Effects of ISU's media deal - Figure Skating on CBC but not Eurosport

Tavi... said:

Make sure to check before you do!

Unfortunately, I think that even if you are able to purchase a Sports Gold package with a foreign credit card, since you’re located outside the US, you will probably be geoblocked from seeing anything except US Nats.

Unless of course NBC purchases broadcast rights for Canada and Europe.

There is usually no commentary and the stream quality is mostly very good and reliable.

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Oh god that would suck, I mean if you pay for it and then get geoblocked :eeking: Yeah I will contact them before I make the decision, hoping someone will respond quickly, as probably it will be the last minute decision.
I would still like to give ISU a benefit of doubt and see if they will come up with something valid.
:agree: for NBC Sports God to omit commentary, though.

rain said:

As much as CBC coverage is always 1000 times better than CTV/TSN, if for no other reason than CBC archives it's streaming coverage and so you can still watch if you can't catch it live (some of us work, you'd think they'd be more accommodating), and I can't stand Rod Black, something's better than nothing, I guess.

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Rod Black can be a little loud sometimes, but at least he's enthusiastic about figure skating.

And Tracy Wilson always has interesting commentary, particularly about ice dance.

Ryan O said:

Rod Black can be a little loud sometimes, but at least he's enthusiastic about figure skating.

And Tracy Wilson always has interesting commentary, particularly about ice dance.

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I love Tracy. She's my favourite commentator. Can't stand Rod Black. He always makes the most absurd and fact-challenged comments, just trying to stir up drama or controversy, even when there isn't any to be had, which is fine, except that I think he leads casual viewers astray. You'd think after all these years of covering figure skating, at least occasionally, he'd have learned more than he has. You are right though, that he does seem to actually enjoy the skating and competitions, so there's that.

rain said:

I love Tracy. She's my favourite commentator. Can't stand Rod Black. He always makes the most absurd and fact-challenged comments, just trying to stir up drama or controversy, even when there isn't any to be had, which is fine, except that I think he leads casual viewers astray. You'd think after all these years of covering figure skating, at least occasionally, he'd have learned more than he has. You are right though, that he does seem to actually enjoy the skating and competitions, so there's that.

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Yeah, maybe that's Rod's sports commentator background coming out in him.

And yes, Tracy is very insightful and as a former Olympic Medalist in Ice Dance she brings a lot of experience to commentating. Plus she's a coach and a technical specialist.

NBC Skating Schedule -- October 2019 to April 2020:

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/10/02/figure-skating-season-broadcast-schedule/

Ryan O said:

NBC Skating Schedule -- October 2019 to April 2020:

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/10/02/figure-skating-season-broadcast-schedule/

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It's sad that Canadians will have to rely on an American network for figure skating coverage. It's better than nothing, of course, but it's disheartening that I have no choice but to listen to Johnny's and Tara's commentaries.

ladyjane said:

I just received a reply from Eurosport that they will be covering the Grand Prix events, European's, 4cc and World's. at least on the player (so it a paid subscription, but I was already doing that).

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MaiKatze said:

I just don't get these contradicting messages!! How can it be so hard to communicate what's happening? Why is one answer no, another yes? I will subscribe again, but I have to know for sure.

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Well British Eurosport now has their schedule available for up to 19th October and there's no skating on either Eurosport 1 or 2 - https://www.eurosport.co.uk/eurosport-tv-schedule.shtml

Eurosport Player only has the schedule up until the 17th available so far so I guess we'll find out tomorrow or Saturday if there's going to be a stream...(https://www.eurosportplayer.com/schedule)

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but I just contacted Eurosport and the support person said that Eurosport Player is showing figure skating in Scandinavia+Finland until the end of the year, when their contracts expire. The new contracts have been signed with NENT group and they are showing ISU events on Viasat and Visplay.

https://www.infront.sport/news/2019/7/infront-seals-media-rights-agreement-for-isu-with-nent-group

I'll check the Player schedule on the 17th before resuming my subscription, since I'm a bit insecure if this is correct information, but I hope it is... it wouldn't make much difference to me, since figure skating is the only thing I need to be able to watch on either platform.

eta: Except I see Viasat/Viaplay Sport is not available on its own, it's only available with its other channels and will cost me an arm and a leg. So that's back to pirating for me. I hope you're looking, ISU! Instead of getting a bit of my money, you will now get nothing. Unless, of course, there is a reasonable pay-per-view option, but we won't know that for a while yet (I'm going to ask their support but I don't assume they'll know yet).

medoroa said:

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but I just contacted Eurosport and the support person said that Eurosport Player is showing figure skating in Scandinavia+Finland until the end of the year, when their contacts expire. The new contracts have been signed with NENT group and they are showing ISU events on Viasat.

https://www.infront.sport/news/2019/7/infront-seals-media-rights-agreement-for-isu-with-nent-group

I'll check the Player schedule on the 17th before resuming my subscription, since I'm a bit insecure if this is correct information, but I hope it is... it wouldn't make much difference to me, since figure skating is the only thing I need to be able to watch on either platform.

eta: Except I see Viasat Sport is not available on its own, it's only available with its other channels and will cost me an arm and a leg. So that's back to pirating for me. I hope you're looking, ISU! Instead of getting a bit of my money, you will now get nothing.

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I am so mad. Even in German forums they said that we have no option to watch FS this season so far. What a joke. Apparently the ISU wanted too much money from Eurosport in order to keep their broadcasting rights and Eurosport said: Heck no! (Which is understandable). The broadcasting rights for many countries haven't even been sold yet to any broadcaster according to some forum users who asked a few broadcasters.

medoroa said:

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but I just contacted Eurosport and the support person said that Eurosport Player is showing figure skating in Scandinavia+Finland until the end of the year, when their contracts expire. The new contracts have been signed with NENT group and they are showing ISU events on Viasat.

https://www.infront.sport/news/2019/7/infront-seals-media-rights-agreement-for-isu-with-nent-group

I'll check the Player schedule on the 17th before resuming my subscription, since I'm a bit insecure if this is correct information, but I hope it is... it wouldn't make much difference to me, since figure skating is the only thing I need to be able to watch on either platform.

eta: Except I see Viasat Sport is not available on its own, it's only available with its other channels and will cost me an arm and a leg. So that's back to pirating for me. I hope you're looking, ISU! Instead of getting a bit of my money, you will now get nothing.

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Now, that is interesting. So, the Eurosport contract doesn't run out until "the end of the year", and Viasat doesn't take over the coverage until then.

I wonder if this is the end of the calendar year, or the end of the figure skating year. From what the support person said to you, it sounds like the end of the calendar year. But, it would be so strange for a sport to change broadcasters in the middle of their season.

And does the current Eurosport contract that was being referred to apply to all of Europe, or just to Scandinavia? Given what I said previously about Discovery's operations in Scandinavia, it could well be that they have a different contract to what is in operation in other countries. And, hence, the situation could be different in other countries.

Whatever the case, this is a total mess. And it will backfire on the ISU big time.

CaroLiza_fan

In the worst possible scenario, there is the option of live streaming from Russia, which should be found here
But they are not very stable (keep freezing so you need to continuously refresh, to adjust the time lapse) and the quality is visibly inferior to Eurosport player, so this would be the last resort - better than nothing.

Is there anyone here who has had any success using a foreign payment method and a vpn for the American package? I think I'll have to try this. Like so many others, I watch every skater at each gp, 4cc, euros and worlds which is a lot of hours - I'm happy to pay, even at £100 I'd grit my teeth and swear a lot and then pay, so it's incredibly frustrating that the ISU isn't giving any option to do this...

I doubt know about the broader Eurosport channels, but British Eurosport usually has pretty poor coverage of the first gp because it coincides with snooker (although arty least the stream is usually on the player) - maybe they are holding out till after it thinking that Insport at that stage will accept a reasonable offer as the reality that there are no big bucks for figure skating rights in central Europe right now.

CaroLiza_fan said:

Now, that is interesting. So, the Eurosport contract doesn't run out until "the end of the year", and Viasat doesn't take over the coverage until then.

I wonder if this is the end of the calendar year, or the end of the figure skating year. From what the support person said to you, it sounds like the end of the calendar year. But, it would be so strange for a sport to change broadcasters in the middle of their season.

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It is end of calendar year, he said 31-12-2019. I don't think it's that weird; contracts are very commonly signed by calendar year. My information is only for Scandinavia+Finland, which are the countries mentioned in the link. I have no information on other countries.

I think this is a bad contract for Viasat. Even if they also got speed skating in their deal, skating of any kind just isn't a major sport in the Nordic countries (weirdly!) and I doubt they'll recoup their investment and they sure will not get high numbers for figure skating. I was happy to pay for Eurosport Player, but Viaplay will cost me more than double that, and I can't imagine many figure skating fans in Europe (outside of Russia) being willing to pay that... unless they also watch the Premiere League or other major sports, but that has to be a minority.

Lunalovesskating said:

I am so mad. Even in German forums they said that we have no option to watch FS this season so far. What a joke. Apparently the ISU wanted too much money from Eurosport in order to keep their broadcasting rights and Eurosport said: Heck no! (Which is understandable). The broadcasting rights for many countries haven't even been sold yet to any broadcaster according to some forum users who asked a few broadcasters.

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This is starting to remind me of something that happened a few years ago.

The promotors of MotoGP decided that they would get more money in if they did deals with broadcasters in individual countries rather than continue with the pan-European contract they had had for over 20 years with Eurosport.

In the UK, they did a deal with the BBC, who had previously been sub-licencing coverage of the feature race from Eurosport. But, the BBC were only interested in showing the feature race on their main linear channels. They didn't want to show the qualifying or the other races.

There was uproar amongst the fans! Because, we were used to watching everything.

Eventually, at the very last minute, the BBC did a sub-deal with British Eurosport. As part of this deal, British Eurosport was allowed to show everything live EXCEPT for the feature race, which had to be delayed by an hour.

This worked out well for the fans for the duration of that contract. And, to be honest, I was one of many people that was willing to wait that hour so that we could continue to watch in the company of the brilliant British Eurosport commentators. But, by the time the contract was up, the BBC was in cost-cutting mode. And they decided not to renew. So, new channel BT Sport got the rights. Although there were complaints about BT Sport not being available to everybody (at that time you could only get BT Sport if you got your internet from BT), there were no sub-deals done. So, that was the end of British Eurosport showing MotoGP.

When the contract came up for renewal last year, lots of people hoped that Eurosport might get it back. But, alas, BT Sport retained it.

So, what I am saying is that there is a small possibility that if the new rights holders are not widely available, there is a possibility that they might do sub-deals with other broadcasters (such as Eurosport). But, given that figure skating is a much less followed sport than MotoGP, I wouldn't hold my breath.

CaroLiza_fan

icybear said:

Doesnt ISU have this Eurovision channel where countries that they dont have a media deal can watch figure skating for free?

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It's https://www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/figure-skating/. It's the ISU's official skating channel linked to from their isu.org homepage.

It has all the GPs + GPF. Also 4CC, Euros and World Juniors, but not Worlds, not since 2016 Boston anyway - just shows how much they're under the broadcasters' thumb, as they can't even upload performances some time after to at least give a complete set of competitions.

However it is a lot less navigable than Youtube, you need to know skaters' starting numbers for example to find them in whichever group they're competing. Also I've found it a bit susceptible to freezing, and I suspect this would get a whole lot worse if Eurosport no longer broadcasts skating either via the Player or on TV.

However it is there and it does have the full set of competitions, except Worlds, and it may end up being the fall back position if all else fails (you can watch streams as well as videos after the event).

Also in the past it's been geo-blocked where other broadcasters have the rights, and I assume this would still be case. However it may be possible to get round this with a good VPN - I don't know.

However it is there, and hopefully will provide a fall back position if all else fails.

madraykin said:

Eurosport Player only has the schedule up until the 17th available so far so I guess we'll find out tomorrow or Saturday if there's going to be a stream...(https://www.eurosportplayer.com/schedule)

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Unfortunately that doesn’t always work with Eurosport streams. They often only show up in the listings (much) closer to the airdate...
Sometimes even just when the actual stream starts. :-(

medoroa said:

It is end of calendar year, he said 31-12-2019. I don't think it's that weird; contracts are very commonly signed by calendar year. My information is only for Scandinavia+Finland, which are the countries mentioned in the link. I have no information on other countries.

I think this is a bad contract for Viasat. Even if they also got speed skating in their deal, skating of any kind just isn't a major sport in the Nordic countries (weirdly!) and I doubt they'll recoup their investment and they sure will not get high numbers for figure skating. I was happy to pay for Eurosport Player, but Viaplay will cost me more than double that, and I can't imagine many figure skating fan in Europe (outside of Russia) being willing to pay that... unless they also watch the Premiere League or other major sports, but that has to be a minority.

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Thanks for the clarification.

Just as an add-on to the other comment I just posted, BT Sport have done very nicely out of stealing the MotoGP from Eurosport. Although football is their priority, they have managed to get a lot of people to sign up for BT Sport that are only interested in watching the motorbikes. Such as me. That said, there is a lot of discontent amongst us, because whereas BT Sport was quite reasonably priced when it launched, it is now very expensive. For the simple reason that they have been paying silly money to get more and more football rights, and they have to re-coup it from somewhere.

But, I don't think figure skating would have the same sort of ability to pull people in.

CaroLiza_fan

Miller said:

It's https://www.eurovisionsports.tv/isu/figure-skating/. It's the ISU's official skating channel linked to from their isu.org homepage.

It has all the GPs + GPF. Also 4CC, Euros and World Juniors, but not Worlds, not since 2016 Boston anyway - just shows how much they're under the broadcasters' thumb, as they can't even upload performances some time after to at least give a complete set of competitions.

However it is a lot less navigable than Youtube, you need to know skaters' starting numbers for example to find them in whichever group they're competing. Also I've found it a bit susceptible to freezing, and I suspect this would get a whole lot worse if Eurosport no longer broadcasts skating either via the Player or on TV.

However it is there and it does have the full set of competitions, except Worlds, and it may end up being the fall back position if all else fails (you can watch streams as well as videos after the event).

Also in the past it's been geo-blocked where other broadcasters have the rights, and I assume this would still be case. However it may be possible to get round this with a good VPN - I don't know.

However it is there, and hopefully will provide a fall back position if all else fails.

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To be honest, I don't think the streaming on the Eurovision Sports website will be allowed to continue.

As I said a few days ago, Eurosport used to be owned by the EBU. So, the coverage on the Eurovision Sports website was in all probability part of the same contract as the coverage on Eurosport.

So, I can only see the Eurovision Sports stream continuing if the ISU does a new deal with the EBU.

But, we know that the new promotors (Infront) are doing deals with European broadcasters that are not EBU members (such as Viasat). No broadcaster will pay good money for TV rights (even if they have no intention of showing everything included in the contract), if a rival broadcaster is then able to show the same stuff free of charge online.

Going back to motorsports, and most championships have their own in-house streaming service, and the TV contracts allow for this. So, the ISU may end up setting up their own service, without the involvement of the EBU. HOWEVER, the streaming services I have been talking about in motorsports are not free. In fact, they are very expensive. The last time the BT Sport prices went up, I priced the in-house streaming service for MotoGP, and it was double the price of BT Sport!

It is pure greed, and all boils down to the promotors thinking that their product is worth more to people than it actually is.

I'm not trying to scare you. But, I am just saying what might happen.

CaroLiza_fan

Well, Viasat/Viaplay support says they will be showing figure skating starting this fall. *throws up hands* It's not on their streaming schedule for the 18th as far as I can see, though. I'll see what happens on the 18th and go from there.

eta: Viaplay support says their contracts run to the 2022/2023 season, so that's probably how long the new ISU contracts last. FYI.

Starry Up said:

Is there anyone here who has had any success using a foreign payment method and a vpn for the American package? I think I'll have to try this. Like so many others, I watch every skater at each gp, 4cc, euros and worlds which is a lot of hours - I'm happy to pay, even at £100 I'd grit my teeth and swear a lot and then pay, so it's incredibly frustrating that the ISU isn't giving any option to do this...

I doubt know about the broader Eurosport channels, but British Eurosport usually has pretty poor coverage of the first gp because it coincides with snooker (although arty least the stream is usually on the player) - maybe they are holding out till after it thinking that Insport at that stage will accept a reasonable offer as the reality that there are no big bucks for figure skating rights in central Europe right now.

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I'm seconding this question as I have been thinking about doing the exact same thing. Maybe getting a good VPN and paying 60$ for a season pass is the best option people outside the US have at the moment. So is there anyone who's successfully done this in the past? It would be great to know that a good VPN can actually work with NBC, before paying for a season pass.