HBA Media holds Royal Ascot’s reach at a record 180 territories and 30 networks, but new free-to-air deals in Australia, Canada and Asia mark a change
Royal Ascot will be carried across 180 territories by 30 networks when the Royal Meeting runs from 16 to 20 June, with rights agency HBA Media billing 2026 as the event’s most comprehensive broadcast year to date.
Ascot did, however, reach the same 180-territory, 30-broadcaster mark in 2025, and again in 2024. After climbing from 170 territories and just over 20 broadcasters in 2022, the meeting’s raw distribution has plateaued at a record level.
What has changed is the calibre of the broadcast partners delivering Royal Ascot its reach. The biggest change is in Australia, where Channel 7 – the country’s principal free-to-air broadcaster – takes the full enhanced world feed across all five days, reaching more than 17 million homes. Only subscription and racing-channel coverage served the Australian market previously.
Chasing audiences, not just territories
Royal Ascot’s free-to-air push runs through the 2026 line-up, with Canada’s public broadcaster CBC joining for the first time with the full world feed daily, broadening reach beyond the pay-TV footprint Rogers’ Sportsnet provided in 2025.
Elsewhere, in Indonesia, TVRI will deliver free-to-air coverage to an estimated 80% of households, while a new SPOTV deal extends the meeting to 14 Southeast Asian territories.
In the US, NBC again pairs linear and Peacock streaming with an on-course presence, and ESPN and Disney+ cover 49 territories across Latin America and the Caribbean.
So, while territory penetration remains all but the same, the quality of media rights deals across these regions has improved, by placing premium content on mainstream platforms in markets where racing already commands attention.
How Ascot measures up
By distribution alone, Ascot is not the widest-travelled fixture on HBA’s books. The 2024 Melbourne Cup Carnival aired across 228 territories via 28 networks; the Qatar Goodwood Festival has been sold to a record 39 broadcasters; and Bahrain’s International Trophy reaches more than 125 countries through 28.
Though Ascot’s differentiator is volume and prestige as opposed to its overall footprint. The event features a full five-day card of 35 races, eight at Group One level, supported by 25 hours of uninterrupted world feed and a 90-minute international programme built around Thursday’s Gold Cup.
The depth of its content is what lets Ascot command free-to-air windows abroad that single-race events struggle to justify.
Frank Sale, Chief Executive of HBA Media, said: “We are proud to partner with Ascot Racecourse in delivering what is truly a worldwide broadcast operation.
“From our longstanding relationships in the Middle East with Dubai Media International and Abu Dhabi Media, to exciting new partnerships across Europe, Asia and Indonesia, Royal Ascot continues to reach a diverse global audience.
“The strength of the international field, with leading contenders travelling from France, Japan, Australia and the Americas, makes this a genuinely global sporting event, and it is our privilege to ensure that story is told to audiences in every corner of the world.”
NBC, an Ascot partner since 2017, extended its US rights through 2028 last October, and from this year will frame qualifying Ascot races as Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” routes – knitting the meeting into the American racing calendar ahead of the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland.
HBA Media, which holds Ascot’s international rights until the end of 2027 under a partnership first struck in 2020, is using that runway to embed Ascot within a wider premium-racing package alongside the Breeders’ Cup, France Galop and the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
