W Series, the international single-seater motor racing championship for women, has struck a multi-year broadcast deal with Sky Sports.
Sky Sports is a collection of British subscription sports channels owned by the satellite pay television firm, Sky Group (a Comcast business) and is the most popular subscription sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
In 2022, the W Series will have ten races spread across eight Formula One Grand Prix weekends, with Sky Sports broadcasting live coverage of every qualifying and race session. The season kicks off on May 6-8 in Miami, Florida, with a double-header.
The deal also expands the coverage of the W Series across Sky’s global platforms. In addition to the United Kingdom, the W Series will launch a new relationship with Sky Italia this season, which will be added to the series’ current deal with Sky Deutschland.
Jonathan Licht, Sky Sports’ Managing Director, said, “In addition to Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, Sky Sports are delighted to be growing our motorsport portfolio with this recently established elite women’s series.
“It feels like Sky Sports is a natural home for W Series, given we have such a dedicated motorsport audience and a dedicated motorsport genre channel.
“We pride ourselves in being a good partner to sport and it’s been a privilege to work alongside Catherine and her team to come up with a broadcast offering that works for everyone. I have followed the progress of W Series closely and it is clearly a very exciting time to be a part of this journey.
“At Sky Sports we are committed to making sport more inclusive and I can now proudly say that with the addition of W Series, every genre channel at Sky Sports now has both men’s and women’s sports coverage.
“We look forward to sharing the excitement of this upcoming season with our viewers,” Licht concluded.
Catherine Bond Muir, Chief Executive Officer, W Series stated, “I’m delighted to announce our landmark broadcast partnership with Sky Sports, which is another significant step in W Series’ continued rapid expansion.
“Throughout our conversations with Sky, I’ve been impressed by their commitment to women’s sport and plans to amplify coverage of W Series across their vast portfolio of distribution channels, which will add real weight to our offering across broadcast, digital, and social platforms. This partnership enables W Series to continue to expand its viewership within the UK. Alongside Sky, Channel 4 will continue its free-to-air coverage of the entire W Series season with highlights of every race and will also broadcast live our home race at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July. With this broad broadcast offering, we have the perfect mix of coverage across our UK audience.
“W Series is an increasingly international series – more than half of the races during the 2022 season will take place outside Europe, including our first-ever race in Asia in support of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. Our broadcast partnership with Sky Sports reflects this, giving us great breadth of coverage across Sky’s global platforms and we’re excited to showcase incredibly exciting racing through fantastic content, direct to our fans,” Bond concluded.