Pan-European motorsport channel Motors TV acquired rights for the second round of this year’s World Rally Championship in Sweden in a deal with Rally Sweden, the Swedish rally’s organiser. It is the first time in 20 years that an individual round of the WRC has agreed a deal for its own television rights, according to motorsport news website Autosport.
Motors TV will show daily highlights of the rally, which starts tomorrow and concludes on Sunday. The Motors TV website will also stream live coverage of the rally on Friday evening.
WRC rallies have been advised by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, motorsport’s world governing body, to negotiate their own media rights deals until a new global promoter for the championship is found. Last month the FIA terminated the North One Sport agency’s promoter contract, accusing the agency of breaching it. The promoter contract includes the global media rights for the championship. The cancelling of North One’s contract terminated all the media rights deals it had agreed.
Glenn Olsson, chief executive of Rally Sweden, warned that it was “very hazardous” for his organisation to agree such a valuable deal. “We are doing this for all our fans to save the championship and its organisers and teams, and not least for our own sake and our sponsors,” he said.