Australian commercial broadcaster Ten and pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports have renewed rights contracts for the MotoGP motorcycling series, while the latter has also extended an agreement to cover the Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK).
The new two-year deals will cover the 2017 and 2018 seasons of the series. The agreements were struck with Dorna Sports, the commercial rights-holder for both MotoGP and WorldSBK.
The Ten-owned One channel will continue to show live and free-to-air coverage of each MotoGP race, with additional live coverage to be produced for the Australian Grand Prix, which is held at Phillip Island. Coverage will also be streamed online, while One will continue to air pre- and post-race programming.
Fox will provide live, ad-free and high-definition broadcasts of every MotoGP race, qualifying and practice session. Fox will also utilise the MotoGP multi-screen service to provide viewers with different angles of races, while the broadcaster’s complete coverage will include every Moto2 and Moto3 session.
Both One and Fox will also provide localised content to cater for the Australian audience, with a particular focus on 21-year-old Jack Miller of Queensland, who picked up his first MotoGP win earlier this year at Assen in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Fox will continue to show live and ad-free coverage of all WorldSBK and WorldSSP races, as well as the WorldSBK qualifying shootout. Fox will promote MotoGP and WorldSBK on its website and social media channels.
Manel Arroyo, Dorna Sports managing director for media and television, said: “With a new Australian race winner on the MotoGP grid and the future of MotoGP and WorldSBK at Phillip Island confirmed, these renewals are the perfect final piece in the puzzle as passion for motorcycle racing continues to reach new heights in Australia.”