ESPN to show IndyCar in the UK

[GRW1983]

Sky Sports have confirmed that they will not show IndyCar in 2013. ESPN have secured the rights instead. However, it is not yet clear if they will show it on ESPN or ESPN America. I hope ESPN, otherwise the ratings will probably be worse than Sky Sports and hardly anyone will be watching. More to come on this one I reckon.

[BDunnell]

ESPN are expected to withdraw from the UK market now they've lost all the football rights they brought up, so I would expect it would be on their American channel.

Disney 'exploring exit' for ESPN UK - Media news - Media Week

[Mark]

So; no IndyCar UK coverage I guess.

But more importantly Sky wins the fight Setanta started many years ago.

[MAX_THRUST]

If ESPN gets it it will be great. I have that for free. If it goes to ESPN America then thats not so great. Please be ESPN. Has Sky still got the Indy 500 though????

[GRW1983]

No it won't. Sky has lost the rights and ESPN will show the races instead. It's just a question of ESPN or ESPN America showing them.

[Nikki Katz]

Great. How much extra am I going to have to pay for this? Is there any other way of viewing it?

[djparky]

just seen the same news elsewhere- oh well I guess I won't be watching IndyCar this year then- I pay extra for Premier to get live NASCAR- which I'm ok with as the races are pretty much every weekend- and this year they're showing live/tape delayed Trucks as well- ESPN can't be bothered to show DTM live- and that lasts an hour so I don't see them doing IndyCar any favours either- if it clashes with any other bigger US sports

That said Sky Sports IndyCar ratings last year were awful- in some cases less than GP2 qualifying was getting on the F1 channel- but I don't see them going the other way on ESPN either

[AndyRAC]

I'm not sure this is great. It's an additional cost to view ESPN. When they had the WRC, they were getting 4 figures for the programmes. And how reliable will their coverage be?
The DTM coverage went downhill when the football season started; and the races were shown delayed 6-7 hours later. Not good enough.
My problem with ESPN has been having too many rights, and not enough airtime to show them.

[djparky]

"ESPN have today confirmed to me that they do indeed have the rights to screen every race live. However, and I quote “this depends on the programming scheduled for each day. If the race clashes with a higher profile event then the race will not be shown live but on delay.”"

latest from ESPN...you can put money on this being bounced for higher profile sports

[Nikki Katz]

I don't really have a huge problem with it being shown delayed, so long as it is shown. Also, it depends on what their definition of higher profile sports is. Eurosport once bumped ChampCar for dog racing; they also bumped GP2 for the Bournemouth womens' beach volleyball championships.

I don't really understand Sky's IndyCar coverage last year. They have their own motorsports channel now, SkyF1, with nothing to air but repeats the majority of the time. I know that F1 will always always take priority over IndyCar, and that's the correct position, but instead of broadcasting the repeat of last weekend's race for the 5th time, couldn't they show the live IndyCar race? I guess there's probably more going on behind the scenes, and possibly it would be a little distasteful to start plugging IndyCar from the very next race after Wheldon's death. But it just seems like if they wanted more viewers then they could have had them. I think that the low rating for Milwaukee was something to do with it being on Sky4 at 1 AM - I vaguely remember being one of the 4,000 people watching this along with my friend, quite drunk, and ending up having to tape the end and go to bed. Not sure if I'd be counted as a viewer that way.

Before I blow my money on an ESPN subscription, I don't suppose it's possible to get any sort of confirmation from them that all the races will be broadcast in full? Any idea who to ask?