- The European Athletics Championships are traditionally held on BBC One or Two
- BBC finally struck an 11th-hour deal with rights holders on Tuesday
- Mail Sport understands that the Beeb has agreed a digital package
The European Athletics Championships will no longer be shown on the BBC’s main channels after the broadcaster recently secured rights to stream the event online.
Mail Sport revealed last week that the Beeb had not yet received coverage of the main athletics meeting, which traditionally takes place on BBC One or Two.
On Tuesday, just three days before the event kicks off in Rome on Friday, the BBC finally struck an 11th-hour deal with rights holders the European Broadcasting Union to bring the European Championships to their platforms.
Despite the fact that there will be ‘extensive coverage’, Mail Sport understands that the Beeb has agreed a digital package.
It means fans can only watch the action from Rome on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website and app, with casual observers now likely to miss watching Britain’s top athletics stars altogether, with less than two months to spare go to the Olympic Games.
The European Athletics Championships will not be shown on the BBC’s main channels
Mail Sport understands the Beeb have only managed to secure a digital package (Zharnel Hughes and Nethaanel Mitchell-Blake, pictured left and right at the 2022 tournament)
The BBC will not even have its own studio with presenters and experts for the European Championships and will only use the world feed.
News of the reduced coverage is a blow to athletics in this country, at a time when it is fighting for relevance against more popular sports.
Philip Bernie, interim director of BBC Sport, said on Tuesday in trumpeting their new ‘multi-year’ deal with the EBU: ‘Adding the European Athletics Championships to our athletics portfolio is great news for the public, who regularly watch the best athletes the world can see. on the BBC.
‘It promises to be a top-class event and we can’t wait to see how Team GB performs in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Paris, which will be shown live on the BBC later this summer.’