if the Beeb had Man U vs Man City and BT had, I duno, Stoke vs Southampton as one of their live games going to a replay. Man U vs Man City is so obviously the bigger game and saying the replay can't be FTA is just to irritate everyone. And you can't demand fairness in the FA Cup because the random draw means some teams won't appear at all. So what if Arsenal or someone aren't on FTA throughout their entire cup run? Most teams aren't on television during their Cup runs at all (and in your example, Arsenal and Spurs are on FTA loads during the season in Europe anyway).

In addition, of course, it would rely on there always being two live matches requiring replays, one on each channel, which seems hughly unlikely.

They've been doing that for midweek Championship games for quite a while now, I think since the beginning of last season.

Major Rights Retention

BSB retain rights to ICC Cricket tournaments until 2023. BT were strong contenders.

Is there even a UK bidding process - the way the Sky Sports press release is worded it seems the ICC awarded global rights to Star India/Middle East (another Murdoch company) and Sky get the rights through a deal with them.

http://www1.skysports.com/cricket/news/12040/9514264/sky-sports-announces-new-deal-with-icc-to-cover-biggest-events-in-international-cricket

Also looks like the World Twenty20 is going from every two years to every four, with the men and womens events being separated.