General
'Sky Sports wants money from Liberty Media after twelve weeks without racing'
- GPblog.com
Because Formula 1 hasn't raced in the last few months, it is losing a lot of income. This doesn't only apply to the teams and the commercial owner of F1 (Liberty Media), but of course also to all TV stations that have bought broadcasting rights. The expectation is that at least one of them will ask some of their money back.
The station that is said to be at the front of the queue for this return is also the most important one. Sky Sports is by far the largest and most important broadcaster of Formula 1 worldwide. Due to the fact that half of the season has gone by, they have not been able to provide their viewers with sports and the station has been forced to introduce a system that allows subscribers to temporarily stop their payment.
The biggest losses were suffered because the Premier League also came to a standstill. It had previously been agreed with that football association that Sky would be compensated for the losses. According to reports, the losses would amount to some 190 million euros. The channel now hopes to achieve a similar deal with Liberty Media.
"The return of the money for the broadcasting rights will mitigate the impact on the company due to the lack of live sports in the last 12 weeks," said Rob Webster, director of Sky Sports, to the Financial Times.