The Sport Thread

Just to update on this, Peter Brackley (Yes the real one) on Digital Spy Forums has said that he has information that Simon Thomas will be the Saturday presenter and presumbly for Football Specials as well. If he does get the gig then he has some pretty huge games to present in the first couple of weeks including the Manchester Derby.

The Sri Lanka v Australia test cricket series will be shown on Eurosport in the UK starting tomorrow.

Sky have announced a three year deal to show Chinese Super League football, although the current season is more than half over.

Meanwhile it appears BT Sport have picked up the rights to the returned (and now without a sponsor) Anglo Welsh Cup in rugby. Seemingly they are doubling the coverage previously offered by Sky, no doubt to allow more time to explain to confused viewers this tournaments utterly bizzare format.

http://sport.bt.com/football/bath-and-leicester-launch-bt-sports-anglo-welsh-cup-coverage-S11364075535545

Rights News

BT Sport sign new deal with the UFC to continue coverage until 2019, BT Sport is now set to broadcast over 150 hours of live UFC action per year.

See more at:
http://sport-onthebox.com/2016/07/27/bt-sport-renews-exclusive-ufc-rights-deal/

The Scottish Challenge Cup is being revamped this season with teams from Wales & Northern Ireland being added therefore a new rights deal has been agreed, BBC Alba will continue to cover the tournament alongside S4C in Wales and Premier Sports for Northern Ireland. The cup will now have teams from Highland Leagues, Lowland Leagues, Premiership Under-20 Teams and 2 teams from the Welsh Premier League and Northern Ireland Football League alongside teams from the Scottish Championship, League One & Two making 54 teams competing in the new format across seven rounds, with the majority of fixtures taking place during international weekend breaks.

See more at:
http://sport-onthebox.com/2016/07/22/bbc-s4c-premier-sports-to-show-irn-bru-cup-games/

All well in good in my opinion to include NI teams in a different competition like the now defunct All Ireland Setanta Cup but the IFA should be trying to get the BBC or UTV to have a stronger involvement, yes BBC NI cover the games on Radio and have highlights on the iplayer but no live coverage apart from the Cup Finals and Sky Sports dropped Irish League recently. In Wales S4C cover the Welsh Premier League & BBC Alba cover lower Scottish Leagues as well as Sky & BT for the top division as well as free to air television highlights not buried away online.

BT Sport taking what is essentially normally only an online feed from Court 9 at Montreal for Jo Konta's match, with only three camera angles to their disposal, no replays and non-standard score graphics.

Better than no coverage at all though, the only other match available is two Americans so good on them for taking this coverage. Last night Jo Durie tweeted to say she expected they may not be able to show this court, i wonder if some negotiations took place to get this.

Eurosport Extends French Open Coverage until 2020

Extension of the agreement between the @FFTennis, @Francetele and @Eurosport until 2020 📺 ➡️ https://t.co/MrG1tSRfZb pic.twitter.com/7Hp32xCmq7

— Roland Garros (@rolandgarros) July 28, 2016

Bizarre audio issues on the Dortmund - Man City match in the ICC from Shenzen which I recorded at lunchtime. Seems that the 'effects' mics were attached to a group of cameras and switched with the video. Awkward issue being that one was set much louder than the others, noticable was an understatement.

As some people were wondering about this the BBC have released some of their programme information for the first weekend of the Premier League Season. With Dan Walker, Mark Chapman & Jason Mohammad in Rio Football Focus will be presented by Eilidh Barbour, Final Score by Jacqui Oatley and Match of the Day 2 by Manish Bhasin. Match of the Day will continue to be broadcast on BBC One with the Olympics moving to BBC Two, also with Gary Lineker not going to Rio you can assume it will be him presenting in his pants which he promised last season. No mention of Match of the Day 2 Extra yet but if it is continuing then it probably will be Eilidh Barbour or Will Perry that will host as they deputised for Chappers last season when hosting Rugby League or NFL.

Press launch yesterday for Sky's 3pm games in Ireland - they'll be shown on Sky Sports 5 (presumably instead of a simulcast of Soccer Saturday), presented by Hayley McQueen, with Niall Quinn a regular pundit, accompanied by a selection from Jamie Carregher, Jamie Redknapp, and Graham Souness. Everton v Tottenham Hotspur is their first game.

Kelly Cates will replace Simon Thomas as Sky EFL presenter according to Peter Brackley on DS Forums.

I guess Simon might be promoted to the Premier League coverage then.