There will be live coverage in the UK of November's Breeders’ Cup, the prestigious annual US horse racing event, on free-to-air commercial broadcaster ITV, pay-TV’s Sky, and specialist channel Racing TV.
In an expansion of previous deals for the event, all three networks will offer linear and digital coverage of the Breeders' Cup, which takes place at Del Mar racetrack in California on 5 and 6 November.
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ITV will showcase all 14 Breeders’ Cup races to a UK audience, with two of the events – the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf and the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic – to be shown on the main ITV1 channel, and the others on ITV4.
The broadcaster has held free-to-air UK rights to the Breeders' Cup since 2017, and will have an on-site presentation and production team in California for the meeting.
Meanwhile, Sky will show the action on its Sky Sports Racing channel, a joint venture with the Arena Racing company which launched in 2019, and will use the feed from NBC, the US national broadcaster which is the domestic media partner of the Breeders' Cup.
The live coverage, Sky has said, will be complemented by “extensive digital coverage and promotion… on the skysports.com network.”
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By GlobalDataRacing TV meanwhile, in addition to full coverage of the Del Mar event in November, will broadcast 11 of the 16 Breeders’ Cup 'Win and you’re in' Challenge races in the UK and Ireland.
Drew Fleming, president and chief executive officer at the Breeders’ Cup, said: “The Breeders’ Cup World Championships is a truly international event and fans around the world deserve increased access to and in-depth coverage…
“ITV, Racing TV and Sky Sports Racing are wonderful partners.”
Niall Sloane, director of sport at ITV, added: “ITV are delighted to be able to bring all the races at the Breeders Cup, a truly global event and the culmination of the 2021 flat racing season.”
HBA Media, the independent rights agency representing horse racing, is the international media rights holder for the Breeders’ Cup.
Last year, HBA secured broadcast deals for the event in 115 markets worldwide.
