It was a treat to come back from a week away and catch up with Wales Rally GB on the BBC iPlayer. If you’ve not watched it, be quick – today is the last day it’s available, unfortunately.

WRC on the BBC

The BBC has covered the British round of the WRC since at least 2009, presumably in part because the Welsh setting ties in with their commitment to the regions and nations. Also, being traditionally the final round of the year, it can cover the season as a whole. It’s very neat.

This year’s programme was a little dry, as usual, but the season highlights and rally coverage were solid, and there was a quite awe-inspiring feature on what goes in to putting on just one stage. And frankly, with no other free-to-air coverage of the WRC this year, it was just nice to see something.

Incidentally, it’s interesting that the BBC’s programme title was ‘Wales Rally GB’. Interesting because Wales is the event’s title sponsor – and the BBC would usually avoid giving prominence to a commercial sponsor. Hence, for example, Tennis: World Tour Finals, rather than ‘Barclays ATP World Tour Finals’. Of course, it’s easy to see how it slipped through: not only is Wales not a obvious sponsor, but it also describes the location of the rally. So I’ll let them off.

2012: WRC on free-to-air?

Attention now turns to 2012, and whether UK rally fans will get a better deal than this year’s subscription-only ESPN coverage.

It’s worth remembering that Dave didn’t lose the rights to ESPN, they decided not to renew their contract. So I hold out little or no hope of a return to Dave. Sadly.

A year ago, rumours did the rounds that Channel 5 were in the running. I’m not terribly hopeful: there’s not much obvious cross-promotion potential with the likes of OK! Magazine, the Daily Star and the Daily Express, all also owned by Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell. Also: they’ve probably spent all their money on Big Brother.

Channel 4 were interested in the Formula 1 rights, so might they be tempted to settle for the WRC? Having had the rights in the past, it strikes me that it wouldn’t be much of a consolation prize.

So, as always seems to be the case, we come back to ITV4. Like Channel 4, they’ve had the rights before. With BTCC, British Superbikes, Isle of Man TT, do they really need any more motorsport rights? Probably not.

And the BBC? Hardly likely in what I am obliged to describe as the ‘current climate’. In fact, with the 2012 calendar putting the Rally of Great Britain mid-season, there’s less justification for the BBC’s coverage of even that event next year.

Hope

In short: I don’t think the WRC is particularly attractive to any free-to-air broadcasters. What I think we have to hope for, is North One Sport to realise that they need the broadcasters more than the broadcasters need them.

If North One Sport could offer a decent package at a bargain price, then I’m sure someone would pick it up. I can’t imagine it would be up to the standard of the 2010 season on Dave, but something – anything – would be a start.

Photo Credit
kyn_chung – Flickr – Some rights reserved