jeffster 60 Posted May 3, 2017 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 03/05/2017 Premier Sports, the UK subscription sports channel today announced it had secured Swedish Elitserien and Polish Ekstraliga television rights in the UK and Ireland. The channel which operates on the SKY, Virgin and Premier Player platforms will be broadcasting 4 hours of Speedway coverage most Tuesday evening over the summer with live coverage of Swedish meetings followed by delayed commercial free coverage of both Sunday matches from the Polish league. Coverage of both leagues will begin on Tuesday the 9th of May. The leagues which are considered the top 2 in the world feature the best in the sport with household names such as Tai Woffinden, Greg Hancock and Chris Holder featuring. Also worth following are the exploits of up and coming young guns Bartosz Zmarzlik, his Polish compatriot, Patryk Dudek, plus Emil Sayfutdinov and Jason Doyle. Richard Sweeney, General Manager of Premier Sports commented, “It is great news that Speedway is returning to Premier Sports in HD to compliment our other motorsports coverage. We feel a Tuesday evening appointment to view the best leagues in Europe will prove very popular with Speedway fans in the UK. We are especially delighted to finally bring Polish Speedway, which is considered the finest in Europe to viewers in the UK for the first time”. To launch the 2017 Speedway coverage, Premier Sports is offering customers their first 2 months subscription for only £1 using promo code SPEEDWAY. This offer is available on the Sky platform only. Visit www.premiersports.com for more information. Offer ends 17th May. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dave Goddard 356 Posted May 3, 2017 Pleased to announce that I will be providing the commentary once again too on both leagues and I will be taking tweets during the live Swedish broadcasts again! 8 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
racers and royals 8,730 Posted May 3, 2017 Great news especially Sweden- I have just tried to subscribe via the website and it doesn`t appear to be working !!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CB252 1,376 Posted May 3, 2017 Already a Premier subscriber for the excellent NHL coverage. Shame the Ekstraliga won't be live but brilliant news all the same. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ghostwalker 1,859 Posted May 3, 2017 Pleased to announce that I will be providing the commentary once again too on both leagues and I will be taking tweets during the live Swedish broadcasts again! Welcome back Dave! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DSC67 1,465 Posted May 3, 2017 Great news , something positive to talk about for a change Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Haza 1,774 Posted May 3, 2017 Good news but won't be subscribing - -had Polish league been live on Sunday's would defiantly subscribed but not for delayed coverage will continue to watch via the Internet . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CB252 1,376 Posted May 3, 2017 Good news but won't be subscribing - -had Polish league been live on Sunday's would defiantly subscribed but not for delayed coverage will continue to watch via the Internet . Already a subscriber so it's good for me, but I can see your point re the Polish League. I'll probably still watch live on the Internet on a Sunday where I can as well. Problem for Premier is that, throughout the summer on a Sunday evening they show a live NASCAR race. Speedway is an insignificant and rather embarrassing tadpole compared to NASCAR, so it's unlikely that it'll ever usurp the NASCAR from it's live slot, unless they lose the rights. They could maybe squeeze the first Sunday afternoon match in live, and who knows what will happen with the non Sunday live matches? Maybe a live opportunity there? For now, it's a start and the Ekstraliga is finally on UK TV, and hopefully it can only help move it towards a regular live slot on a UK channel going forwards if it's well received. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
flagrag 704 Posted May 3, 2017 The Polish league was offered to Sky sports again but only on the host broadcasters I think N+ terms. Unless anything has changed since Feb they refuse to provide a clean feed so with no commentary and options to cut to UK presentation like how C More do Sweden. Due to this the only way to do a live match would be send own comms team and have own satellite uplink from track a very expensive option. So I expect that Premier sports will get a tape of meetings and then Dave Goddard will add his comms on Tuesday mornings so can cut out any meeting delays and Polish interviews. It is good that there is finally a better version to view Extraliga but could be so much better 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
THE DEAN MACHINE 4,746 Posted May 3, 2017 at last the british public gets to see speedway at its best , I got NC+ over a year ago and even though I don't speak a word of polish I watch more of it than I do English tv, sadly it will show how bad our product is promoted is in comparison Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spanner47 336 Posted May 4, 2017 Tried to ring them but they don't open until 09-30. So went online and signed up for £1 a Month, but there was no terms and conditions, no mention of length of contract, so I assume I can get it for £1 for 2 Months then just scrub it. But just to cover myself I put it on a card I rarely use, so if there's a problem I'll just cancel the card. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
flagrag 704 Posted May 4, 2017 RMC - Yes the Polish broadcaster always got a clean feed from Elite league as well as dirty feed with graphics only and the edit cut if they wanted. I would say it is a bit more difficult for them to produce a clean feed in Poland than UK as don't have the benefit of BT media switching but to nothing that couldn't be done In a couple of hours work. It will be interesting to see what Premier sports get I suspect it will be full dirty broadcast then will edit and over dub UK comms 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CB252 1,376 Posted May 4, 2017 at last the british public gets to see speedway at its best , I got NC+ over a year ago and even though I don't speak a word of polish I watch more of it than I do English tv, sadly it will show how bad our product is promoted is in comparison The thing that always strikes me is how clean and tidy the stadiums look in Poland. They look impressive and the sort of place where people would want to watch sport. To me that is the single biggest factor holding British Speedway back (apart from the promoters). Our stadiums are no longer fit for purpose. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites