Sky Sports To Expand Women’s Sport Offering
Sky Sports is to expand its women’s sport coverage and has announced new coverage of women’s cricket, rugby, netball and the WNBA to its YouTube channel – as it targets new audiences for its output.
The Sky Sports YouTube channel will ensure a wider audience is able to watch more coverage of women’s sport, supported by a full schedule of live coverage across its linear Sky Sports channels showing key events across the year.
The broadcaster says that more than 1.8 million people watched the 2017 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup final on the platform, while 550k people tuned in to watch England’s Roses play New Zealand in the 2019 Vitality Netball World Cup semi-final.
“Sky Sports has been a long-standing partner and champion of women’s sport and this is a natural next step to ensure that brand new audiences are able to connect with the drama and excitement created by the players and teams,” said Rob Webster, Managing Director, Sky Sports.
“Sky Sports News will continue to be at the heart of this pledge and will ensure consistent 24-hour editorial coverage of women’s sport across both linear and digital platforms. The evolution will mean no longer grouping women’s sport collectively in a standalone programme each week, but instead ensuring it is represented across our output in our rolling 24-hour coverage.
“We appreciate the responsibility we have, we know the platforms we own help sports grow and prosper, this is an important step in the right direction for our all-round coverage of women’s sport.”
Alongside the expanded coverage of live sport, Sky has also announced a new ‘Extraordinary Women’ content series, as well as documentaries such as ‘Training with MMA Star Leah McCourt’ and the behind the scenes show with Lucy Bronze ‘My Life in Lyon’, which will be available in 2020.
Georgina Faulkner, Head of Multisport, Sky, said: “Sky Sports are investing in a 360 approach to covering women’s sport. The live streaming will bring fans closer to the action, the 24/7 rolling Sky Sports News coverage will keep fans constantly updated and our world-class digital production and storytelling will peel back the layers of women’s sport like never-before. This digital-led initiative will bring more sporting stories to new audiences with the ambition of creating long-term connections for both existing and future generations.”
