It is the first Tuesday in November. The nation has stopped for the grandest sporting race in Australia.
They are out of the barriers and the Melbourne Cup has started. 2018 will be the last year that the race that stops the nation is broadcasted by Channel Seven. From 2019, Channel Ten will be the new home of the Melbourne Cup.
When Channel Ten lost the rights to the cricket in April this year, we all feared for the future of the network – particularly when the Big Bash has been Ten’s golden egg. However, Channel Ten now has a new egg with the announcement that the Melbourne Cup will return to the network for the first time since 2002.
Will this new egg be as golden as the Big Bash League? History would suggest that it will.
Channel Ten has always been behind the eight ball in sports broadcasting when compared to the other big Australian commercial networks like Channels Nine and Seven. Channel Nine has for decades been the home of Australia’s international cricket, while the network’s NRL coverage has seen it frequently have four of the five most-watched programs of the year with the NRL grand final and the three State of Origin matches.
Similarly Channel Seven have built themselves up as a sporting network with the AFL rights, with the grand final being the other event to regularly feature in the top five.
Instead, they have relied on big sports such as Supercars, Big Bash, rugby union and more recently the A-League to keep the network relevant in the minds of the sports broadcasting community in Australia.
With the rise in online streaming that has been seen in recent years, people’s television habits have changed significantly. This has raised the value of live sport to television networks.
The Melbourne Cup is the biggest race in Australia. Whether it be at schools, workplaces or pubs around the country, thousands of Australians will tune into Channel Ten for the four day Melbourne Cup Carnival.
If I was Channel Ten, I would be excited for the future of sports at the network.
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