F1 confirms a deal with Sky Deutschland while RTL leaves the sport
Formula One has announced that it has agreed to a new, long term, exclusive rights deal with Sky Deutschland that will start in the 2021 F1 World Championship.
The announcement came after the German RTL station communicated that it will not cover Formula One after the end of the current season. RTL has covered the pinnacle of motorsport for thirty years. In recent seasons, RTL and Sky Deutschland had operated in parallel in the German market.
The new deal will enable fans in Germany to follow Formula One’s every race weekend from the first free practice session to the grand prix on Sunday. As part of the agreement, Sky will broadcast four selected races per season free for everyone and will present a 30-minute highlight show after each race on free-to-air channel Sky Sport News HD.
„The new partnership will build on the incredibly strong relationship Formula 1 and Sky have established in recent years that delivers high quality and engaging content to millions of fans through all of Sky’s different platforms and channels that will engage new and existing fans,” read Formula One’s statement.
Fans will be able to enjoy every race, qualifying, practice and press conference, live in HD with no commercial breaks during the race action. For Sky Q customer, all races will be available live in UHD. As part of the 360°, more digital and social content will be available on Skysport.de than ever before.
Grand Prix weekends will produce a total of 30 live hours of racing action while the total coverage will be 800 hours of per year. Moreover, the agreement will provide fans with Formula 1 coverage every day on Sky Sport News HD including racing highlights, documentaries, Studio shows and several special formats.
F1's director of media rights Ian Holmes said: “Formula 1 and Sky have enjoyed a long-standing relationship, working well together to enhance the broadcast offering by providing comprehensive coverage of the sport for our passionate fan base. I am delighted that our work together will continue to build and strengthen the impressive quality of Sky’s programming, as well as their digital reach.”
Devesh Raj, CEO Sky Germanyhas promised that the new package „will be the best motorsports experience ever. We know motorsport fans love the way we produce F1 and our commentators have fans all of their own, but now with the first channel dedicated to F1 content on German TV ever we’ll give fans more F1 content than has ever been seen on German TV before."
"With our unique digital content offering and four races free for everyone every year, we will help introduce millions more people to the joy of F1 and help grow the sports across the motorsport country Germany. This exciting new deal shows that Sky is the number one for sports fans in Germany,” he said.
