As the title says BT Sport has secured exclusive rights to broadcast MotoGP races, along with feeder categories Moto2 and Moto 3, from the 2014 season onwards. The initial five-year deal signals the end of the championship's association with the BBC and Eurosport.
Running through to at least the 2018 campaign, all practice sessions, qualifying sessions and races will be shown live by BT. Which means to say there is no MotoGP on terrestrial Television starting from next season onwards.
So here's my rant, for starters I am not going to rant on BBC and Eurosport on this post, because it was the end of their contracts at the end of 2013 for both companies, as it's not in their control.
But, I am going to rant on Dorna Sports, the promoters of MotoGP giving the deal to BT in the first place, it will be free of charge to broadband customers but for the rest of us it will be an extra £15 per month for their channels. No terrestrial deal in place, I think this is a complete bad deal for the viewers who cannot afford BT Sport, I doubt that viewing figures will be even a 1/20th of a fraction of what the BBC or Eurosport has combined for the last few years. I believe that Dorna/MotoGP have alienated your audience for the next five years giving the live and exclusive rights to BT, take the cash and don't really think about making motorcycling racing easily accessible to the general public. If I was Dorna I would get some sort of terrestrial deal to the BBC (similar deal the BBC got with F1), if you haven't burned your bridges with the Beeb yet that is.
Final thoughts are this, BT sport is a luxury product just as the same as Sky, who owns the F1 rights, is a luxury product (paying £50 per month for their Sky sports package) paying £65 per month for those two products don't make sense in a rescission world we live in. And to the likes of Jake Humphrey, and Cal Crutchlow on twitter this afternoon saying it's still Free, Free to whom, who is not a broadband customers of BT perhaps. A bad day for any Motorcycling fan. End of Rant.
MotoGP: RIP 1949-2013.
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