The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Printable Version

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 14-07-2023

Which bring me nicely on to the announcment of the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup kick-off times.
Before the analysis, it's great for matchday and sofa fans alike that kick-off times have been confirmed this early for the whole URC season and the entire European (sic) pool stage.

Champions Cup
No changes to the kick-off structire unsurprisngly. ITV's games are now mainly Sunday at 13:00 (3 vs. 1 at Saturday 13:00), but somehow the poor selection of the Channel 4 era is back with a vengance. Of ITV's four games, two feature Exeter at home and two feature Sale at home. With eight English teams (and many other British sides) is it rather perplexing that only two of them (plus Glasgow and Munster) get featured on English UK FTA coverage. Without data to back me up, I'd also argue these are not the most populat two English sides so an even odder decision.

RTÉ's four live games also has the same issue of favouring two sides, with two Munster and two Leinster games featured. In contrast to ITV, I'd think Munster and Leinster are far more popular than Ulster and Connacht so this is more understandable from a commercial/ratings point of view. All four RTÉ games kick-off on Saturdays at 17:30.

All four Cardiff Rugby matches will be live on S4C (the only Welsh team in the competition). The two homes games are live at 20:00 on Saturday nights, the away games are live on 15:15 on Saturday afternoons.

In the Challenge Cup, once again BT Sport/TNT Sports will not air any pool stage games, but many will be across Viaplay and Premier Sports Ireland. S4C will show four games FTA (Scarlets x2, Dragons x1, Ospreys x1) with one game at Saturday 20:00 and the other three at Friday 20:00. There has been some constenation among Welsh rugby's online community (plus ça change) about the awkwardness for matchday fans for the kick-off times and how they are not consistent for one team's home games. I agree to an extent, but no kick-off time could satisfy everyone, and all kick-off times for every match until the end of January is now set in stone to allow fans to prepare. Interestingly S4C's URC games are mainly Saturday 15:00/17:15 rather than night matches.

Final point from the Challenge Cup is that Georgian side Black Lion, and South African side Cheetahs (playing out of Amsterdam), have been invited to the competition.

https://twitter.com/ChampionsCup/status/1679401159197425667?s=20 

https://twitter.com/ChallengeCup_/status/1679401245620989952?s=20 

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This week has also seen the URC publish the kick-off time and broadcaster info for every single match right until the end of the regular season in June. Not sure there is that much of note, but BBC NI won't air a live game between Christmas and mid-April with the other FTA broadcasters (NB still nothing in Scotland of course) airing matches almost every week. The Italian broadcaster is listed as TBA, but it has changed almost every year anyway between Eurosport/Discovery+, Rai, Mediaset, Sky and DAZN. Sky Italia have recently signed an extension to show all Six Nations and Autumn/Summer Nations Series games until 2025.

https://twitter.com/URCOfficial/status/1678706473013067780?s=20 

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Finally, the final day of the World Rugby Under 20 Championship today sees four games (including the final) on Virgin Media Two, Australia v. Wales on S4C and their YouTube, with the final between Ireland and France at 18:00 on Virgin Media Two, ITV X and, at the time of writing, will still be available on the World Rugby YouTube channel in the UK. All games not geo-blocked are set to be on the World Rugby YouTube.

The second tier competition, the World Rugby Under 20 Trophy, begins on Saturday - featuring Scotland following their relegation in 2019. It is reported that all matches will be shown via the Rugby Kenya and/or the Rugby Afrique YouTube channels.



Aaaand breathe, sorry for the length of the post!

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 14-07-2023

This is the second of a very short two year deal for the EPCR competitions, and the third of a three year deal for PRL, so both those rights come up this season which should be interesting. It’s the third year of the URC’s current four year deals with broadcasters too. Speculation abound that these rights will all get combined into one package thanks to CVC’s influence, but not sure if that will actually happen and could pose particular difficulties for the URC.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 15-07-2023

Rather awry camerawork from some domestic women's cricket today.

https://twitter.com/_hypocaust/status/1680177314120728579?t=MLrtcax0u7qkRPb2_cPVRg&s=19 


Over in the men's T20 Blast Finals Day at Edgbaston, they have been rather lucky to have enough good weather to get results in the semi-finals. Minus point No.86 of The Hundred is that this is now more hidden earlier than in the season in July, rather than its traditional September slot.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 15-07-2023

(12-07-2023, 07:27 PM)RhysJR Wrote:  With the World Aquatics Championships starting in Fukoka, Japan on Friday, there is once again no UK broadcaster currenlty scheduled to show the events.

Last year, the swimming was shown live on BBC iPlayer only (so we had the rather odd set-up with the European Championships getting better coverage than the World Championships) via a deal agreed by the EBU (that I think was only announced the day before the competitions began). The previous edition was only available behind a paywall on the FINA website, with the BBC showing daily highlights; this was blamed on World Aquatics/FINA asking for too much money from broadcasters globally, with there being no live coverage in many other European nations and in Australia most notably.
This does not look to be the case this year, with many other European countries getting FTA coverage, with the UK a very notable abscence in the list on the official website below. Action will be shown live on the EBU-operated All Aquatics site and behind a paywall on the World Aquatics Recast channel (not sure if any events will be exclusive to Recast otherwise there's little point in it being available).

It's unfortunate timing that the event will take place the same time as the FIFA Women's World Cup and in a smilar timezone (the 2023 edition was originally meant to be in Doha with Fukuoka hosting in 2021 then 2022) which would make it understandable for the BBC (as they are the most likely to broadcast this) not to show the event on its linear channels but a bit disappointing there is, at the moment, no iPlayer coverage either.

https://www.worldaquatics.com/where-to-watch/europe 

The 2022 announcment from the EBU:
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2022/06/more-than-20-ebu-members-to-broadcast-budapest-2022-after-fina-agreement-extended 

Interesting that BBC swimming commentator Andy Jamieson believes that the BBC and World Aquatics are still in discussions about airing the World Swimming Championships next week. Would be nice if a deal is sorted.

The diving has already begun, with a British medal only being available on All Aquatics.

https://twitter.com/Andyjamesonswim/status/1680221968308793345?t=k0d6FfAJGkh6S-aLJQNh5Q&s=19 

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Brekkie - 15-07-2023

Just looking at the earlier and seems you have to sign up to watch completed sessions. Not having a TV app makes it more tricky - I did try the European Ganes through the Amazon browser but it was far too much hassle.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - nwtv2003 - 16-07-2023

Unsurprisingly but still a good choice, Simon Thomas has been confirmed as the new host of Soccer Saturday.

https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1680638429925888000?s=46&t=iqdL9jBmHZyqOL71hqnmbA 

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - NI92 - 16-07-2023

(16-07-2023, 07:09 PM)nwtv2003 Wrote:  Unsurprisingly but still a good choice, Simon Thomas has been confirmed as the new host of Soccer Saturday.

https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1680638429925888000?s=46&t=iqdL9jBmHZyqOL71hqnmbA 

Mike Dean also joins for Referee expert view
https://twitter.com/SkySportsNews/status/1680638677897342977 

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rob Francis - 16-07-2023

(16-07-2023, 07:09 PM)nwtv2003 Wrote:  Unsurprisingly but still a good choice, Simon Thomas has been confirmed as the new host of Soccer Saturday.

https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/status/1680638429925888000?s=46&t=iqdL9jBmHZyqOL71hqnmbA 

100% the perfect choice. Simon's a great broadcaster, I'm sure he's going to do a great job.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 16-07-2023

A rather lovely message from Simon announcing his appointment. Very pleased for him, and an excellent decision from Sky. Nice to see they have chosen someone more in the style of Jeff Stelling rather than the influencer route they have pushed towards in recent years with some of their coverage.

https://twitter.com/SimonThomasTV/status/1680638938401107968?t=oKt9kHvlpQWgg76d2eyQrw&s=19 

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - steve - 16-07-2023

I think part of the reason it was always likely to be a ‘proper’ presenter (for want of a better way of putting it) is that it is a very hard show to present. The likes of Jeff and Jason Mohamed make it look easy but for aren’t many similar shows where you’re on air for so long with no idea what’s happening next juggling multiple lives, multiple guests, etc.

An excellent choice.

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