[WillPS]

I think it's a given though that any TV company buying highlights rights (or live rights), whether from another broadcaster or direct from the sports organising body, will ensure they have exclusivity of those rights.

Anyway - no point arguing over a non-existant scenario - I've got 7 bins to put out.

The same way it's a-given that a TV company broadcasting highlights wouldn't agree to signpost a rival broadcaster with better rights to the same event, you mean?

It's entirely possible that either:

[*]Sky have agreed that Channel 4 has exclusive FTA rights consistently since 2019, and continue to do so in their new longer term agreement
[*]Sky previously agreed exclusive FTA rights, but going forward have not
[*]Sky have never agreed exclusivity of any sort with Channel 4, but have simply chosen not to put any Sky F1 programming out on their own FTA outputs


Sprint races are potentially an interesting opportunity which Sky could use as a shop window for their own output, and wouldn't necessarily detract from Channel 4's own coverage (which is very compromised for sprint weekends currently).