SBS at risk of losing Tour Down Under
SBS may lose the rights to the Tour Down Under to the Nine Network this summer.
- Published by David Knox
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SBS may lose the rights to the Tour Down Under to a commercial network this summer.
SBS cycling presenter Mike Tomalaris has tweeted:
“SBS can reveal TV rights for @tourdownder not looking good. It seems 1 network has agreed to share cricket with cycling for next 3 summers.”
SBS TV senior sports producer Stuart Randall also tweeted:
“To echo Tomo, highly likely that #tourdownunder will not be on SBS in January, but on a commercial network instead. Shame but we move on.
“We’ll be on site and do what we’re allowed too. News access videos and some bits and pieces. Not comprehensive though.
“On the plus side, we’ll have live coverage of the National Roads on Jan 8th and the national tracks Jan 28/29.”
Cycling is a big drawcard for SBS with Cadel Evans’ win in the Tour de France as its top rating event for 2012.
Given Nine’s cricketing commitments it would appear to be the network that has swooped on the rights to TDU, but this is unconfirmed. Nine previously snatched Top Gear from SBS.
TV Tonight understands rights holders SA Events are dragging their feet on a deal, possibly still in negotiation with Nine.
The Santos Tour Down Under takes place from January 15th.
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35 Responses
@Johnson: It’ll more likely be live on GEM than Go!. With some limited coverage on Nine.
Noooooooo! this will be terrible! who will the get to commentate? I think Tourism SA bods really need to think about this. It shouldn’t be about the money yet. TDU isn’t cool yet. Cadel isn’t even racing in it this year. It needs to stay with SBS where it can be covered properly. If it moves to 9 the broadcast will be crap, and people will be turned off watching the cycling.
@ Jimbo… Ofcourse they will jump on the bandwagon… look what they did with the Golf and Tiger Woods
Ooops – I meant the Tour Down Under.
Damn!
Nine will royally screw up the Tour De France if it gets the rights.
And you just know that Eddie McGuire and Karl Stefanovic will be heading the telecasts – with Livinia Nixon on the sidelines to comment on the fashions.
It all depends on whether the organisers want quality over money.
So that means that we won’t get to see any live stages of the race, and a highlights package of the race sometime in February….
Of cource Nine will jump on the Cadel Evans bandwagon! Just leave it on SBS where their coverage of cylcing over the last few years has been good.
Just great. We will be able to look forward to getting the latest betting odds during Nine’s “world class” on again-off again coverage. This is just more of the thin edge of the wedge. Everybody better start praying that they don’t grab the Tour de France as well.
Anyone but Nine.
Nine? Really? I can’t see the logic of it, but I can see then screwing both cricket and cycling though it.