MotoGP’s commercial rights-holder Dorna Sports has made a number of the motorcycling series’ documentaries available to watch free of charge in the absence of live sport due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Motogp.com and VideoPass will offer fans 13 documentaries until March 27. The documentaries will be available for free download on Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV and Roku.
Documentaries will include Marquez Unlimited, a five-part series profiling Marc Marquez’s (pictured) 2019 season; This is MotoGP, a 15-minute film featuring interviews with riders; and Racing Together, a two-hour documentary about the history of the sport.
MotoGP was forced to cancel the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix and postpone its Thailand event until October. Additionally, the Grand Prix of Americas in Austin, Texas, which had been scheduled to run from April 3-5, will now take place from November 13-15.
MotoGP joins a number of other sports organisations and rights-holders to make archive content and documentaries available free of charge amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has removed any geo-blocking restrictions on full re-runs of FIH Hockey Pro League matches played in 2019 and 2020 as it looks to engage with its fan base following the postponement of its competitions. Matches on the FIH.live website will be available to watch free of charge. The FIH is also producing additional documentaries for its rights-holding broadcasters.
Fifa, football’s global governing body, has also decided to show full re-runs of classic World Cup matches on social media and distribute free archive content to its rights-holding broadcasters.
Elsewhere, football’s European governing body, Uefa, and Spain’s LaLiga have made a wealth of archive content available on their own broadcast platforms. Uefa will use its free-to-air OTT platform, Uefa.tv, to show content, including full re-runs of classic matches, while LaLiga has made archive matches from the last 20 years available on its LaLigaTV channel in the UK and Ireland.