The Sport Thread

not really what I was saying is it? I said he was mainly *associated* with ITV, regardless of what contract he may or may not be on

The only exclusive pundits are on Sky's EPL coverage. Phil Neville appears as a commentator for BT on some of their European fixtures incidentally. No issues for me with this approach seems appropriate.

I'm not sure that is strictly a fair comment. He may have only appeared three times this year, but he appeared many times in previous years on ITV and the Champions League has only just started up again this year, he may possibly be on every week on ITV until the CL final.

He's firmly known as an ITV pundit regardless of whether he is freelance or not.

But until three weeks ago, he hadn't done punditry on any channel all season - he left ITV before the World Cup so any arrangement he had with ITV ended at that point, and any other punditry he's done since on any channel has been on an ad hoc basis. Keane is a guest on the coverage, so it's surely exactly like Jimmy Carr being mostly associated with Channel Four but occasionally appearing on the BBC on HIGNFY or something if he's invited.

ITV also use Glenn Hoddle who also regularly appears on Sky and Paul Scholes who regularly appears on BT so Keane also appearing on the Beeb is no different. The only reason anyone notices is because he did them on consecutive days.

I'm not trying to say this "forecfully", but if the Beeb invite him and he's happy to do it, what's the issue?

I notice that RTÉ take their Cheltenham coverage from Racing UK these days rather than Channel 4 like they used to. This involves covering the racing UK DOG with an RTÉ Sport logo and twitter handle.

If he's not got a contract with ITV that guarantees exclusivity then he's free to appear on other channels, and appears to be electing to do so.

Seems so.

Setanta have a deal with Racing UK to show live racing on Saturdays and it also involves plastering over the DOG with a massive full colour Setanta Live DOG. They are running a nightly Cheltenham highlights show (using the 2007 Setanta graphics, not the new ones that are being used for football and GAA).

Incidently Racing UK is available in Ireland so I'm not sure why they sublicence their coverage like this, surely they'd prefer to sell subscriptions.

If the videos on the app are anything to go by the world feed graphics on Formula 1 have had an overhaul.

Seems that Setanta are actually also showing live coverage of Cheltenham too (own studio coverage, location footage from Racing UK). So coverage on RTÉ, Channel 4, Setanta, and Racing UK.

Premiership rugby will remain on BT Sport until 2021 after it signed a new four-year contract for the exclusive rights.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/premiership/11470940/Premiership-rugby-staying-on-BT-Sport-until-2021-with-cash-injection-a-huge-windfall-for-English-clubs.html

Shame.

Yes they have. Diagonals are out, semi-transparency is in.