Impression I got was that Sky UK were showing pictures from the ground for a bit with no comms, due to the NZ coverage on an actual break just before the kickoff. Seemed to be a wee while of just crowd noise.

I've never noticed them do that on any other matches. Very bizarre.

I've seen them just take the straight Sky NZ feed once before this season on a Friday morning Super Rugby game, maybe it's something they'll look to do more. Makes financial sense given the game was in the middle of our night

I do think no studio on Sky is sonething you'll see a lot more of, considering the trimming of jobs and like

When was the last time Bruce Critchley was commentating on the golf for sky?

Never heard him for a little while

Seeing as you have brought this up - I'm not sure if this is on-topic or not given that it's not commentary-related and arguably angling is not a sport, but this seems to be the best place to share the news - it was announced last week that Sky Sports have cancelled its weekly fishing show Tight Lines, with the last programme airing on Sky Sports 3 at 7pm tonight.

Apparently it was Sky Sports' longest running magazine programme, having run for 20 years from August 1995, with the concept having started on Wire TV prior to its move to Sky Sports 2 upon that channel's launch. There was an article about the show's upcoming 20th anniversary in the Angling Times recently where Keith Arthur, the show's presenter, had mentioned that he was looking to retire from broadcasting soon. With this in mind, when the cancellation was mentioned on talkSPORT's Fisherman's Blues this week - a show launched in 1999 by Keith, which is now hosted by Tight Lines reporter Nigel Botherway after Keith decided to "retire" from the show after its timeslot hours were reduced two years ago - it was played up as being a unilateral decision with Sky Sports looking to cut back on a number of their other magazine shows due to their investment in live football.

Given the recent proliferation of TV fishing programmes on channels including BT Sport, ITV4 and Quest, with a new one planned for the BBC, hopefully Keith and Nigel will find a new home, at least in the case of the former if he's not planning to step back from broadcasting entirely.

Rugby Union Friendly - Saturday 11 July
South Africa v World XV
Commentators: Owen Nkumane, Joel Stransky & Hanyani Shimange

This one not on British TV, for some reason Sky didn't want to show it.

ITV is to broadcast the inaugural BT World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge brought by a team including Presenter Martin Bayfield, the former England and British Lions player, alongside Steve Brown, captain of the GB London 2012 Olympic Wheelchair Rugby team, former England and British Lions player, Ugo Monye, reporter Rachael Latham with commentary team Simon Ward and Mike Spence.

Saturday 18 July on RTE2

Kerry v Cork (Throw-in 7.00pm)- Darragh Maloney presents live coverage of the Munster Senior Football Final replay at Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney. With commentary by Ger Canning and Martin Carney, and analysis from Colm O'Rourke and Joe Brolly.

Sunday 19 July on RTE2

Monaghan v Donegal (Throw-in 2.00pm) and Mayo v Sligo (Throw-in 4.00pm)- Darragh Maloney presents coverage of the Ulster Senior Football Championship final from Clones, followed by the Connacht Senior Football Championship final from Dr Hyde Park in Roscommon. With commentary from Marty Morrissey, Martin Carney, Ger Canning and Tom Carr, and analysis by Colm O'Rourke, Ciaran Whelan and Pat Spillane.

Saturday 18 July- Boxing on ITV

Carl Frampton v Alejandro Gonzalez Jr.- Mark Pougatch presents coverage of the bout for the IBF World Super Bantamweight title. Commentary comes from Dave Farrar and Richie Woodhall, with analysis by David Haye and Duke McKenzie.

Good team that, better than that used for the last fight I'd say


Does anyone know who featured in the world feed European Tour golf commentary team for the Scottish Open? I heard Dougie Donnelly, Denis Hutchinson, Tony Johnstone and Dale Hayes but there was another 1 or 2 voices I think?

Saturday 11th July - ESPN (USA) and BT Sport//ESPN (UK)

Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN: WBA World Welterweight Championship: Keith Thurman v Luis Collazo & Tony Harrison v Willie Nelson

Marysol Castro presented from the USF Sun Dome, Tampa, Florida

Commentators: Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas

Reporters: Todd Grisham (with Thurman & Harrison) and Bernardo Osuna (with Collazo & Nelson)

Interesting to see BT Sport//ESPN taking this week's Premier Boxing Champions - the first to air on ESPN in the USA - when most previous editions of Al Haymon's boxing series have aired live on BoxNation this side of the Atlantic (the exceptions being the cards that featured James DeGale and Ricky Burns, which were live on Sky Sports).

BT Sport formerly took ESPN2's long-running Friday Night Fights programme (once a staple of Channel 5's overnight sports strand) before it was superseded by PBC, so perhaps this broadcast came about as a continuation of that deal. I always liked FNF's presentation and commentary, so it was nice that ESPN retained most of their long-serving team to work under the new banner. It'll be interesting to see if BT Sport are able to show the next PBC on ESPN card - which has a pretty decent headline fight in Danny Garcia v Paulie Malignaggi.

As mentioned above, the next Premier Boxing Champions card is going to be shown on ITV, this being Carl Frampton's latest title defence against Alejandro Gonzalez Jr in El Paso, Texas. CBS have the US TV rights to the show, with it beginning 9pm BST/4pm ET. I see ITV4 have a boxing hour pencilled in for 9-10pm, where they'll be showing the other televised fight on the card - Chris Arreola v Frederic Kassi - before they switch to the main channel for Frampton coverage at 9.45pm.

ESPN in the US, like the BBC, lose their rights to the Open Golf Championship after 2016. This week, hosting The Open for the 19th consecutive year, Mike Tirico will be lead announcer for ESPN’s telecasts of live play. Joining him in the 18th Hole Tower as lead analyst will be Paul Azinger. Other analysts include Andy North, Curtis Strange, Judy Rankin and Dottie Pepper.

Scott Van Pelt and Sean McDonough also will be in the host role during the four days of the event in addition to working as hole announcers along with Strange and Pepper. On-course reporters will be North, Rankin, Pepper and Bill Kratzert while Tom Rinaldi will conduct player interviews. Peter Alliss will join ESPN for several hours on both Thursday and Friday.

There will be scene-setting interstitial videos penned by Wright Thompson and voiced by Ian McShane. Trey Wingo and Allen Bestwick will share the host role on the Featured Players feed, with analysts Tom Weiskopf and Carl Paulson.

Chris Finch explained this perfectly on east side boxing forum the other day so I'll let him answer this even if he just cuts and pastes. Basically Bt Sport ESPN can show whatever ESPN show in the US unless they choose to sell it on.


There was also a card on Spike UK the other week - again I'll let Chris explain as he knows far more than I.

IAAF World Youth Championships- Tony Husband, Kareem Streete-Thompson and Garfield Samuels

Thanks for that LOSG - I look forward to Chris Finch's post explaining things more fully.

If BT Sport//ESPN have first dibs over all PBC on ESPN cards, it'll be interesting to see what happens if/when a British fights appears on one of their broadcasts. Through their sponsorship of the Boxing Tonight show, BoxNation clearly have a good working relationship with BT Sport, so I imagine it might be possible for them to either share rights to a card featuring one of their British fighters or turn such a show over to BoxNation for live coverage with BT Sport featuring it on Boxing Tonight.

That said, it's probable that the British promoters are well aware of this arrangement and would be keen for any of their boxers who are fighting on Premier Boxing Champions cards to avoid those airing on ESPN in the USA for these reasons.

Monday 13th July - ESPN (USA) and BT Sport//ESPN (UK)

Major League Baseball: Home Run Derby 2015

Karl Ravech presented from Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, Ohio alongside Curt Schilling, Tim Kurkjian and Buster Olney

Commentators: Chris Berman, John Kruk and Aaron Boone

Reporters: Pedro Gomez and Nicole Briscoe

Live coverage was followed by highlights of the earlier MLB Legends & Celebrity Softball All-Star Game, with commentary from Adnan Virk and Eduardo Perez.


Tuesday 14th July - Fox (USA)

The 86th Annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game: American League @ National League

Kevin Burkhardt presented from Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati, Ohio alongside Pete Rose and Frank Thomas

Commentators: Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci

Reporters: Erin Andrews and Ken Rosenthal

Pregame Ceremonies: Thom Brennaman

BT Sport 1 carried the MLB International coverage of the All-Star Game, with commentary from Matt Vasgersian and John Smoltz. Coverage of both the All-Star Game and the Home Run Derby was available on the BT Sport website and app to subscribers.

What's interesting about the MLB International coverage is that it's been completely overhauled from previous years in terms of commentators, graphics and theme music. For many years MLB International had their own tailored graphics, had used THIS theme tune since (at least) 2001 and had consistently called upon Gary Thorne and Rick Sutcliffe as their commentators. As well as the Vasgersian and Smoltz commentary team, they took the usual MLB Network on-screen graphics - their final scorecard was even topped by the MLB Network logo - and used a new theme tune (which I imagine may have been from the MLB Network). So it would appear as if the MLB Network have taken over producing the MLB International feed for the All-Star Game - it will be interesting to see if they are also responsible for world feed coverage of the one League Championship Series they cover and the World Series.

One big notable point from the Fox coverage was to see Pete Rose - unquestionably an all-time great player but also a deeply divisive figure who has been banned from baseball due to betting on games - in the stadium in Cincinnati, his home city where he won two World Series with the Reds. He was introduced to the crowd during the pregame ceremonies, where along with Johnny Bench and former ESPN broadcasters Joe Morgan and Barry Larkin he was named as part of the home team's "Franchise Four" all-time greats. Many believe this suggests new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred will approve Rose's request to be reinstated to the game.

Cheers LOSG, I'm off to work shortly so I'll C&P to be lazy, even though the language is clearly not aimed at a DS audience!

The ESPN PBC cards will all end up being on the BT channels, as ESPN hold the TV rights for these cards in all of the territories they operate it, and while they no longer operate in the UK, BT have a deal with ESPN that essentially makes them their UK arm for the forseeable future. They could sell them on to someone else if they wanted, but as a sports channel, why would they?

It's the same reason all the Friday Night Fights cards were on the channel, regardless of the promoter.

The Spike one is a weird one. I suspect they hold the UK rights for all of the Spike PBC fights (as there'd have been no reason for them to purchase Lara v Rodriguez on it's own the other week), but unlike BT, are happy to sell them on to Sky or BoxNation (see Dirrell v Jack and Khan v Algieri) if another broadcaster is willing to give them any money to show them. Have to see how that one develops.


I agree with you on the British promoters/BT Sport thing. UK distribution rights are usually written in to the contracts when British fighters box abroad, but even I'm stumped at if that's possible when BT (through ESPN) already hold the rights. I suspect BT would accept a nominal fee not to show it.

It's also worth noting that Boxing Tonight has disappeared from the BT Sport schedules over the last couple of weeks. It might be on a summer break, but there was no reference to this, and BoxNation have had a couple of UK-based fights since then that I was hoping BT would show as I refuse to give Mr Warren a penny!

Saturday 25 July on Spike TV then Channel 5- Live Boxing

Nick Blackwell v Damon Jones- Mark Pougatch presents coverage of the bout for the British Middleweight title. With commentary by Dave Farrar and Richie Woodhall.

One of those occasional, but pretty worthless, 'top commentator' polls
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/33536817

The Rugby Championship - Friday 17 July (Sky Sports 1)
Round 1 - New Zealand v Argentina
James Gemmell in the studio with Sean Fitzpatrick and Esteban Lozada.
Commentators: Tony Johnson, Justin Marshall & Ian Smith (as Sky Sport NZ)

Bit of a strange one this, there was a tweet from Greg Clark saying that Fox Sports had no rights for it either. Not sure whether it was shown anywhere outside of SA or whether Supersport just didn't make it available

The version on YouTube was from Sky Sport NZ, so they had it, though it sounds like they were to only other channel to get it.

It's a bit odd when you have a World XV to only show it domestically and in NZ.

I really don't rate Vasgersian at all, so I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Thorne is a terrific broadcaster after making my peace with the presence of Rick Sutcliffe, I've been very happy to watch the international feed of the postseason when it's been available.

Rugby Union Friendly - Saturday 18 July (Sky Sports 3)
Maori All Blacks v New Zealand Barbarians
Rupert Cox in the studio with Sean Fitzpatrick and Thinus Delport.
Commentators: Grant Nisbett, Kees Meeuws & Melodie Robinson (as Sky Sport NZ)

The Rugby Championship - Saturday 18 July (Sky Sports 3)
Round 1 - Australia v South Africa
Rupert Cox in the studio with Michael Lynagh and Thinus Delport.
Commentators: Greg Clark, Tim Horan & Rod Kafer (as Fox Sports Aus)