MotoGP going to BT Sport from 2014

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So if you're a sky subscriber you'll have to pay an extra subscription to continue to watch live coverage, if you're a BT Broadband customer you'll get it for free, if you're a virgin customer tough you ain't getting it. Could be the death of MotoGP in the UK and beat in mind Dorna also own WSB so don't be surprised if that follows.

 UPDATE - BT SPORT WILL BE AVAILABLE TO VIRGIN XL PACKAGE SUBSCRIBERS  

Hopefully Eurosport will retain the rights to show delayed coverage.

well there goes any bike racing on the telly for me.....

MrNutt wrote:well there goes any bike racing on the telly for me.....

Me too. I bet Toby & Julian will have a thing or two to say as well . . . .

“The real jewel in Eurosport’s crown is its commentary team of Toby Moody and
Julian Ryder, who are knowledgeable and hysterical in equal measure...they could make a lap of the supermarket exciting and if there is a better motorsport commentary team anywhere, I will eat my armchair.”

CATHERINE RILEY
The Times

I don't know if Eurosport will retain the delayed rights or not but as it stands Virginmedia customers won't be able to subscribe to it. Options limited but I won't be paying for it that's for certain

I gave BT Vision the hoof some time back, umm, where did I put the vision box, might connect it up again - I don't think they'll be running it through the YouView platform . I believe you have to have a fiber connection too. Guess they want to recoup their money very quickly.

BT's previous attempt at a TV service was appalling, maybe it'll be worthwhile viewing now

I'm a BT broadbander but we don't have fibre here yet :(
Have the YouView service £50 to get the FreeView HD recording box and £5 a month for at least a year and but have never added anything or bought anything using it.
Quite happy with Freeview (HD) and recording stuff that I still don't have time to watch.
Don't see why I should pay extra (sky, virgin etc) to have loads more channels full of extra adverts that I also don't have time to watch.
Might give it a watch (if it is free)

Cheers
Rosco

Great, love the BBC & BBC-HD coverage. So now all that's left is waiting a few days for ITV4's BSB coverage.

Bet that's the next to go leaving us no Bike racing at all on Freeview.

Well although I have BT broadband I would prefer to see it stay on the BBC. Will have to wait to see if it really is free or I have to buy a new box or upgrade to watch it.

Apparently it will be free to BT broadband customers subject to signing a new 12 month agreement and also free to Youview subscribers. If you're with sky it'll probably be around £12 a month but as I said previously virgin subscribers (me) are completely screwed.

It also states they have the 'rights' to broadcast but that's not to say if Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd & Arsenal are playing then MotoGP won't be biffed off.

Sad state all round, and since Dorna also own WSB how long will it be before that disappears also. Apparently they won the rights on the basis of their broadband subscription (6.5 million), not their TV subscribers (750k), otherwise Dorna may have realised BBC pulled 2.1 million for the Qatar GP!!

Time will tell if Dorna don't rue the day when viewing figures are shit and advertising goes down the pan along with a majority British audience

I pay BT for their so-called "broadband", but at times it seems to be no faster than an old dial-up modem. At evenings and weekends I can only watch the iPlayer on low-res, and even then I spend a fair portion of the time watching a little circle going round and round.

The joke is BT keep trying to sell me their TV service.

bobh wrote:The joke is BT keep trying to sell me their TV service.

Which is absolutely Brrrrilliant Vivian . . . . . not
For further info on the 2014 MotoGP "live" coverage

bobh wrote:I pay BT for their so-called "broadband", but at times it seems to be no faster than an old dial-up modem. At evenings and weekends I can only watch the iPlayer on low-res, and even then I spend a fair portion of the time watching a little circle going round and round.

The joke is BT keep trying to sell me their TV service.

Wasn't one of the premises of the BT sell off, that the funds it released would go to improving the ageing infrastructure?
(and making a pile of cash for Thatchers exchequer into the bargain)

I shouldn't complain, since I'm in an area that benefited from the new C&W kit, but the state of the old BT infrastructure has pissed me off for years since they didn't even try to compete.
Even the FTTC side of BT Infinity is a bit half arsed and 20 years too late.

I doubt my experience will go down too well then.

Pre fibre aka BT Infinity, my broadband was slow at the best of times and would be a joke in the evenings. On a good day with the wind in the right direction 4mb/s was good, uplink about 400 kb/s. Whilst the upgrades were happening things got even worse, was like being on the M25 on a bank holiday.
BT Vision used to break regularly.

The upgrade is complete, I'm on a mainly residential exchange but there's a high population density (more buck per mile). Still on the same plan, but my downlink is now a constant at 16 mb/s and up a smidge under 1mb/s.
I'm the only one at home, why on earth would I want more.

Apparently I am getting twice what BT think I ought to be getting, but they still try every which way to get me onto Infinity, at twice the price and some for not much more bandwidth.

Incidentally if anyone is curious as to FTTC in Wooster's post - Fibre to the cabinet, that the 'box' you'll find in the streets. The idea is to get high speed very close you you via fibre optic and use a short run of copper (really alloy) - the wires to your house.

Aye, there's a lot of alloy on the network since it was cheaper than copper.
FTTC will still suffer a bandwidth drop off depending on the distance from the cab (and the ever present contention ratios), alloy cables will probably exacerbate this.
i.e. if you are 500m away fro the cab then you are looking at a max download speed of 38Mbps over copper.

I'm the only one at home, why on earth would I want more.

It depends on what you get up to with it.
Usenet + 10GB file = 2mins ** on Virgin (advertised speed of 120Mbps, but regularly see 135Mbps+) *

...still, most of the time it isn't being anywhere near fully utilised.


*MotoGP in HD format, say 25 seconds?

**Brain fart, it works out at just under a minute per GB.

I've had streaming HD from BT vision as well as Sony, not tried it on LoveFilm yet, but been fine. If they can't stream live HD on that, I'd suggest their codec's aren't up to scratch.

My HD bike cam can get up to 13 mb/s.

25 seconds to download the entire race in HD is a tad faster than the riders are able to manage

Doesn't get away from the fact that unless you have a Sky subscription and BT broadband whatever the speed you are going to have to pay (at least for me). I do see there is a 'player' available free, but that if you use Windoze or possibly a Mac. BT don't do Linux apart from it being embedded in their hubs.
Stack up the combinations and there is a very small number of viewers who can potentially see it for free.

There's always a way of seeing sport for free on the Internet... :pirat:

True.
It's hardly ideal for most though and I think it's a backward step since more and more people were becoming interested in MotoGP.
(Marquez' shenanigans this year would have only improved on them I reckon)

Take F1 which took the jump last year.
In 2012 it saw a 12.7% slump in UK viewers, back to pre 2009 figures and the first drop since 2006 with them moving away from Free-To-View.
So, just as they start to make serious inroads into the mainstream market, the owners decide to cash up and throw the sports backwards.

Well that sucks :(

I have BT broadband (so-called) but get 2Mb/s download at best. Is that going to be enough?

I do use the BBC iPlayer regularly and often have to go to the lower bandwidth (fuzzy) version.

Think it'll be the same on on streaming sports Bob, that why the satellite option could be a good idea.

Having said that, what must be pure co-incidence, when BT enabled my viewing the Sky box shut down and refused to get out of standby. Managed to get the box working again, but still no sign of BT Sport.

Signed up about a month ago and had no problems, they don't offer multi-room option though.

As i bt infinity customer i have just ticked the box saying i want bt sport, just gone on the bt sport website on my laptop and got bt sport1, bt sport2 and espn. watched rally cross on espn with no problems . Also put the app on my andriod phone. Just got to hope the connection is good when the bike racing starts next year.

if anyone is on the virginmedia XL package then apparently you should start getting BT sport1 & 2 and ESPN as Virgin have signed a deal so my boss was saying this morning. I might have to leave sky and go back to Virgin for it next year but sky broadband in my area is rubbish anyway so no big deal.

Just gonna bite bullet before season starts and pay extra £12 - on top of £98 already pay won't make huge difference and get UFC and few other extras - hopefully all the 'new viewing experience' they promise makes it all worth it!

Have any commentary team been leaked yet?!?

biscut wrote:if anyone is on the virginmedia XL package then apparently you should start getting BT sport1 & 2 and ESPN as Virgin have signed a deal so my boss was saying this morning. I might have to leave sky and go back to Virgin for it next year but sky broadband in my area is rubbish anyway so no big deal.

I'd previously been told that it wasn't available to virgin customers, unless they've changed their minds, will have to look into this.

Ignore that I've just checked and you're right, anyone on the channels premium package (XL) will get all 3 channels.      

I'm so happy now