Timeline of ITV Sport

This is a timeline of the history of ITV Sport .

1950s
  • 1955
    • 22 September – ITV is launched and sport - boxing - is part of the launch night's programmes.
  • 1956
    • No events.
  • 1957
    • No events.
  • 1958
    • 8–29 June – ITV covers a FIFA World Cup for the first time, showing a selection of games live.
    • 13–19 July – ITV shows coverage of the Commonwealth Games. This is the only time that ITV has ever covered the event.
  • 1959
    • No events.

1960s
  • 1960
    • ITV agrees a deal worth £150,000 with the Football League to screen 26 matches; the very first live league match was on Saturday 10 September 1960 between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers at Bloomfield Road. The match kicked off at 6:50 pm with live coverage starting at 7:30 under the title The Big Game. The game is played in front of a half-empty stadium.[1] TV withdraws from the deal after first Arsenal and then Tottenham Hotspur refused them permission to shoot at their matches against Newcastle United and Aston Villa respectively, and the Football League demanded a dramatic increase in player appearance payments.[2]
  • 1961
    • No events.
  • 1962
    • 22 September – ITV moves again into football, albeit tentatively, when Anglia Television launches Match of the Week, which shows highlights of matches from around East Anglia.
  • 1964
    • No events.
  • 1965
    • 2 January – The first edition of World of Sport is broadcast. The new programme sees the start of ITV's coverage of wrestling, usually shown at 4pm, wrestling was a weekly feature through ought the programme's run.[3]
  • 1966
    • The BBC and ITV share the rights to England’s home cricket test matches. This arrangement continues until 1968, after which the full rights transfer back to the BBC.
    • 11–30 July – The BBC and ITV jointly host coverage of the 1966 World Cup. This arrangement continues to this date for both the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship.
  • 1967
    • No events.
  • 1968
    • 24 June-6 July – The Wimbledon Championships are shown on ITV for the final time.
    • ITV launches On the Ball, a lunchtime preview of the day's football fixtures. It is shown as a segment within World of Sport.
    • 25 August – The first edition of The Big Match is broadcast. Originally just shown by London Weekend Television, the programme soon becomes the title of all of ITV's domestic football coverage.
    • 12–27 October – ITV shows the Olympic Games for the first time.
  • 1969
    • 6 September – After six years, ITV decides to stop showing cricket on a national basis. Some county games are occasionally shown on a regional basis for the next 25 years.
    • 14 October – The first ITV Seven takes place, under the title of They’re Off!. The required number of races was obtained by televising races at two courses each week.

1970s
  • 1970
    • No events.
  • 1971
    • No events.
  • 1974
    • No events.
  • 1975
    • No events.
  • 1976
    • No events.
  • 1977
    • No events.
  • 1979
    • No events.

1980s
  • 1980
    • No events.
  • 1981
    • No events.
  • 1982
    • No events.
  • 1983
    • 2 October – ITV shows a live top flight football match for the first time since 1960. This marks the start of English football being shown on a national basis rather than on a regional basis, resulting in The Big Match becoming a fully national programme.
  • 1984
    • ITV obtains the rights to show boxing fights promoted by Frank Warren's Sports Network and later in the decade ITV signs a deal to with Barry Hearn. Consequently, ITV's coverage of boxing sees it launch a new programme to cover the sport - The Big Fight Live. It also introduces a supplementary programme Fight Night, which shows midweek recorded coverage of non-premium boxing action.
  • 1985
    • ITV takes over as broadcaster of UK athletics meetings. It also begins to cover European meetings in addition to the major international athletics events.
    • 28 September – The final edition of World of Sport is broadcast.
    • 5 October – ITV launches a new Saturday afternoon schedule which sees the football preview show becoming a programme in its own right, called Saint & Greavsie, a two-hour live transmission of a single sporting event and a results programme called Results Service. Wrestling also continues to be shown, moving to a lunchtime slot.
  • 1986
    • No events.
  • 1987
    • No events.
  • 1988
    • February-March – ITV shows highlights of England’s tour to New Zealand. This is the first time for two decades that cricket has been shown nationally on ITV.
    • 14 May – The FA Cup Final is shown on both the BBC and ITV for the final time, thereby ending ITV's coverage of the competition until 1997.
    • 17 September–2 October – ITV broadcasts the Olympic Games for the final time, sharing the coverage with Channel 4 which shows the overnight and breakfast coverage of the 1988 Olympic Games. ITV shows the daytime coverage.
    • October – ITV announces that it will stop showing darts and that the final event that it will show will be the forthcoming World Masters.
    • 30 October – Following the signing of a new four-year deal to show exclusive live coverage of top flight English football, ITV begins showing a live game every Sunday afternoon.
    • December – Following a change in direction at ITV, ITV decides to stop showing wrestling, having done so each week since the 1950s.
  • 1989
    • No events.

1990s
  • 1990
    • No events.
  • 1991
    • 3 October–2 November – ITV shows full live coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup, beginning a relationship with the tournament which lasts to this day.
  • 1992
    • 18 May – Sky outbids ITV for the live rights to the newly formed football Premier League. Sky bids £304 million, as opposed to ITV's £262 million.
    • Following the loss of the rights to top flight football, ITV decides to drop its preview show Saint & Greavsie and its results programme Results Service.
    • August – ITV maintains their partnership with the Football League and begins showing matches from the second tier of English football. The coverage is shown on a regional basis with many English regions showing a live game on a Sunday afternoon.
    • 16 September – ITV shows its first matches from the newly formed UEFA Champions League, having purchased the rights following it being outbid for the rights to the Premier League.
  • 1993
    • 6 March – ITV ends its coverage of snooker after its broadcast of that year's British Open. It had previously shown around four events each year.
    • 16–18 April – Following its successful broadcasting of the 1991 Rugby World up, ITV steps up its coverage of international rugby union when it broadcasts full live coverage of the first 1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens.
    • 12 June-3 July – ITV shows live coverage of the three test matches of the 1993 British Lions tour to New Zealand. This is the only time that ITV has covered the British and Irish Lions with previous coverage being on the BBC and from 1997 the coverage is shown on Sky Sports.
  • 1994
    • 11 May-11 June – ITV shows live coverage of the 1994 England rugby union tour of South Africa. In addition to showing the two test matches, ITV also broadcasts live coverage of all the tour matches. ITV also broadcast highlights of the other home countries' tour matches taking place in 1994. It shows all of the tour matches live. This is the only time that ITV broadcasts an English rugby tour.
    • 17 June–17 July – ITV and the BBC opt to only show live coverage of selected matches from the group stage of the 1994 World Cup and it is only the knock-out stages of the tournament that are shown live and in full by the terrestrial broadcasters.
    • mid 1994 – ITV loses the rights to Sky Sports of boxing fights promoted by Barry Hearn.
    • ITV launches a new weekly national programme called Football League Extra to show highlights from the Football League.
  • 1995
    • January – ITV loses rights to Frank Warren's Sports Network fights to Sky Sports.[5]
    • October – ITV resumes its coverage of boxing, albeit for far less profile fights.
  • 1996
    • ITV loses the rights to the Football League to Sky Sports. Consequently, ITV no longer shows domestic league football on a live basis.
    • ITV shows athletics coverage for the final time. It had slowly been reducing its coverage of the sport since the start of the 1990s. The rights pass to Channel 4 for the next two years before returning to the BBC in 1999.
  • 1997
    • March – ITV takes over as the broadcaster of Formula One motor racing. It shows full coverage of qualifying as well as the race itself, something that the previous rights holder, the BBC, generally did not do.
    • ITV obtains the FA Cup and England International football highlights rights from the BBC resulting in the return of the FA Cup to ITV screens for the first time since 1988.
  • 1998
    • February – ITV shows England's matches in the rugby union Five Nations Championships. Live coverage is on Sky Sports. This continues until 2001, after which the BBC regains the full rights to the tournament.
    • 1 June – ITV ends its association with horse racing for the next three decades when it simulcasts Channel 4's coverage of the The Derby for the final time.
    • 5 September – ITV resurrects On the Ball, a lunchtime preview of the day's football fixtures.[6] ITV also resurrects The Big Match as the title for its football coverage.
    • 12 December – ITV launches ITV2 and part of its schedule is for additional sports coverage. Among the output is a Saturday afternoon scores service called Football First. This is ITV's first results programme for six years.

2000s
  • 2000
    • 15 June – The latest contracts for football’s Premier League are announced with the big news being that ITV has won the rights to the highlights package from the BBC at a reported cost of £183 million.[7]
    • September – ONsport launches. It replaces Champions on 28 and Champions on 99, which had reflected the channel numbers these were broadcast on. These channels were re-branded respectively as ONsport 1 and ONsport 2, after ONdigital had purchased rights to the ATP Masters Series tennis. Whilst ONsport 1 broadcast 24 hours a day, ONsport 2 timeshared with Carlton Cinema and was only on air to provide coverage of an alternate Champions League match.
  • 2001
    • 11 August – The ITV Sport Channel launches. It replaces ONsport. The new channel is mostly focussed on football and comes after ONdigital successfully outbid BSkyB for the rights to show live matches from The Football League and the League Cup, for a massive £315m over three seasons, at least five times more than any broadcaster had previously bid for it.[8] Other output also includes ITV returning to broadcasting snooker.
    • 18 August –
      • ITV begins its coverage of the Premier League when it launches its highlights programme The Premiership. The programme is shown in a primetime slot, airing at 7pm as opposed to the 10.30pm slot previously used by the BBC.[9] However ITV loses the rights to the rights to the FA Cup and the England football team return to the BBC with the Corporation showing live coverage of the national team for the first time in a decade.
      • ITV relaunches its live scores service from Football First to The Goal Rush.
    • August – ITV launches ITV Select. It uses the channel to provide ITV Digital viewers with pay-per-view coverage of the Premier League, which Sky shows on its own channel PremPlus.
    • 17 November – Following disappointing viewing figures ITV ends its experiment with peak time Saturday night football and The Premiership reverts to the traditional 10.30pm slot.
  • 2002
    • ITV takes over as broadcaster of the British Touring Car Championship. ITV shows live coverage as opposed to only highlights when the BBC had the contract.
    • 27 March – ITV Digital goes into administration with the cost of the Football League deal being the burden which used the company over the edge.[10]
    • 12 May – Following the collapse of ITV Digital, the ITV Sports Channel stops broadcasting.
    • July – ITV shows live and recorded coverage of the Tour de France, taking over from Channel 4 which had broadcast the event since 1983. ITV had bought the rights for its now failed ITV Sport Channel which would have given the football-heavy channel something to show during the summer.
    • August – Coverage of the Football League reverts to Sky Sports.
  • 2003
    • May – ITV decides to stop showing a football scores service resulting in the demise of The Goal Rush.
  • 2005
    • 27 March – ITV shows live coverage of The Boat Race for the first time as part of a new four-year deal.[12] The event returns to the BBC in 2009.
    • Following a successful one-off return to boxing in May, ITV decides to return to the sport on a regular basis when it re-captures the rights to Frank Warren's Sports Network promotions.
    • 1 November – ITV moves its sports coverage from ITV2 to the newly launched ITV4.
  • 2006
    • June – ITV launches a trial high-definition channel, primarily to show matches from the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
  • 2007
    • 17–25 November – Having not shown darts since 1988, ITV resumes coverage of the sport when it shows the inaugural Grand Slam of Darts. It shows the first four events until the rights move to Sky Sports.
  • 2008
    • March – ITV announces that they had enacted a clause within their contract enabling them to leave Formula One coverage after the 2008 season. It is believed this was done for commercial reasons and to allow more money to be spent on securing coverage of the UEFA Champions League.[13]
    • August – ITV regains the rights to the FA Cup and the England football team.[14]
    • 6 September – ITV loses the rights to Frank Warren’s Sports Network to Sky but it does continue to broadcast boxing when it a signs a 2-year, 26-fight deal with Hennessy Sports.
    • September – ITV takes over as broadcaster of the highlights of Premiership rugby and the Anglo-Welsh Cup. Sky Sports and the BBC have the live rights respectively.

2010s
  • 2010
    • February – ITV shows live cricket for the first time since 1969 when it begins showing coverage of the Indian Premier League.[16] ITV then decides to take out a four-year deal for the event as well as also showing highlights of the 2010/11 Ashes series[17]
    • July – Having only previously shown live coverage at the weekend, ITV shows live coverage of every stage of the Tour de France for the first time.
    • ITV decides to drop its coverage of boxing on the grounds that it considers the sport to be no longer financially viable.
  • 2012
    • June – ITV Sport takes over as terrestrial broadcaster of tennis’ French Open.[18] ITV shows full live coverage, mainly on ITV4, as opposed to the partial coverage shown by the previous rights holder, the BBC. This is the first time since 1968 that ITV has shown coverage of one of the sport's big four tournaments.
    • September – ITV becomes the lead broadcaster of the Europa League which includes exclusive coverage of the latter stages, including the final, for the next three seasons.[19]
    • 23 October – ITV Sport launches a new documentary series called Sports Life Stories.
  • 2013
    • ITV makes a proper return to snooker when it signs a deal to broadcast the World Open. ITV has since expanded its snooker coverage and now shows several tournaments each year.
    • 14 June – The PDC and ITV announce a new deal to cover four tournaments a year from 2013 to 2015. The tournaments are The Players Championship which they had covered from 2009 to 2010 and from December 2011 – present, The European Championship which they covered previously in 2008 and 2011, a new tournament called the Masters where the top 16 face in other in a three-day tournament, and from 2014, the UK Open which had previously been shown on Sky. A fifth tournament is added to ITV's contract the following year, for the World Series of Darts Finals.[20]
  • 2014
    • The BBC regains the rights to the FA Cup, which it shares with BT Sport.[21] However ITV retains the contract to show live coverage of the England football team.
    • 1 June – ITV's live coverage of the Indian Premier League ends, having shown the event since 2010.[22]
  • 2016
    • No events.
  • 2017
    • 1 January – ITV takes over from Channel 4 as the exclusive terrestrial broadcaster of horse racing. This is the first time since 1988 that the sport had been shown on ITV.[25]
    • 4 February – Following ITV's return to covering live boxing, the channel launches a pay-per-view channel ITV Box Office.[26]
    • February – The BBC and ITV begin a five-year contract as joint broadcasters of the Six Nations Championship. They had joined forces to prevent the tournament being sold to pay television.[27]
    • May – ITV ends its nine-year association with Premiership Rugby when it loses rights to highlights of the league to Channel 5. It also loses the rights to Moto GP to Channel 5 at the same time.
  • 2018
    • 26 May – After more than 25 years, ITV's coverage of the UEFA Champions League ends after they lose the highlights rights to BT Sport.[28]
  • 2019
    • No events.

2020s
  • 2021
    • The BBC and ITV will become joint holders of rights to the FA Cup. Consequently, this will be the first time since 1988 that the competition has been shown fully on terrestrial television.

See also

References
  1. Imlach, Gary. My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes. pp. 152–153.
  3. uk2.net. "ITV Wrestling". www.itvwrestling.co.uk.
  4. Tim Bradford When Saturday Comes, London: Penguin, 2005, p.882-83
  5. "Hatton, Calzaghe and Khan on ITV". BBC News. 1 July 2005. Retrieved 20 March 2007.
  6. Francis, Pam (9 August 1998). "Why I'll Never Date A Footballer; Gabby Yorath Is Itv'S New Face Of Football. Here She Tells For The First Time How She Owes It All To Her Father...And Why She'S Decided To Ignore The Players' Pitches". Sunday Mirror. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
  7. "BBC 'sour' over football deal". BBC News. BBC. 15 June 2000. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  8. Williams, Steve (March 2008). "Part Thirteen: "We've Got All the Football"". offthetelly.co.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  9. Clancy, Oliver (9 August 2001). "Saturday night TV fever". BBC News. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
  10. "ITV Digital goes broke". 27 March 2002 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  11. ITV axes 'On The Ball' Digital Spy, 2 April 2004
  12. Plunkett, John (26 November 2004). "BBC loses Boat Race radio rights" – via The Guardian.
  13. Gibson, Owen; correspondent, media (21 March 2008). "F1 returns to BBC but ITV wins Champions League". The Guardian.
  14. Tryhorn, Chris (30 March 2007). "ITV to pay £275m for FA Cup". The Guardian.
  15. "ITV drops Boat Race for football". BBC News. 9 December 2008. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
  16. Sweney, Mark (4 March 2010). "ITV buys IPL cricket rights". The Guardian.
  17. Sweney, Mark (17 November 2010). "ITV to air nightly Ashes highlights show". The Guardian.
  18. Deans, Jason (28 October 2011). "ITV nets French Open tennis TV rights". The Guardian. London.
  19. ITV snatches Europa League from Channel 5
  20. "ITV Darts 2015". Sport on the Box.
  21. Gibson, Owen (17 July 2013). "BBC and BT Sport to share FA Cup TV rights". The Guardian.
  22. Deans, Jason (17 February 2014). "BSkyB wins UK rights to IPL Twenty20 live cricket coverage". The Guardian.
  23. ITV scores cricket World Cup highlights
  24. Sweney, Mark (22 November 2013). "ITV wins rights to Champions League highlights" – via The Guardian.
  25. "ITV announce Horse Racing Deal". ITV Press Centre. ITV. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  26. "ITV to show Eubank Jnr World Title fight". ITV. 13 December 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  27. Rees, Paul (2015-07-09). "BBC and ITV join forces to stop Sky winning Six Nations broadcast rights". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
  28. "BT win exclusive UEFA Rights". BT Sport. BT. Retrieved 2017-06-27.
  29. "ITV Box Office Closure notice". Retrieved 25 January 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.