With horse racing, as with just about each different broadly adopted sport, there’s usually fierce competitors over who will get the precise to broadcast fixtures and supply evaluation on TV. Over the previous decade alone, the printed rights for main British horse races resembling Royal Ascot and Cheltenham have handed between the arms of a number of channels, with the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 all having held the primary broadcasting rights at one level or one other.
As such, it appears effectively throughout the realm of risk that ITV will now not obtain the printed rights as soon as its present contract expires in 2023. However what occurs after that? Whereas it is doable that the sport of musical chairs will proceed and that the contact will go to one of many different huge broadcasters, it is essential to take a look at different tendencies at play with a view to decide what the way forward for British horse racing will appear like.
As sports activities TV continues to see fierce competitors from digital opponents, the broadcasters may discover themselves much less and fewer keen to shell out tens of hundreds of thousands of kilos for a contract within the close to future. In the meantime, it is additionally value pondering whether or not the large three broadcasters will even be within the working for the contract by the point that it comes up for renewal.
Smaller, for-pay channels are more and more asserting themselves throughout the sports activities broadcasting enviornment. Simply check out the Olympics, for instance. The Worldwide Olympic Committee determined to award your complete European broadcasting rights for Tokyo 2020 to not public broadcasters just like the Beeb, however to the cable US community Discovery, which has put most of its Olympic content material behind a paywall.
Whereas this may lead to fewer viewers total, it is virtually actually a significant boon to the community’s earnings. Within the years to come back, there is no such thing as a motive why smaller, for-pay broadcasters will not start significantly competing for the Racehorse Media Group contract.
It is clear that the world of horse racing is at present in flux, and the way we eat this nice British pastime might change within the coming years. Keep tuned to seek out out.