BBC Extends British Athletics Support To 2020
The BBC has confirmed a new agreement that will see the free-to-air broadcaster continue its coverage of British Athletics events through until 2020, ahead of this weekend’s Anniversary Games, which celebrate the one-year mark since the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Included in the new broadcast rights package, which will begin at the end of the current deal that was set to expire in 2014, are the two Diamond League events staged in the UK each year – one of which will take place in London’s Olympic Stadium – and a variety of other British Athletics-sanctioned events, including the British Championships.
The events will add to the athletics portfolio that already includes the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and the 2017 World Athletics Champions in London.
Neil De Vos, the chief executive of UK Athletics which recently rebranded itself British Athletics, added: ‘British Athletics is absolutely delighted with this new deal with the BBC. It will ensure that our elite events will be broadcast to the widest possible audience over the next seven years until at least 2020.’
UK Athletics will now take over the venue for one month a year, in July, for the next 50 years from 2016.
