3 min read

Sky Sports Acquires W Series Broadcast Rights

image

All-female single-seater racing championship, W Series, has announced a multi-year broadcast partnership with UK pay-tv giants, Sky Sports.

The deal, which is the championship’s largest media investment to date, will run to the end of the 2024 season.

The 2022 season, which commences on the 6-8 May with a double-header at the Formula One (F1) Miami Grand Prix, will include ten races broadcast live over eight F1 race weekends, where Sky will also produce content over their linear, digital and social channels.

Commenting on the deal, W Series chief executive officer, Catherine Bond Muir, said: “I’m delighted to announce our landmark broadcast partnership with Sky Sports, which is another significant step in W Series’ continued rapid expansion.”

“Throughout our conversations with Sky, I’ve been impressed by their commitment to women’s sport and plans to amplify coverage of W Series across their vast portfolio of distribution channels, which will add real weight to our offering across broadcast, digital, and social platforms.

“This partnership enables W Series to continue to expand its viewership within the UK.

“Alongside Sky, Channel 4 will continue its free-to-air coverage of the entire W Series season with highlights of every race, and will also broadcast live our home race at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July.

“With this broad broadcast offering, we have the perfect mix of coverage across our UK audience.

“W Series is an increasingly international series – more than half of the races during the 2022 season will take place outside Europe, including our first-ever race in Asia in support of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

“Our broadcast partnership with Sky Sports reflects this, giving us great breadth of coverage across Sky’s global platforms and we’re excited to showcase incredibly exciting racing through fantastic content, direct to our fans,” she said.

Sky Sports managing director, Jonathan Licht, added: “We pride ourselves in being a good partner to sport and it’s been a privilege to work alongside Catherine and her team to come up with a broadcast offering that works for everyone.”

“It is clearly a very exciting time to be a part of this journey.

“At Sky Sports we are committed to making sport more inclusive and I can now proudly say that, with the addition of W Series, every genre channel at Sky Sports now has both men’s and women’s sports coverage,” he said.

Additionally, the W Series has announced a new partnership with Sky Italia, adding to the championship’s existing deal with Sky Deutschland.

It's free to join the team!

Join the most engaged community in the Sports Business World.

Get all the latest news, insights, data, education and event updates.