UK public-service broadcaster the BBC, international sports broadcaster Eurosport and US media group NBCUniversal have become the latest broadcasters to acquire rights to Eliud Kipchoge’s historic attempt to run the first sub-two hour marathon.
The BBC will live stream the event in the UK, while NBCU will air the live stream on the Olympic Channel and replay it on pay-television channel, NBC Sports Network.
Meanwhile, Eurosport will be airing the Challenge live on Eurosport 2 across 54 countries in Europe and 12 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, as well as streaming live on its website.
The Challenge will take place on October 12 in The Prater, a park known as the ‘green lung of Vienna’. The Ineos 1:59 Challenge will mark Kipchoge’s second attempt to become the first person to run a marathon in under two hours.
Organisers last month agreed a partnership with video sharing website YouTube for the event. The Ineos 1:59 Challenge YouTube channel will stream the entire live broadcast of the event, which is being delivered by Sunset+Vine, the UK-based sports production and media company.
With one week to go, the current list of broadcasters airing the Ineos 1:59 Challenge comprises: Direct TV (Argentina); Network Seven (Australia); ORF (Austria); Band Sport (Brazil); L’Equipe and Canal Plus (France); Mediaset and Fox Sports (Italy); Standard Group, Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation, Citizen TV and NTV (Kenya); Marca Claro (Mexico); Fox Sports (Netherlands); Sky NZ (New Zealand); NRK (Norway); SuperSport, Fox Africa and StarTimes (sub-Saharan Africa); Eurosport (Europe and APAC); Claro Video OTT and Claro TV (Latin America); TVE and Euskal Telebista (Spain); BBC and Sports Channel Network (UK); and NBC Sports and Nuestra Vision (USA).
There will also be worldwide coverage on the Olympic Channel, FlowSport (excluding USA and the Caribbean) and Reuters (excluding USA and the Caribbean). Highlights broadcasters include 7Plus (Australia); CCTV, CCTV5-APP, CCTV English News/CGTN and CCTVSE TikTok (China); Fox Italia (Italy); ZDF (Germany); NHK (Japan); Sky Sports (UK); ESPN (US) ;and CNBC (Worldwide).