International Sports Coverage

Canal+ have also now agreed with the LFP for the Ligue 1 and 2 rights to the end of the season:

https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/ligue-1-tv-rights-canal-plus-mediapro-lfp

Saturday 9 p.m. and Sunday 5 p.m (Paris time) matches on Canal+

The other matches will be on Canal+ Sport except Friday 9pm with will alternate with a Top 14 rugby match between C+ Sport and Canal+ Decale. Sunday 3pm matches will have a similcast on Canal+ Sports and the full matches on Foot+ channels.

Since last season the NHL have been promoting a ‘European game of the week’ - at least one weekend afternoon game in European prime time.

Not sure if it’s a new thing - others here might be able to confirm - but I noticed today it was being offered with its own scoreboard graphic, but still the host (NBC today) comms. Some of the in game sponsorship lower thirds aren’t seen, but the promo reads are still heard.

Think the breaks are filled as well, there was a moment of some filler before BT Sport opted out.

Not sure if it’s just a case of BT taking the NHLs chosen game this week (as part of their sub license of 2-3 games per week from Premier Sports), they often take one of the Sunday afternoon (Eastern time) games, quite often a national NBC game, more so now the NFL season is over.

Watched some coverage of the Open Sud de France on French regional channel viaOccitanie this week (given the absence of any UK coverage). Really impressed with their coverage for what is a regional channel that seems to only show a news carousel at other times. They did a half hour show before the start of play and between the day and night sessions and seem to have a decent roster of commentators and pundits.

Seems to be one step forward, two steps back, for NBC Olympic coverage this year. They are actually going to screen the Opening Ceremony live at 7am on the main network, citing it as a moment to bring the world together in after events of the last year. They'll then follow this up with a late edition of Today and an after Olympic Daytime broadcast, which presumably will act as a preview and cover the few events that take place prior to the Opening Ceremony.

However by then replaying the Opening Ceremony not just in primetime (thats understandable), but also overnight, they actually end up missing virtually all of the first full day of competition live.

Disrupters ahoy!

Champions League rights in Australia 'won' by start-up streamer

This is a bonkers development in sports broadcasting.

Sydney start-up streaming service’s stunning $20m coup snares UEFA Champions League rights https://t.co/QWgaKd2Oth

— Vince Rugari (@VinceRugari) February 27, 2021

They're all sat in their little bedsit now going "Oh f***......"

How popular is the Champions League in Australia - where the games will be breakfast time at best?

Tricky to find ratings. For tge last few years it's been on a streaming platform anyway - before that on SBS.

Is a logic to events which would be live overnight being on a streaming platform rather than live if they're ready for you to stream when you're ready tge next day, providing you can avoid the result - which is probably easier for foreign leagues.

Bundesliga on ABC this weekend, with their own comms by the estimable Derek Rae.

ABC will carry the Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund match Saturday at 12:30 pm ET. First Bundesliga broadcast by the broadcast network. Also on ESPN Deportes and ESPN+.

ABC announcers: @RaeComm (play-by-play), @TaylorTwellman (analyst)

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) March 3, 2021

Some big rights news in the US - Disney have done a 7 year deal with the NHL. It includes 4 Stanley Cup Finals on ABC, half of the playoffs on ESPN, 25 regular season games on ESPN or ABC, another 75 games exclusive to ESPN+ & Hulu, plus the move of NHL.tv (the out of market streaming package) onto ESPN+. There are also some international rights included, although its not not clear if that includes the UK, the press release mentions 'parts of Europe'. (Quite likely Scandinavian countries and Russia are excluded and separate deals will be done for them.)

What happens with the rest of the rights - in particular the other Stanley Cup Finals and the rest of the playoffs - has not been announced. The speculation is that NBC (the existing rights holder) may get them, although Fox have also been mentioned.

https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-espn-disney-reach-groundbreaking-seven-year-rights-deal/c-322346092

Pretty sure Premier Sports' current deal concludes at the end of the current season.

If that's right and ESPN's new deal includes UK rights, the NHL might be heading to BT Sport later this year by virtue of the package of rights they receive from their ESPN partnership.

It might - although they’ve already been sub licensing 3 games a week from Premier Sports. However, the BT / ESPN deal is up at the end of this year.

https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2015/01/22/bt-sport-and-espn-expand-partnership/