Questions are being raised regarding the broadcast future of Supercars in Australia with reports emerging its free-to-air partner is about to walk away from the sport.
Max Mason in AFR is today reporting 10 is set to walk away from Supercars with the owners of the network, CBS Viacom reportedly no longer willing to invest in ‘loss-leading’ sports
Supercars are currently in the final year of a six-year partnership with Foxtel and 10. The current broadcast arrangement is valued at $241 million deal and provides Fox Sports live coverage of races and qualifying sessions, while 10 has limited live broadcast rights.
It’s understood negotiations for a new deal are yet to commence. The Australian is reporting previous rights holder Seven will not be a contender to secure the next contract. Foxtel is also unlikely to be willing to invest in the sport at the same level as it has in the current deal.
All of this comes at the same time as team owners are understood to be pressuring management to secure a new broadcast deal that includes increased free-to-air exposure. The current Foxtel deal has made it increasingly difficult for team owners to obtain sponsorship revenue due to limited exposure.
A national audience of 1.379 million watched the 2019 Bathurst 1000 on 10, with a further 502k watching on Fox Sports.
If i was controlling channel 10 i would get the f1 instead of supercars
Goodnight V8SC. They were stupid thinking they could continue to attract sponsors with no decent FTA coverage. Now after the pandemic their product is worth about 1/10th of what it was before. Unfortunate time to be renegotiating a contract.
Interesting to see what will rise from the ashes……..
This was bound to happen.Fox doesn’t have the audience that 10 has and they didn’t want to spend the money setting up the equipment needed for the telecast.But it’s all for naute anyway because the V8’s will only run for another couple of years and then the weeeeezbangs will take over.I for one don’t want to watch the hiroshima screamers.
I agree clivehoskin… V8s have become boring and screamers a NO for me too.
Blind Freddy could see that the “little or no FTA” model wasn’t going to work. How was denying your product to two thirds of the country ever a good move?
Short term greed by V8SC doing a deal with Foxtel in the first place.
Like CW says above, two thirds of viewers couldn’t watch. Hello idiots, sponsors need exposure. But anyway, it’s shot. No locally made cars left, so who gives a shit. Boring.