Sky makes splash by securing America’s Cup rights
Live matches to screen on Sky Sport, supplemented with replays and highlights; TVNZ's Jeff Latch philosophical about loss.
Sky has announced it has secured the exclusive New Zealand rights to the 35th America’s Cup regatta, which begins with Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series in Oman on February 27 and culminates with the finals in Bermuda in June 2017.
A release from Sky says the live matches will screen on Sky Sport and be supplemented with replays and highlights. It remains to be seen whether the pay TV operator also has the rights to offer the event on its Fanpass service.
This will be a blow for TVNZ, which had the rights for the 34th regatta in 2013 and enjoyed record audiences for the yachting contest, drawing more than 700,000 sets of Kiwi eyeballs for the final and a peak of over 1.2 million viewers in the 5+ demographic.
TVNZ also touted the fact the 2013 America’s Cup was the first major free-to-air sports event to be simulcast on TVs, desktops and mobile devices.
The regatta would presumably have been a sitter to screen on TVNZ’s new “man channel.” Titled ‘Duke,’ it’s essentially been built around the network’s sporting content, the majority of which has in recent times been consigned to special purpose pop-up channels on Freeview.
TVNZ head of content Jeff Latch is philosophical about the loss, however.
“We’re pleased with the success of the sports rights we’ve picked up,” he says, “culminating most recently with the Commonwealth Games – but you can’t take them all.”
Of course, depending on how Team New Zealand fares, Sky may well end up ruing this initial win.
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Staff Reporter
Fri, 19 Feb 2016
Fri, 19 Feb 2016
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