ATR To Be Known As Sky Sports Racing

[Wandering Eyes]

As part of its rebranding and restructuring process At The Race will be known as Sky Sports Racing next year and will continue to be available to Sky customers in Ireland and Britain at no extra cost. Broadcasts will also be upgraded to HD and Sky have agreed a ten year deal with Chester Race Company to show live racing from both Chester and Bangor-On-Dee. Last year Sky launched dedicated channels for Football, Golf, Formula 1 and Cricket and managing director of Sky Sports Barney Francis said, “We’ve seen a great reaction from our customers to launching dedicated sports channels and this takes us to another level. Horse racing is a massive sport that Sky has been involved in for two decades, now we will have a channel to give our customers more of what they love every day. Adding Chester and Bangor-on-Dee is fantastic news and we look forward to making Sky Sports Racing a new home for racing fans.”

Chester have never been afraid to go against the grain, they launched their own pool betting service Chester Bet in 2012 and the company’s chief executive Richard Thomas said, “We’re delighted to announce this new deal and long-term partnership. We believe it secures a positive and exciting future for Chester and Bangor-on-Dee and it fits squarely with our values and ambitions. We know Sky Sports will move the dial in the way our racing is covered but more than that we are excited by the prospect of how we can communicate and promote racing and the Chester brand further. We see real value in what the partnership can bring across TV, digital and social media, for us and for our sponsor partners. There is a lot of crossover between our core audiences and an opportunity to extend our reach more broadly via the Sky family of channels including Sky Sports News. We will be working very closely with the teams at Sky Sports and ATR in what will be a genuinely collaborative relationship.”

Irish racing fans have long relied on ATR for their sole coverage of all Irish racing but that will cease at the end of this year with Racing UK having won the rights to broadcast the Irish product from January 1 2019. That situation lead many to fear for the future of the channel having lost such a major share of the market but ATR chief Matthew Imi is very optimistic about the future.

“We very much look forward to working with Richard and his excellent teams at Chester and Bangor-on-Dee, both tracks are very well supported and respected within the industry as well as being truly progressive in their outlook. Also, there is no better home for our new channel production facility than Sky Sports’ studios which are the best in the business and we believe Sky Sports Racing is set to be a game changer for racing. Later this year we look forward to presenting our plans in more detail to the major constituents in our sport and racing fans more generally.”

 

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