Moto Gp Uk TV Coverage

[expaddockrunner]

IF NOT BROKEN, DONT FIX IT

BT Sport’s successful bid for the live MotoGP TV rights in the UK in 2014 will be confirmed this week, with MCN learning the multi-million pound deal will be formally announced in London on Thursday.
BT’s new dedicated sports channel, which is due for launch in August, has beaten off tough competition from the likes of the BBC and Sky to secure the deal.
There has been no confirmation of the length of BT Sport’s contract or how the new digital network intends to cover the series but all will be revealed at an official announcement scheduled to take place in London on Thursday.
MCN understands that Monster Yamaha Tech 3 pair Cal Crutchlow will be present, as will Marc VDS Racing's Moto2 title contender Scott Redding.
Another hot but unconfirmed rumour in the Jerez paddock during this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix is that North One Television, one of Europe’s biggest and most successful independent media companies, will produce BT Sport’s coverage of MotoGP.
North One is highly regarded for its Isle of Man TT coverage and has also been recognised for its award-winning Formula One coverage when working with ITV Sport.
The UK TV rights for MotoGP were up for grabs in 2014 with the BBC’s current five-year contract expiring at the end of 2013.
But with BT Sport securing the rights it means MotoGP will only be available on a pay-per-view basis for British fans from 2014 onwards.
BT Sport has already snapped up rights to show almost 40 Premier League football matches and close to 70 Premiership rugby union from 2014 onwards.
And it has signed up ex-BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey and leading sports broadcaster Clare Balding to spearheads its coverage.

[chunder]

That's the end of UK involvement then and the end of me watching it, as I cant imagine it will be cheap, you will likely have to uy a sports packae which will involve other sports.

I certainly wont be paying for BT, I don't have a dish.

I currently pay for Eurosport player, and it remains to be seen if the coverage will remain there, I doubt it somehow, but last time when the BBC threatened to stop Eurosport people power put them off

I somehow doubt BT will be as easy to roll over

To be fair who wants to see any more of Jake Humphrey! Especially when he knows even less about bikes than he did about F1, and is no selling his soul to allcomers advertising petrol!

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Jake is their Premiership Football presenter, Clare Balding is to have her own Sports Magazine/chat show.

Neither will have anything to do with the MotoGP coverage.

There are rumours around that Dorna and the world feed TV company, will be making on board feeds available to TV companies next season, so there could be options to watch the whole race from on-boards.

[chunder]

For a price I would think, and you or I have no idea who will be presenting it do we!

Main deal is that it will ONLY be available to UK users tv wise on BT sport, for a price we don't yet know likely to be pay per view. Eurosport and BBC will lose any liver coverage and might even lose highlights.

You can watch it on the MotoGP site but at 25 quid a month (laughably in a country utterly broke) you can suck my big one!! That's almost an inhuman amount to charge!

[beau1]

It is sad to see so many sporting events going ppv only. It seems that the American broadasting model has finally taken over in this country.

[chunder]

Well its not surprise, we are the 52nd or whatever state it is, and have been for any years!!

[JohnnyFiama]

I thought Dorna was all for free to air tv to give them the biggest audience possible?

Moving sport to pay per view is a big mistake for "small" sports, it just isolates them even more, only something the size of premier league football can do it successfully.

Look at what happened to boxing (I'm only talking from a UK perspective here), in the 80's it was all on BBC and ITV, Bruno, McGuigan etc were household names, as soon as it all moved to Sky only the hardcore of fans followed it, I couldn't name you a single boxer now.

The same could easily happen with MotoGP and just as there are actually some british riders! Remove the casual fans who boost the tv audience and then try selling sponsorship..... look at the viewing figures for BBC / Sky F1 coverage when they both show the races live....

I consider myself a massive bike racing / MotoGP fan but would struggle to justify paying extra to watch it, Sky/BT/Virgin is already ridiculously expensive. I imagine I would watch more BSB and WSB.... (how long until WSB moves as well?)

[frostie]

When the BT deal gets confirmed it will just mean that I'll use my online pass to watch live instead. It's 100 quid for the season so Im willing to pay that much for a sport I love

[chunder]

I simply cannot justify Dorna's extortionate price to watch Spanish biased coverage sadly.

There will always be people like you frosite who will pay over the odds, what would be your limit? 200? 300? I bet you would pay 3 or 400 quid to watch this stuff.

I will admit their coverage is thorough and good, but a lot of it in the smaller classes is Spanish only which hinders their ability to justify charging this much.

You are a very odd one out in this, the larger than vast majority will just not watch it and BT are left with a dead donkey that was sold to them as a cash cow and once Marquez and Lorenzo have won 5 world titles each it will only be popular where Dorna wants it popular, Spain.

[frostie]

Originally Posted by chunder

I simply cannot justify Dorna's extortionate price to watch Spanish biased coverage sadly.

There will always be people like you frosite who will pay over the odds, what would be your limit? 200? 300? I bet you would pay 3 or 400 quid to watch this stuff.

Fair enough that you cant justify but it's fairly easy for me. Even with all its problems I still love the sport and every weekend I'll sit down and watch some racing. Whether it be Formula 1, MotoGP, Superbikes, DTM, Sportscars or whatever I'll sit down and enjoy watching it. I don't drink and I don't smoke so I tend to have a fair bit of money left over at the end of the month. As a result I don't have any issue in paying 100 quid over the course of eight months to watch a sport that I love. For me it's a fairly easy decision to make.

The videopass offered by Dorna is, to me at least, good value. I spend most of the year outside Ireland and as a result without the video pass I'd be at the mercy of watching it on whatever local TV station shows it. At the minute I'm in germany and the coverage is crap. They show the Moto3 race and MotoGP race live but not the Moto2. They seem to constantly cut to ad breaks and you get no sense of fluidity to a race. So give me the video pass any day of the week

Originally Posted by chunder

I will admit their coverage is thorough and good, but a lot of it in the smaller classes is Spanish only which hinders their ability to justify charging this much.

You are a very odd one out in this, the larger than vast majority will just not watch it and BT are left with a dead donkey that was sold to them as a cash cow and once Marquez and Lorenzo have won 5 world titles each it will only be popular where Dorna wants it popular, Spain.

What of Dorna's offering is Spanish only? I havent come across any in the six years that I've been using the package.

We all get that you don't like the way that the sport has developed in recent years, and in fairness I agree with some of it, but nearly every post you have on MotoGP is the Spanish centric nature of the sport. The simple matter is that Spain invested heavily in the sport whereas most other nations sat by and kept their status quo.

The Spanish 125 championship became a key world series with lots of the world championship runners also running as wildcards in Spain. There was a situation where we basically saw that lots of riders race in Spain as opposed to their home country because the quality of the championship, in every way was higher.

It's annoying that we hear the Spanish anthem so often after races but at the turn of the century we had a lot of Italians winning races and dominating GP racing. In the 80s and 90s it seemed like a constant stream of American and Australian riders were doing the winning.

The Spanish invested heavily to make sure that their riders would be successful. They also promoted them heavily. In 2002 and 2003 it wasnt Sete Gibernau that was plastered on billboards in Spain it was Dani Pedrosa. Riders like him and Lorenzo and Marquez are terrific riders and would have been successful whatever their nationality but when their talent was added to the Spanish marketing and financial network they were always going to be fastracked onto the best bikes.

The UK, Italy, Germany, the US and Australia have basically taken the opposite approach to racing. They have clearly believed that their best riders would win in GPs in spite of a lack of institutional support. In Britain the likes of Redding, Smith and Crutchlow all lacked support from major UK backers. Both Redding and Smith went to Spain and were supported by Blusens and Repsol to make the step into the 125 championship. Crutchlow had the much more typical route to the top of a UK rider. He raced in the Supersport/Superbike ladder.

The Italian and German federations have started to spend a lot more money in recent years but Spain were years ahead of them in making that investment and have reaped the rewards of that spending. However when you look at the Red Bull Rookies Cup there are a lot of German and Italian flags on the sides of bikes.

It'll be another couple of years but we should see the Italians and Germans compete with the Spanish. Hopefully we'll see another crop of British, Australian and American riders come to the fore as well but because of the lack of investment that is far from certain

[JohnnyFiama]

And it's official. MotoGP to BT Sport for 2014.

"And best of all, it's free" (as long as you buy BT Broadband.....).

The end is nigh.... so how much do I have to shell out to watch F1 and MotoGP next year?? I hope Eurosport get to keep BSB and WSB.

[chunder]

Thats it then

Totally raped in the UK, like the rest of the world it seems

All sessions on BT Sport, 5 year deal, just enough time for the sport to die completely in the UK for fans.

Interestingly on crash their tagline is the channel is free for BT broadband customers! Very shoddy way to try and get people to switch servers

Marketing is and always has been mercenary and evil.

And who ends up suffering? The poor people that can't afford to go to races, sit and watch sessions, save up and buy a ticket, and are now conned out of being able to watch their favoursite sport.

Ezpeleta, you greedy twit, I hope you rot.

Apparently they bid three times as much as BBC! So that says it all about how much the Beeb gave a stuff.

This kind of thing gets me riled more than it should as I hate having to pay for stuff that has been well supported for decades in the UK, if it wasnt for Brits backing Rossi, Donington, and loads of other riders when the sport was suffering in the 00's GP woudl have died here.

And now we get totally backstabbed for a stattion that less than a quarter of a million peopel can access

Makes me sick to the stomach.

[Alan Raine]

A very bad decision for the UK bike fraternity. I hear that SKY and other providers are losing viewers for F1 so I can see this going the same way.

Ironically my Broadband supplier is BT so I can still watch it but I don't agree with what's planned.

[chunder]

Yes, if you have BT broadband it will be free, but maybe you will have to watch it on stream on telly I dont know.

But of you dont have BT or cant get it its a subscription through SKY, and you will HAVE to pay line rental for a phone line even if you dont use it.

Or you can subscribe to the motogp site for 100 odd quid a year which is pathetic.

But apparently according to the boss of BT Sport we have been suffering poor MotoGP coverage for decades in the UK!

Not sure who this bloke is, but he is in the firing line when they get no viewers if he signed the 10 million cheque

Not amazed at teh BBC losing it, they clearly arent interested in motorsport anymore, at least not paying for rights, and I dont blame them, its state owned, why should they for such small coverage.

Am loving SKY bailing with its F1 coverage too, that cracks me up! But the sad part is, GP has nowhere near as many followers, so when the bum drops out of that viewing what are they going to do

SO short sighted with Cal, Redding etc all looking likely winners of the future, greed is a very depressing part of business, and makes me very sad.

[ghinzani]

Hmm I've got bt vision in the bedroom, but I don't pay a subscription altho I've got bt broadband obviously. Wonder if I qualify?

[Mystery]

Can't get BT broadband so the channel will have to be very cheap to get my interest. Blooming annoyed about this.

Obviously viewing figures mean nothing to Dorna, much like I'm sure they didn't to the IRL this year.

[chunder]

If I told you they offered 3 times more than BBC you wouldn't be surprised, and they paid 10 million for 5 years

BBC cant really justify that for a totally minority sport, when they are tied to all sorts of stuff with regard to what they pay and bid for, so its a no brainer.

What does need looking at is the reasons behind this and theya re that BT want your broadband, its that simple, and this is a very good way of getting it.

Thank about it, they don't have anything to offer but phones and internet, so now they are also offering tv without having to have any core stuff.

Virgin suddenly saying you have to pay a Virgin tv licence!

Totally mercenary, cut throat.

but simply put if no one watches ( as is being proved by F1 on SKY) it wont last long.

[Mystery]

BT can have my broadband if they set up in Jersey :-)

I guess my Premier Sports sub loses out.

[JohnnyFiama]

Yesterday I was just slightly miffed and was hoping for some kind of BBC/Eurosport coverage but now I'm totally hacked off. The coverage will be exclusively BT Sport, nothing at all on any other UK channel next year.

So that's it. Just as the sport was starting to grow in this country and get some new fans through the BBC it's all over. Back to being an obscure minority sport once more.

I've watched MotoGP since the 80's but no way am I giving BT £15 a month or switching to their broadband. I doubt any of my family and friends who have become casual fans in recent years will either.

Goodbye MotoGP, it's been fun.

[chunder]

Seriously guys I dont think I have seen a positive comment from anybody so far on about 5 differnet forums including the BBC!

The only people with anything positive to say have BT broadband already. And you HAVE to realise that is the reason BT have started bidding for sports, it is a cunning way to try and get you to switch IT providers, utterly mercenary actually.

I very much doubt people will bother with it, it certinaly wont bring them any more subscibers. You might get a slow drift across when peoples contracts are up with Virgin or Sky perhaps, but not a huge switch.

So, the ratings will be appalling, as the Sky F1 ones are too, and it wont last.

Bike racing is a very specialised minority sport here, it is not like footie or rugby. And all Dorna ahve done is the same as the ECB, LTA, Prem LEague and taken the highest bid.

Just be patient, remember the clamour for WSB coverage? and BSB to some extent, and that has died off.

Moto GP will totally die when Rossi goes and its even more of a Spanish one make series as it is now, by then BT will have long gone and we can watch top quality bike racing free to air again somewhere.

It wouldnt surprise me if its gone from there before 5 years is up. similarly to F1 on SKY.

[frostie]

Definitely agree Chunder, noting positive about the move to BT. As I said earlier it wont change much for me but I know that there's a lot of people that won't be willing/able to pay 200 quid a year to watch MotoGP. The sport loses all casual viewers and the worst thing is that it's probably just for a few million quid over the course of five years.

If the figures you're mentioning are correct Chunder-10m over 5 years-it's ridiculous to change to BT if the BBC and Eurosport were willing to continue their current agreements.

It's very disappointing for Eurosport to lose the rights. They have been incredibly loyal to the sport through good times and bad and

[ghinzani]

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/hub/h/s/c...Y0NTl8Y29sPTMi
for all the FAQ. Basically I can have it for free on my Sky box as long as its a 'black' one, presuming they mean an HD+ one OR I can have it on the Vision box upstairs but thats SD only although its got an HDMI output to go through. Also the live streaming through the App will be free too.

Its a strange old deal - great for those who have BT Broadband already of course but not good at all for people who dont, or dont have a Sky or Vision/Youview box, especially if on Virgin Media.


Of course if you are in to Football or Rugby theres also various Prem matches from both disciplines on there, and other stuff like fighting.

For me it probably means I will cancel Sky subscription so saving myself 30 squid a month. If I can just get work to pay for my Broadband now...

[chunder]

It isn't really a strange old deal

Youa re doing exactly what they want, which is why they are spending millions on sports deals

You would swap your broadband and telly supplier for them

And that is the ONLY reason why they are speculating, to get your broadband cash cwo every month for the next 5 years.

it is nothing but mercenary marketing, but if you want BT broadband off you go, if you know its naff in your area or you cant get it, stuff you they are saying.

But this happens every eyar with some new sport, but it wont last.

Their marketing budget is huge, the Metro yesterday was full tot eh rim of Humphrey and various footie plebs. SO they are throwing coin at it

[JohnnyFiama]

Never sure if these ever make any difference but here's an online survey:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/t...ogp-in-the-uk/

[chunder]

Really really annoying BT Sport advertising on Eurosport all of a sudden

And guess what? the coverage they just bought from them doesn't even feature on their crummy adverts, all that's on there is football and rugby!

And as for Humphrey the sellout cretin, well enough is enough!

Makes me puke it really does