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Formula 1's0 managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches has said that F1 will not be shown on free-to-air television until at least 2025. This is due to Sky Sports having an "immutable" deal to exclusively show every race live on TV.
Sky UK acquired the rights to show all the races live in 2011. Before that, F1 was available on free-to-air in the UK. After Sky penned its deal, BBC was allowed to show half of the races live, with the rest being broadcast a number of hours later than Sky, in highlight form.
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At the end of 2015, Channel 4 claimed the rights to broadcast half of the races live as BBC dropped its contract. Sky signed a new deal prior to Liberty Media's takeover, meaning from 2019 onwards, all live races will be only live on Sky. Bratches confirmed there would be no changes on this until 2025.
"That deal is immutable," Bratches told media at the FIA Sport Conference in Geneva. "That deal is an agreement that we inherited, and these deals are done between two adult parties at an arm's length distance. So my suspicion is that Sky is very happy with that deal and we're going to honour and respect the deals that were in place when we arrived."
Too early to decide on next step
Bratches also confirmed that it is far too early to discuss what comes next after Sky's deal ends in 2024: "I think we'll have to make an assessment of where our brand is at that point in time," he said on future plans.
"There's other leagues – and you know who I'm talking about – around the globe that are actually going full pay and they feel that their brand is at a point where they can actually afford to do that, notwithstanding the fan and the sponsor angle.
"So we'll make that assessment at that time, but I think it's premature – the deal hasn't even started, it will start in two years – to speculate what we will do on the backside. But central to the thesis of our management of this extraordinary property is to serve the Formula 1 fan and we're going to do that with rigour in everything we do."
Fergal Walsh
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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One of the main reasons why F1 is dying