Sky Sports is a major television broadcaster of Formula One for Liberty Media but with live racing due to the pandemic, Sky Sports seek compensation.
British media giant Sky Sports is one of multiple TV stations that will seek compensation from Liberty Media. This is primarily due to the fact that no F1 GP has been held this year. This has led to a significant loss of revenue for the official broadcasters.
The Covid-19 outbreak had resulted in no live sports being held in Europe since March. This resulted in broadcasters losing out on a lot of income. Sky Sports is one of the biggest players in the sports broadcast space worldwide.
It is also the largest and most significant broadcaster of Liberty Media-owned F1. Due to the standstill in sporting action, Sky Sports had allowed its subscribers to temporarily disable its subscription this directly resulted in them losing a significant income.
Sky Sports has already had a similar agreement in place with the English Football Association (FA). According to reports, the losses due to the English top-flight football not taking place is around 190 million Euros. Premier League football resumed action on Wednesday.
The broadcast is being shared by multiple broadcasters in the UK. One of them is the publically functioned British Broadcasting Corporation. Sky Sports is hoping to achieve a similar agreement with Liberty Media.
“The return of the money for the broadcasting rights will mitigate the impact on the company due to the lack of live sports in the last 12 weeks,” said Rob Webster, director of Sky Sports, to the Financial Times.
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Sky Sports has been covering F1 since 2012 when Bernie Ecclestone called the shots. They signed an exclusivity broadcast agreement with Liberty Media after the latter took over F1 prom, previous owners, CVC. The exclusivity agreement is in place from 2019 to 2024.
