Sky Sports has formed a multi-year broadcast partnership with the international single-seater motor racing championship for women, W Series.
The streams will cover 10 races across eight Formula One Grand Prix weekends in 2022, and Sky Sports will broadcast live coverage of every qualifying and race session.
Catherine Bond Muir, Chief Executive Officer at W Series, commented: “I’m delighted to announce our landmark broadcast partnership with Sky Sports, which is another significant step in W Series’ continued rapid expansion.
“Throughout our conversations with Sky, I’ve been impressed by their commitment to women’s sport and plans to amplify coverage of W Series across their vast portfolio of distribution channels, which will add real weight to our offering across broadcast, digital, and
social platforms.”
In addition, Channel 4 will broadcast live and free-to-air coverage of the fourth race of the 2022 W Series season, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, UK, and show highlights of the other nine races from season three.
“This partnership enables W Series to continue to expand its viewership within the UK,” Bond Muir added. “Alongside Sky, Channel 4 will continue its free-to-air coverage of the entire W Series season with highlights of every race and will also broadcast live our home race at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July.
“With this broad broadcast offering, we have the perfect mix of coverage across our UK audience. The three-year partnership – through to the end of W Series’ fifth on track season in 2024 – is W Series’ largest media investment so far and will include distribution of W Series content across Sky’s channels, including linear, digital and social.”
Furthermore, the deal also increases the footprint of W Series coverage across Sky’s global platforms. As well as the UK, W Series will begin a new partnership with Sky Italia this season, adding to the series’ existing agreement with Sky Deutschland.
“In addition to Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, Sky Sports are delighted to be growing our motorsport portfolio with this recently established elite women’s series,” noted Jonathan Licht, Managing Director of Sky Sports.
“It feels like Sky Sports is a natural home for the W Series, given we have such a dedicated motorsport audience and a dedicated motorsport genre channel. We pride ourselves in being a good partner to sport and it’s been a privilege to work alongside Catherine and her team to come up with a broadcast offering that works for everyone.
“At Sky Sports we are committed to making sport more inclusive and I can now proudly say that with the addition of W Series, every genre channel at Sky Sports now has both men’s and women’s sports coverage.”