Originally Posted by AR1983:
“I think the difference is Formula 1,Cricket, Premier League are all in a package deal where you buy the seasons worth of matches/races. Champions League seems to be a match by match thing and you get the impression it isn't cheap.”
That is exactly the point I was going to make. The costs involved in gaining rights to individual Champions League games have proved prohibitive to both BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT in the past, stopping them from even holding reporting access to matches in some cases (although I do question the rationale behind 5 Live sending reporters to continental Europe to cover non-commentary Champions League group games; if costs are an issue generally it would make more sense to me to do off-tube updates on such fixtures).
If you look at talkSPORT last night, it's clear they opted for Leicester's dead rubber at Porto rather than Tottenham v CSKA Moscow because of their policy of almost always covering matches played in continental Europe, which I can only assume is based on cost reasons (that said, Spurs are one of the clubs they've worked with on a regional level in the now-distant past, would acquiring commentary rights from them have been as difficult as it has been with certain other clubs?). For 5 Live, they take very little interest in the Europa League before the business end of that competition, so I can see why they decided against picking up rights to what effectively was a Europa League play-off when they won't have commentary on similar matches for Manchester United or Southampton tonight.
On the subject of talkSPORT, I notice that today they have placed half-page adverts in both The Times and The Sun's sports sections flagging up their commentary on Zorya Luhansk v Manchester United from 5.45pm. I've also noticed over the course of the week how both News Corp-owned papers have highlighted how this and the four Champions League games they've covered live - including the two on talkSPORT 2 - have been commentaries on their stations when flagging up TV and radio broadcasters in the stats boxes that accompany their match previews. This is something neither paper have done until recently (whereas the Daily Mail for example usually would mention it if a game was on talkSPORT). With The Times' The Game podcast now going out on talkSPORT 2 and Gabriele Marcotti returning to the station this week, with him being billed as a Times journalist, I think it is starting to become clear that talkSPORT's relationship with the two News Corp-owned papers is becoming firmer as the News Corp takeover of the station approaches formal ratification and completion.