SEVEN SANDOWN COVERAGE ‘BURIED’

Supercars coverage on FTA will be limited to late-night highlights packages. Image: Motorsport Images

Free TV coverage of this weekend’s Sandown SuperSprint will be limited to late-night highlights.

By MARK FOGARTY

After showing last month’s season-opening Mount Panorama 500 live, Supercars’ free-to-air broadcast partner Seven will only screen one-hour packages from Saturday’s and Sunday’s qualifying and racing.

The two-day Sandown SuperSprint clashes with the opening weekend of the AFL premiership, which is the Seven Network’s biggest sports property.

Seven’s delayed highlights schedule is yet to be published on the Supercars web site, but AUTO ACTION has learned they will be shown in the early hours of Sunday and Monday mornings.

The programs will be aired on Channel 7 – and streamed on 7plus – at 12.30 am AEDT on Sunday in Sydney and Melbourne (midnight local in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth) and at 12.30 am on Monday in all markets.

‘Encore’ repeats will be run on 7mate next Monday from 3.30 pm to 5.30 pm AEDT.

Pay TV’s Fox Sports is screening all Sandown track action live from 9 am to 6 pm AEDT on Saturday and 9 am-6.30 pm AEDT on Sunday.

Although they’re being shown on ‘Big 7’, the late-night highlights will bring back bad memories for long-time fans.

They will remember Seven’s unpopular delayed coverage of the ATCC from the late 1980s to the mid-’90s, when highlights were buried late at night.

If Sandown is representative, Seven’s next-day early hours coverage is inferior to former FTA broadcaster Channel 10’s delayed Supercars shows.

In the previous deal from 2015-20, Ten usually aired one-hour highlights of each day’s action at 5 pm AEDT, leading into the national news bulletins.

The Sandown scheduling is not a good precedent for the rest of Seven’s non-live events.

Free live telecasts don’t resume until the Darwin Triple Crown in June. Seven’s other live broadcasts are scheduled at Townsville, Sydney SuperNight, Bathurst 1000 and season-ending Gold Coast 500.

By comparison, all ARG events are being shown live and free on 7mate and 7plus.

Seven’s coverage of TCR, etc will resume at next month’s Bathurst 6 Hour meeting and continue through November’s Bathurst International, which will also feature S5000’s first appearance at Mount Panorama.

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