Royal & Ancient chief executive warns BBC of a possible loss of contract to broadcast the Open Championship
Royal & Ancient, the governing body of the sport in Great Britain, has delivered a stern warning to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the channel may possibly lose its rights of exclusive coverage of the Open Championship scheduled in July.
R & A chief executive Peter Dawson expressed his concerns regarding the same and said that the channel has been not giving the sport in general and the open Championship in particular, its due coverage agreed upon in the contract.
He warned BBC that there are potential channels that are desperate to win the rights for exclusive coverage.
BBC being the subsidiary of the National broadcasting network won the exclusive rights in an open bid and the agreement will remain intact until 2016. Dawson, however, revealed that if the channel is not able to provide the agreed upon hours of coverage,
they may lose the rights to air the event exclusively.
He said, "They have to keep up with the advances in technology of broadcasting and they know we have got our eye on that. The BBC have some very talented people in their production team. We want the Open to be seen by as many spectators as we possibly can.
Negotiations [on a new television deal] are usually opened 12 to 18 months before. Who knows who will be in the market by then?"
The broadcasting rights for the event are under a stiff competition from the BBC’s formidable foe Satellite Broadcaster SKY and it is now more than evident that in case BBC is not able to meet the sanctioned hours of Live broadcast of the event, SKY will
eventually move over to claim the rights.
The Open Championship is scheduled in July at the scenic Royal Lytham and St Annes, one of the nine Links courses which are rotated every year for the event.
The Open is returning to the Royal Lytham and St Annes after a lapse of 11 years after it was first held at the same venue in 2001.
David Duval came out victorious when he clinched his first and the only major victory of his career so far.
The course has an added 200 yards to it and a newly replaced seventh green along with several other changes in the layout.
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