Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of
sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and
Ireland's main
satellite
pay-TV company,
British Sky Broadcasting.
Sky Sports
is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the
United
Kingdom
and Ireland
. It has played a major role in the increased
commercialisation of British sport since
1990,
sometimes playing a large role in inducing organisational changes
in the sports it broadcasts, most notably when it encouraged the
Premier League to break away from the
Football League in
1992.
Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, and Xtra are available as a premium package on
top of the basic Sky package. These channels are also available as
premium on nearly every satellite, cable and
IPTV broadcasting system in the UK and Ireland. Unlike
the other channels,
Sky Sports News
is provided as part of basic packages and also broadcasts on
Freeview. Sky Sports is
perhaps best known for its football coverage, followed by cricket
which is played mostly in summer.
History
The early years (1990-1998)
Logo for BSB's The Sports Channel,
before the merger and rebrand
Sky Sports originally began
broadcasting of sports events
as
The Sports Channel in March
1990, as part of the
British Satellite
Broadcasting service on cable, becoming available on the
Marcopolo satellite the following month.
Sky Television did not originally
launch with a
sports channel of their
own - though sports programmes were occasionally broadcast on
Sky Channel - but instead chose to invest in
Eurosport instead, which was marketed as
one of Sky's four channels upon its launch on 5 February
1989.
On 2 November 1990, British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky
Television announced that they would be merging.
At first the Sports
Channel gained a "British Sky
Broadcasting" suffix on its logo, however
from 6 April 1991 - when the channel debuted on the SES Astra
1B satellite - it was rebranded as Sky
Sports. Sky and Eurosport discontinued their partnership
upon the launch of Sky Sports, even though Eurosport continued to
be available on the Astra platform.
The channel was sold as one of the major draws of the Sky system
and from 1 September 1992 Sky Sports was sold as a subscription
channel and encrypted using the
VideoCrypt system. It was the second Sky channel
to be encrypted (following
Sky Movies in
1990). It initially aired sports such as
rugby and
golf in
1990, before acquiring rights to
German and
Italian league football in 1990.
However, it was following the formation of the
Premier League for the 1992/93 football
season, believed to have been assisted by the promise of higher TV
payments, that Sky Sports became well known.
By bidding £305m,
BSkyB beat the BBC and ITV to
acquire the live and exclusive Premier
League football broadcasting
rights for the United
Kingdom and Republic of Ireland for a five-year period. In doing so, they
had taken live top-flight English league football from terrestrial
and free-to-air television for the first time in its history.
Sky Sports Ident Circa 1997
More Sports Channels
Sky Sports Gold ident, notice that this was part of the "tombstone"
corporate look
Sky Sports 2's first ident, note the
"2" numeral would fly in as the word "too", and change when it
landed
Sky launched its second sport-dedicated channel,
Sky Sports
2 in August 1994, four years after the original channel
launched on the Marcopolo satellite on
BSB.
Sky Sports
Gold, a channel dedicated to classic sport, in a similar vein
to
ESPN Classic, launched on 1
November 1995 and ended as a separate channel by 1997 but only
really petered out (as a filler slot on the other Sky Sports
channels) by 2001. At the start of the
1996-97 season
Sky Sports
3 was launched. The launch promotion involved many top
sporting figures such as
Dennis
Bergkamp and
Ryan Giggs to help the
launch of the channel. Sky Sports had also acquired the rights to
Scottish football and the
Coca-Cola
Cup.
Sky Digital (1998 - present)
Sky Sports share of viewing 2000-07
October
1998 saw BSkyB launch Sky
Digital from a new satellite, Astra 2A
at 28.2°
east
. The move to Sky Digital saw the launch of
two new sports channels in quick succession. First
Sky Sports News, a 24-hour rolling sports
news channel launched. This was followed by
Sky Sports
Xtra, in March 1999. The channel was initially available
exclusively on Sky Digital. However, by summer 2003, the channel
had launched on
Virgin Media.
On 22 August 1999, Sky utilised a feature of, the then new, Sky
Digital system to allow an
interactive football match to be shown.
Viewers were given the ability to choose the things such as which
camera they viewed during the
Arsenal
vs.
Manchester United. The
concept proved popular and soon Sky used the new
interactive service, known as
Sky Sports Active, for other sports.
Around 2001, a cross-branding deal ensured that a quiz under the
name of the
Championship
Manager series would be produced with the Sky Sports name on
it.
Kirsty Gallacher was the host
of the
PlayStation 2 quiz.
In 2004, Sky signed an exclusive deal to broadcast live
English cricket matches for four
seasons from 2006 to 2009 for a fee of £55 million a year. As with
other of their exclusive deals this has caused some controversy, as
the matches would no longer be available on terrestrial TV. Sky
also signed an exclusive deal with the
BCCI to televise the
tour of India.
Following
its earlier collapse, Sky purchased the majority of Channel 4's stake in horse racing channel,
At the Races (the remainder of the
stake went to Arena Leisure, the other
partner in the channel and owner of Ascot Racecourse
). At The Races was insolvent, and despite
being promoted as part of the Sky Sports line up, had failed to
turn a profit. It remains a provider of live coverage to betting
shops, however.
Prior to the start of the
2004-05 season,
Football First, an interactive football
programme was launched. The show typically airs at 8.25pm and
replays full coverage of the day's featured Premier League match,
followed through the night by highlights from every Premier League
match played on the day, which gives the viewer a choice to see a
match of their choice. Sky Sports won the rights to air 'near-live'
coverage of the Barclays Premier League, permitting Football First
to air for another three years.
Sky Sports also snapped up the rights for the
A1 Grand Prix and has won the rights to
Speedway, for the next five
years. The channel also has the rights to American sports,
including
NFL and
WWE.
In 2007 a rival pay television operator, the Irish network
Setanta Sports, acquired a share in the
British rights to live Premier League matches, breaking Sky's
long-standing monopoly. Setanta bought up various other rights such
as
PGA Tour golf and some top boxing
matches, giving Sky a significant rival in the pay television
sports market for the first time, but Sky remained the market
leader by a wide margin. In June 2009 Setanta's UK operations went
into administration and ceased broadcasting.
Other Sky Sports Channels
Sky Sports Xtra
Sky Sports Xtra was the fourth Sports Channel
launched by Sky Sports. It airs repeats and live events of many Sky
Sports programmes, such as
La Liga. The
channel launched in April 1999, and is a free bonus channel for
those who subscribed to both Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2. The
channel was originally launched as
Sky Sports Extra but
later rebranded to
Sky Sports Xtra. The name Extra rather
than
Sky Sports 4 was chosen as the original intention of
the channel was to
simulcast sporting
events showing on the main channels with the addition of
interactive services.
More recently the channel has stopped simulcasting, and the
interactive services have moved to the main Sky Sports channels.
Sky Sports Xtra now shows live and recorded sports events, and is
in an effect a fourth main Sky Sports channel.
Sky Sports HD Channels
Banner of Sky Sports HD logos
Sky Sports
HD launched on
22 May 2006, and currently airs live
Cricket,
Premier
League and
Football League as
well as
Guinness Premiership
and
Super League Rugby. The 2008 Ryder
Cup was also screened in HD.
In July 2006
Sky Sports HD 2 launched on Sky Digital
channel 409, at the same time
Sky Sports HD 1 moved to
channel 408, with
Sky Sports News
switching to channel 405. There was also an HD version of PremPlus,
called
Prem Plus HD, which broadcast on Sky channel 483
until the football session ended. It was briefly branded
Sky
Sports HD X and used to broadcast other Sky Sports content in
HD, before it ceased broadcasting.
HD broadcasts of rugby league's
Super League began from the start of
the 2008 season in February 2008.
Super
Bowl XLI marked the first NFL broadcast in HD in the UK;
additional NFL games in HD have since been phased in.
Monday Night Football,
Thursday Night Football,
Thanksgiving Classic and the NFL
Playoffs will be shown in HD from 2008.
[106436]
Sky Sports HD 3 launched on 17 March 2008, to coincide with
World Wrestling
Entertainment's first UK HD broadcast. The new channel will
broadcast European Tour Golf in HD (along with any other golf Sky
have the rights to).
Sky Sports News
Sky Sports News is a 24-hour sports news channel
operated by Sky Sports. Sky Sports News launched on the 1 October
1998, with Sky Digital becoming BSkyB's first digital only channel.
On 10 April 2000, Sky Sports News relaunched as
Sky Sports.com
TV, a move to bring it tie in to the launch of the
skysports.com website. However, the name was soon reverted back to
Sky Sports News.
The channel replaced Sky Sports Centre, a news show at 6pm, devoted
to the key events in the sporting world. The show famously broke
the news that Kevin Keegan would resign as Newcastle United boss,
with immediate effect.
Presenters on the channel include
Natalie
Sawyer,
Simon
Thomas and
Georgie
Thompson.
On 5 August 2007 the channel was "refreshed" in line with the Sky
Sports new look.
At the Races
At The Races was originally founded by the Go
Racing consortium, a partnership of
Channel
4,
British Sky
Broadcasting, and Arena Leisure plc (owner of Ascot Racecourse,
and acting on behalf of a further 27 out of the 59 UK racecourses)
in July 2004. Following its high profile collapse (and Channel 4
removing itself from the consortium) the station - now purely a
joint venture between BSkyB and Arena Leisure - focuses on
horse racing from the UK, Ireland, North
America and Germany, showing many live races and related shows. The
station is "affiliated" with various
betting
companies, since gamblers are generally the sports main audience,
and its pictures, provided by satellite link provider SIS, are also
commercially distributed to betting shops across the country.
PremPlus
PremPlus was a
pay-per-view channel dedicated to airing live
Premier League Football. PremPlus
launched on 18 August 2001, showing 40 pay-per-view matches from
the English Premier League. The main presenter on PremPlus was
Marcus Buckland with former Arsenal
manager
George Graham
providing punditry.
The channel was called
Premiership Plus from 2001 to 2004,
before being shortened to the later PremPlus for the beginning of
the 2004-05 season.
PremPlus closed down after the last match of the 2006-07 season
after
Setanta Sports obtained a third
of the Premier League rights for 2007-10. This left Sky with only
92 live matches, meaning a Pay-Per-View service was
unsustainable.
Sky Sports programming
Sky own exclusive UK and Ireland, or UK-only exclusivity rights to
a number of sports, most notably the ones listed below. They also
transmit a large range of other sports.
Football
Sky Sports signed an exclusive deal with Ford in 2001
Ford Football Special Titles,
1996
Premier League
Live Premier League coverage has been a critical factor of the
success of not only Sky Sports, but the Sky Television Networkas a
whole. The foundations of Sky Sports have been built on the
coverage and allowed a dramatic growth in the number of subscribers
in homes as well as pubs.
Sky has had rights to the
Premier
League since 1992 when the Division One clubs broke off from
the
Football League to form the
Premier League. Sky had beaten both BBC and ITV for the rights to
show the live matches in a 304 million pound deal, a prize
justunthinkible at the time, from 1992 to now, Sky Sports covered
more than 1200 Premier League matches live, and with the
2010-13deal, it pormises a total of 345 matches over 3 years, which
under 60 over two deals, 92-96,96-01, 66 in 01-04, 88 in 04-07,and
92 in the 07-10 seasons deal, brings the total of live Premier
League matches on Sky Sports over the 21-Year period,to 1623
matches. The first live Premier League game televised was
Nottingham Forest's 1-0 win over
Liverpool in August 1992. The
millions and then billions of pounds which Sky has brought into the
game has changed English football almost beyond recognition . Sky
Sports have introduced many new features into coverage of the game
since 1992 including the initially-controversial permanent
digital on-screen graphic
scoreboard, an idea that was subsequently copied by American sports
(now known as a
score bug) and by
other British sport producers.
BSkyB's relationship with the
FA Premier League had caused
a stir with the
EU, which eventually intervened
and ended Sky's 13-year monopoly of live broadcasting rights.
BSkyB's current deal allowed the company to win four of the six
tiered live rights packages and left the BBC with the two
highlights packages. These events left the European Com 'unhappy'
and representatives of the Commission expressed views that the
league had a lot of 'serious questions' to answer.
The deal was reviewed by the Commission, who came to the conclusion
that they would threaten to take legal action against the Premier
League if it failed to agree new arrangements giving other
broadcasters a share of live TV coverage of matches. The EU
believed that it would give 'better choice and value' for
viewers.
Following the agreement, rival bids were launched.
NTL and Sir Richard Branson's
Virgin, ITV and
Channel
4 were some of the big names that launched their own bids.
Irish broadcaster
Setanta Sports also
declared that it would make a bid, depending on the overall
concepts in the 'bidding wars'.
Sky Sports won the rights to four out of the six available live
rights packages for the 2007/08 season and beyond, with another
Pay TV company,
Setanta Sports winning the remaining two.
Despite losing two of the packages, the broadcaster will show even
more live matches from the 2007/08 season, making better use of the
matches available to it. Sky Sports' flagship football show,
Super Sunday is not affected by
the loss of packages, but Sky Sports closed its PPV channel
Prem Plus at the end of the
2006-07 season.
In 2009, it was announced that Sky Sports had won back one of the
packages it had originally lost to Setanta in the last bidding
process. From 2010/11 season, Sky Sports will show 115 live games a
season in a 3-year deal, which will bring back Monday night
matches, currently being shown by Setanta.
The five main commentators are Martin Tyler, Rob Hawthorne, Alan
Parry, Ian Darke and Bill Leslie. These commentators will work
along Andy Gray for Saturday and Sunday matches. If there are two
matches on Sunday live Gray will cover the more high-profile match
with Alan Smith, the ex-Arsenal player, covering the other match.
One of the main shows where viewers get their say is
You're on
Sky Sports hosted by Geoff Shreeves and Chloe Everton.
Football League
In 1996, Sky Sports bought rights to the
Football League and the
Coca-Cola Cup in a five-year deal with the
Football League.Sky showed 36
First Division matches every
season, along with 12 matches for both
Second Division, and
Third Division.Sky also became the first
ever pay-TV broadcaster to show the whole League Cup, including the
final at Wembley exclusively live, but in 2001 the
On Digital free terrestrial platform won the
rights to the Football League, in a three-year deal, but in the
spring of 2002, the company, now known as
ITV Digital went bust, and Sky bought back the
rights.The contract, worth around £250 million, ran until 2007. Sky
has since twice renewed its contract.
Bill
Leslie and
Ian Darke are the lead
match commentators. The co-commentator is usually
Garry Birtles or
Don
Goodman.
Conference National
Sky has also screened live matches from the Nationwide Conference,
the top tier of Non League Football, in some seasons. From 2007/08
season however
Setanta Sports won
comprehensive live broadcast rights for the Conference, now renamed
the
Blue Square Premier.
UEFA Champions League
In 2003, BSkyB won joint UK rights to coverage of the
UEFA Champions League with
ITV, who had previously held exclusive rights with all
matches shown on their channels only. Irish rights are currently
held jointly by RTÉ and Setanta Ireland, although matches broadcast
on the Sky platform are available to Irish digital subscribers due
to 'spill over'. Mark Pearman, a former Sky Sports Executive
Producer and then Managing Director of Opta Index, returned to
produce Sky's coverage. Richard Keys and Clare Tomlinson presented
the first UEFA Champions League programme. ITV got first choice of
2 matches on Tuesdays, with Sky taking the remaining six (with
coverage of any Scottish teams' games being shared with
STV) and all eight matches on a Wednesday. Matches that
are not shown on one of the Sky Sports channels are usually
available through
the interactive
service. In 2005, Sky Sports and ITV renewed their Champions
League contract up until 2009. Sky Sports recently extended their
Champions League contract till 2012. From the beginning of the
2009-10 season, Sky's coverage of the competition will grow
dramatically, including automatic rights to qualifying games
(previously these were sold on an individual basis in auctions).
They will show all games on a Tuesday, plus all bar one game on
Wednesdays until the Final.
ITV will have first
choice of Wednesday games, and shared coverage of the
final.
[106437].
FA Cup
In a joint deal with the
BBC, Sky Sports secured
the rights to the
FA Cup in June 2000. Under
the three-year deal, Sky won live and interactive coverage to the
competition, which previously was occupied by
ITV. The channel on the other hand, did not have
the choice of first pick of games.
ITV and
Setanta Sports took over coverage in
the 2008/09 season.
Internationals
Currently, Sky Sports holds the rights to every home Live Scotland,
Northern Ireland, and Wales International, whilst sharing coverage
of away ties with the respective BBC Nations or, predominantly,
Setanta Sports. Controversially, the Football Association of
Ireland sold the rights to Republic of Ireland home competitive
matches to Sky, a foreign broadcaster not available terrestrially
in the state.
EU legislation subsequently forced Sky and
the FAI to allow the live broadcast of competitive games on a
domestic terrestrial channel, currently RTÉ
. Sky Sports have also shown some of
England's home and away Internationals live in the past; Setanta
Sport and ITV now hold those rights.
Spanish La Liga
Sky Sports also show live matches from the
Spanish La Liga on Saturday and Sunday
nights. They also show a review show called
Revista de La
Liga on Tuesdays. The Spanish Football is fronted by Mark
Bolton, along with
Guillem
Balague.
Sky Sports has signed a new deal for exclusive live coverage of La
Liga for the next three seasons. The new deal for Spain's top
league covers the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons and Sky
Sports will broadcast at least two live matches from each weekend
of the season.
Cricket
Sky was
the first broadcaster to show live coverage of an overseas tour
involving the England cricket
team when England toured the West Indies
in 1990. Since then Sky has acquired the rights to all
home international series involving England
, Australia, West Indies, India
, South Africa and New Zealand
as well as showing every England overseas tour, ICC
tournaments such as the Cricket World
Cup, ICC Champions Trophy
and ICC World Twenty20, the
Stanford Super Series and the
Twenty20 Champions
League. Sky also shows extensive coverage of
county cricket, with over 60 live games in
the 2009 season involving every county in all four
competitions.
Sky Sports's flagship coverage of England home series began in
2006, when the
ECB
awarded Sky exclusive coverage of all of England's home tests,
one-day internationals and Twenty20 Internationals including the
2009 Ashes. The
ECB have since renewed Sky
Sports's deal until 2013, meaning that the 2013 Ashes will also be
shown exclusively on Sky Sports. Coverage is presented by
David Gower. Gower is also part of an
illustrious commentary team which includes 3 other former England
captains in
Nasser Hussain,
Michael Atherton and
Sir Ian Botham, along with the popular former
England batsman and coach and first-class umpire
David Lloyd and ex West Indian fast bowler
Michael Holding. The team is
completed by
Nick Knight, or
commentators from the touring side such as
Rameez Raja (Pakistan),
Ravi Shastri (India),
Shaun Pollock (South Africa) and Australian
legend
Shane Warne during the
2009 Ashes. Highlights are broadcast in a prime
time slot each evening, presented by
Charles Colvile, alongside
Bob Willis.
Coverage of county cricket is presented and commentated on by
former Surrey and England batsman
Ian Ward
and
Charles Colvile. In addition to
the presenters and those commentators involved in the international
coverage,
Bob Willis,
Paul Allott,
David Houghton and
Jeremy Coney commentate on county cricket along
with special guests such as Glamorgan's former England offspinner
Robert Croft, Surrey's director of
cricket
Chris Adams and former
Gloucestershire player
Ian Harvey.
Overseas series involving England are presented either from the
ground by
David Gower or from a London
studio by
Ian Ward or
Charles Colvile. The commentary team is
largely unchanged from that from that used for England home series.
England's tour of the West Indies in 2009 was presented by
Ian Ward (1st and 2nd Tests, ODIs) and
Charles Colvile (3rd and 4th Tests, T20
International) alongside studio guests such as
Bob Willis,
Nick
Knight,
David Lloyd,
Robert Croft,
Alec
Stewart,
Angus Fraser and
Graham Thorpe. The commentary team in the West
Indies was
David Gower,
Sir Ian Botham,
Michael Atherton,
Nasser Hussain,
Michael Holding,
Tony
Cozier and
Ian Bishop for the tests
with
David Lloyd replacing
Michael Atherton and Fazeer Mohammed
replacing
Michael Holding for the
ODIs.
Other international cricket is presented by
Ian
Ward,
Charles Colvile,
Mike Wedderburn,
Paul
Allott,
Nick Knight and David Bobin
in the Sky Sports studio alongside pundits such as
Ian Harvey,
Jeremy
Coney,
Colin Croft,
Steve Elworthy,
John
Emburey and
Angus Fraser. Match
coverage is taken from host broadcasters around the world such as
Channel Nine in Australia,
Sky TV in New Zealand,
Supersport in South Africa and
Nimbus in India. This ensures the voices of the likes
of
Tony Greig,
Richie Benaud,
Mark
Nicholas,
Ian Chappell,
Simon Doull,
Ian Smith,
Robin Jackman,
Pommie Mbangwa,
Kepler Wessels and
Ravi Shastri are heard each winter on
Sky.
Rugby League
The power of television over sport can perhaps be best portrayed by
the change of
rugby league from a
winter sport to one played during the summer months under the
banner of
Super League. These changes
caused great controversy when they were introduced in 1996, yet
they have been seen by many as positive and as having an impact
even greater than the broadcaster has had with football. The sport
is now seen as being in a healthy state with two or three live
matches from the Super League every week fronted by 'Eddie and
Stevo' -
Eddie
Hemmings and former
Great Britain
World Cup winner
Mike Stephenson - who are a rare example of
a dual studio-presentation and commentary-box partnership in sports
broadcasting. They are joined by
Phil
Clarke in both the studio and on commentary, Bill Arthur, the
pitch-side reporter, and a guest (generally a coach or a former
player).
Barrie McDermott,
Terry O'Connor or
Shaun McRae often occupy the guest
position. Live Super League broadcasts routinely rank amongst the
top 10 most watched programmes in a week on Sky Sports regularly.
Sky has sold rights to a highlights package of the Super League to
BBC Sport.
Sky also hold the rights to show the
Rugby League Tri-Nations live,
whilst highlights are shown on
BBC Sport.
Sky also announced in 2007 that they had bought the rights to
televise National League (now
Championship) matches midweek,
and they have screened one lower division match each week since
that year. This coverage is presented by Bill Arthur alongside a
combination of Clarke, McDermott, O'Connor and McRae. Australia and
New Zealand's
National Rugby
League (NRL) competition was shown until the 2005-06 season
when
Setanta Sports outbid Sky for
the rights, despite the NRL being half owned by News Corp.
Sky Sports showed the
2008
World Cup exclusively live.
Sky Sports shows a weekly midweek
rugby
league magazine show,
Boots 'N' All, during the
season, along with a half hour summary of the weekend's Super
League matches on
Sky Sports News on
a Sunday night. This is presented by
Martin Offiah.
Rugby Union
Shot of the Sky Sports rugby union
studio, 2006
Sky began its live coverage of what is now known as the
Guinness Premiership on the 10
September 1994 with the match between
Bath
Rugby and
Bristol Rugby and
continues to do so by showing one live match, usually on a
Saturday, every week. Sky Sports currently shows 33 live games a
season, and will do so until the end of the 2009/10 season. A deal
with
Premier Rugby means that
from 2010, Sky Sports will share live rights with
Setanta Sports and will show 26 live games a
season (including one Premiership Semi-Final) until the end of the
2012/13 season.. However due to Setanta Sports ceasing trading on
23 June 2009 in the UK, the odds are that these rights will go back
to Sky.
In 2003, it began its coverage of the
Heineken Cup, outbidding previous rights holder
BBC Sport with its offer of £20 million
for 3 years., showing usually 6 matches each pool weekend as well
as all knockout matches.
For the first time in 2006, Sky Sports will
hold exclusive rights to live Heineken Cup rugby in the UK and ROI,
with RTÉ only able to show tape-delayed coverage and
S4C able to show only highlights. Sky
Sports will start to broadcast games from the European Challenge
Cup from the season 2007/08, with one game every week.
In 2008,
Sky Sports extended their already long-term deal with the RFU to continue showing England Internationals (outside
of the Six Nations)
exclusively live up until the end of the 2014-15 season, including
their autumn test matches at Twickenham
and their summer internationals overseas.
The new deal begins in 2010, and they will have the rights to show
live coverage of the
Anglo-Welsh Cup
as well as new proposed competitions from the RFU.
Sky Sports has also had exclusive UK rights for live coverage of
the last three
British and Irish
Lions tours. This is partly because of Sky's links with
News Corporation television
channels in the southern hemisphere. Sky's links with News
Corporation, also allows them to show live matches from the
Super 14 competition.
Sky Sports rugby coverage is presented by Simon Lazenby and
Dewi Morris, with commentary for
internationals and Guinness Premiership from
Miles Harrison and
Stuart Barnes. Sky will often take the host
broadcasters commentary for Super 14 and
Tri-Nations, with commentators
including Hugh Bladen,
Murray Mexted
and Tony Johnson (Sky in NZ). The feed from Fox Sports in Australia
usually involves
Phil Kearns,
Greg Martin and Greg Clark.
Darts
Since the creation of the World Darts Council in 1992, since
renamed the
Professional
Darts Corporation (PDC), formed when many of the leading
darts players, including
Phil Taylor,
Eric
Bristow,
John Lowe and
Dennis Priestley,
broke away from the
British Darts Organisation (BDO),
the games then sole ruling body, Sky Sports has broadcast the new
organisations main darts tournaments live, which currently includes
the following:
BDO tournaments, including the
Lakeside World Championship,
continue to be covered by the
BBC.
Boxing
Following the departure of
Frank
Warren's Sports Network to
ITV during 2005,
many of the top British boxers no longer fight on Sky. However,
many top American fights are still broadcast as well as the
remainder of Britain's top fighters including
Ricky Hatton. Some of the channel's top fights
are shown on the Pay-Per-View channel
Sky Box Office instead of
Sky Sports. Presenters and commentators for Sky Sports' coverage
include
Dave Clark,
Wayne McCullough and
Johnny Nelson.
WWE
In 1989,
Sky Sports acquired the rights to WWF Wrestling (now World Wrestling Entertainment
or WWE), from America
. Sky Sports 3 is considered the home of WWE
programming on Sky, as the majority of the programs are shown on
it.
Part of the current deal with Sky states that major PPV's such as
WrestleMania,
Survivor Series,
Royal Rumble and
Summerslam would be part of the
Sky Box Office
pay-per-view service, and that
SmackDown!'s first broadcast
would move from
Sky One to Sky Sports. As part
of the deal,
RAW is now shown live
on Sky Sports 3 early Tuesday morning because of the time
difference.
SmackDown! is broadcast in Britain before it
is aired in America: on Friday nights. Sky Sports 1 shows 6 WWE
PPV's live a year.
Sky also broadcasts WWE's third brand,
Extreme Championship Wrestling. For a
couple of months it replaced
WWE
Velocity on Sunday mornings.
It is now shown two
nights after the US broadcast after a viewer complained to Ofcom
in August
2006 about an image in the opening credits, and Sky agreed to air
the program after the watershed.
The deal of 14 Pay-Per-Views did not account for
WWE's extra pay-per-views
which have been added subsequently, and therefore
WWE Cyber Sunday would not have been picked
up by Sky. However, a last-minute deal was struck between Sky and
WWE, that allowed the PPV to be shown live on Sky Sports 1.
The first WWE event to be shown in wide-screen (16:9) format on Sky
Sports was
No Way Out 2008 on Monday
18 February 2008 at 1am on Sky Sports 1. Although after this, other
WWE programming were still in standard (4:3) format however due to
complaints all WWE programming will now be airing in widescreen
from a down-scaled HD feed.
When
WWE Heat ended in June 2008 it was
replaced with
WWE Vintage
Collection, a programme which showcases classic archive matches
from the extensive
WWE Video
Library.
On November 30 2009, Sky Sports announced they had signed up to a
new five year deal with the WWE . The deal means
This Week in
WWE and
WWE Superstars will make their UK television
debut.
WWE shows on Sky Digital
The following list excludes the
Pay-per-view events where some happen on Sky
Sports and the rest on
Sky Box Office
for an extra charge.
Motor Racing
Sky Sports also broadcasts major motorsport events. This includes:
National Football League
Sky Sports also broadcasts a variety of live NFL games and
NFL Network programming. For the 2007 and 2008
seasons this comprises live coverage of the
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Game and five other Preseason games, 125 Regular Season games,
including
Sunday Night
Football and
Monday Night
Football and NFL Network's
Run
to the Playoffs. The package also includes the NFL Playoffs and
Super Bowl, plus the
Pro Bowl. Sky shares coverage of the Sunday and
Monday night games, as well as the playoffs, with terrestrial
broadcasters
Five and the
BBC.
The complementary coverage from NFL Network includes:
The main studio presenters for Sky's live NFL coverage are
Kevin Cadle and
Nick
Halling. Regular in-studio pundits include former
Chicago Bears safety
Shaun Gayle, former
New York Giants and
Arizona Cardinals tackle
Ian Allen and NFL UK journalist
Neil Reynolds.
Booth commentary is taken from the original U.S. feed.
For the 2009 season, however, Sky Sports reduced their weekly
coverage of the sport. Whilst they retained the playoffs,
International Series Thanksgiving and
NFL Network Thursday games, they reduced the weekly schedule.
Unlike the previous two seasons, Sky does not show games on the red
button at 6pm and 9pm. In addition they no longer broadcast
Sunday Night Football
(previously broadcast on both Sky and five, now five only) and
Monday Night Football (with
five and on Sky in
HD, now unavailable on TV in
both the UK and Ireland). This provoked a strong response from fans
of the game in both countries, with heavy criticism from many fans
for both Sky and NFLUK.However, the coverage is now in
widescreen and occasionally in
HD.
References
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