[Scratch_Perry]

On the football side I think only Rob Hawthorne is left from that era now. There may be some left in rugby league mind.

The rugby union department is pretty much gone, bar Sanzaar games that they just pick up host broadcaster feeds, and I’m not sure if it’s been announced whose doing the next Lions, otherwise I’d have mentioned Miles Harrison, of course.

For rugby league only Bill Arthur remains from the last century.

[RhysJR]

Through a mixture of Twitter incompetence and Times paywall, I'm struggling to read this, but an interesting development reported on the future TV rights of the FA Cup.

twitter.com 

www.thetimes.co.uk 

FA considering sale of cup rights to Premier League
The Football Association is considering selling its international broadcast righ…
  Source: www.thetimes.co.uk

[Brekkie]

Story is in the headline really though mentions the Premier League selling rights abroad, so may or may not include domestic rights. Perhaps part of the planning for them launching their own streaming service, likely abroad first,and therefore needing content for those fallow weeks.

[Rdd]

This Broadcast Now article is a bit clearer, must have been the proverbial “an offer they couldn’t refuse” to scrap the entire tender process at a late stage so as to accommodate a new bidder who hadn’t been involved up to then.

www.broadcastnow.co.uk 

Premier League makes FA Cup international rights bid | News | Broadcast
Report claims Premier League hopes for “incredibly long term” deal that would in…
  Source: www.broadcastnow.co.uk

[RhysJR]

Other articles building on the above report further possible changes to the FA Cup that will further undermine the competition.

- Replays will be scrapped
- Early rounds will be played midweek
- The final will be played on the penultimate Premier League weekend rather than its own weekend.

twitter.com 

www.dailymail.co.uk 

FA Cup replays and the stand-alone final weekend to be axed in radical shake-up …
EXCLUSIVE BY MATT HUGHES: The FA's willingness to cede control of its biggest co…
  Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

It seems to be a non-stop stream of stories about money attempting to 'ruin' sport (tennis and golf to be brought out by Saudi Arabia, rugby union to have a new international competition that shuts out developing nations etc.).

---

La Liga has revelaed its new branding and graphics. My first thought on seeing the video is that the graphics look like they're straight from a video game, which makes sense if their title sponsors are now EA.

twitter.com 

[Brekkie]

Sadly no surprise about the replays. Playing early rounds midweek seems pointless though and hurts fans the most, but also broadcast wise a lower division clash can usually be scheduled on BBC1/2 or ITV1 at the weekends but primetime midweek us unlikely.

[Rdd]

Do not like that new LaLiga logo one bit. I know they were changing sponsors but to ditch the wheel logo they’ve used in various forms for 30 years to something that looks really harsh, I’m not sure of that. The graphics shown in that tweet do look nice, apart from the font. I guess the abrupt cut off of the old music means we’re getting new music too.

Electronic Arts is the new sponsor, so the full name is “LaLiga EA Sports” now, while continuing the tradition of LaLiga 2 using a different brand from the same sponsor, it now gets the slightly silly name “LaLiga HYPERMOTION”.

[NI92]

Channel 4 & Sky Sports renew F1 partnership to 2026
Channel 4 to continue full live coverage of British Grand Prix and highlights of every other race

twitter.com 

www.channel4.com 

Sky and Channel 4 extend partnership to keep Formula 1 highlights and the Britis…
Sky and Channel 4 have extended their long-standing partnership ensuring motorsp…
  Source: www.channel4.com

[Rdd]

RTE and Premier Sports have picked up ROI rights to rugby union’s Summer Nations Series (aka the Rugby World Cup warm up games), U.K. rights already awarded to Prime Video.

[Jon]

Do not like that new LaLiga logo one bit. I know they were changing sponsors but to ditch the wheel logo they’ve used in various forms for 30 years to something that looks really harsh, I’m not sure of that.

Not a massive fan of the logo myself, but it seems to be on trend and I think ultimately will be more instantly recognisable.  

It reminds of the change of the F1 logo which had probably been around for just as long, everybody hated the new one but has probably resulted in a much stronger identity. 

I guess for EA Sports it marks looking to grow their brand awareness even more among football fans given they’ll no longer be trading off the FIFA brand.