LIV Golf strikes blow with deal to show live coverage on ITV
LIV Golf has struck its latest blow to the sport's establishment by securing a free-to-air television deal in the UK. ITV will screen 41 rounds from 41 tournaments of the Saudi Arabian-backed rebel tour in what marks a stark change for golf in the UK broadcast market.
The BBC's gradual withdrawal from showing live golf means Sky essentially controls all coverage of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and majors. It had been widely assumed there was no appetite for free-to-air golf in this market. However, LIV surprisingly announced it had bucked the trend just as its 2025 season teed off in Riyadh. Round two of that event will be the first to appear on ITV.
Niall Sloane, director of ITV Sport, said: 'This is an exciting time for LIV Golf as we look ahead to the innovative 2025 season. This partnership delivers free-to-air coverage for fans in the UK and we are delighted to welcome LIV Golf to ITV Sport.'
With ITVX the primary platform for LIV, selected live broadcasts will also be shown on ITV1 and ITV4. A weekly highlights show, produced by LIV, will air on ITV4. LIV concluded a similar deal with Fox Sports in the US.
LIV's Ron Wechsler said: 'Our partnership with ITV represents a major milestone as we strive to bring LIV Golf to every corner of the world. With a premier sports broadcaster like ITV, we can ensure that more fans than ever will be able to access the excitement of the LIV Golf experience and connect with the world-class players, teams, and stories that make us a truly standalone global sports league.'
In a positive week for LIV, the US Open had already announced it will offer an exemption to a player via the tour's own standings. It is expected the Open Championship will follow suit for Portrush this July.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Out
29 minutes ago
- Time Out
Adam Riches: Jimmy
This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. Adam Riches's comedy shows have long been high concept, high effort affairs; now he crosses over to the dark side of the Fringe programme (aka the theatre bit) to make his Summerhall debut with Jimmy. It's a one-man-show about US sportsman Jimmy Connors, the bad boy of '70s tennis, who was eventually eclipsed by the likes of Boris Becker and John McEnroe. They, however, retired as relatively young men. Jimmy is set at the 1991 US Open: with the 39-year-old Connors now way down in the rankings, we meet him just as he's losing a match to Patrick McEnroe, John's little brother. Connors is not happy, a wounded old tiger with nothing but contempt for an opponent he knows he'd have swept past a decade ago. There are no actual balls in Tom Parry's production. But there is a lot of sweat: racket in hand, Riches hurls himself energetically around the 'court' in recreation of Connors's actual moves. I'm sure it's not a perfect replica, but Riches is bloody good, both lucidly conveying the flow the match and conveying a level of dogged persistance that feels important for Connors's story. Although it has a lot in common with Richard's comedy shows - character work, accent work, just a lot of work - it's definitely not trying to be funny in the way that they are, with just a ghost of his usual infamous audience interactions. The gangly Riches does undeniably remain an intrinsically amusing performer, but the category change makes sense. Eventually, a despairing Connors sinks into his thoughts and we get a journey through his past: specifically being raised by his tough single mum and coach Gloria, who encouraged him to be aggressive, a trait that won him games but lost him friends. Introspective, Jimmy begins to accept it's over for him. But then his temper is inflamed again – and so begins one of the all time great sports comebacks. It's an electric performance from Riches: it doesn't need to be nuanced or subtle, it needs to be shattering to watch, and it is. The text, however, feels shy of where it could go: Connor's rage is shown to be a curse more than a blessing, and yet the end does by and large conform to uplifting comeback tropes. It feels on the cusp of saying something quite profound about toxic masculinity in sport but tosses it away at match point. But we're still left with a thrilling display.
Western Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Council tax bills set to rise at fastest rate for two decades, economist warns
Paul Johnson said that local government in England did 'perhaps a little bit better than it might have expected' out of the Chancellor's statement on Wednesday, but the 'sting in the tail' is the assumption that 'council tax bills will rise by 5% a year' as part of the funding. The core spending power of councils is set to increase by 2.6% a year from next year, and 'if English councils do choose 5% increases – and most almost certainly will – council tax bills look set to rise at their fastest rate over any parliament since 2001-05', Mr Johnson said on Thursday. On Wednesday, Ms Reeves said that ministers will not be 'going above' the 5% annual increases in council tax. (PA Graphics) She told ITV: 'The previous government increased council tax by 5% a year, and we have stuck to that. We won't be going above that. 'That is the council tax policy that we inherited from the previous government, and that we will be continuing.' The biggest winner from Wednesday's statement was the NHS, which will see its budget rise by £29 billion per year in real terms. Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, has said that Britain is turning into a 'National Health State'. Overnight, the think tank said Ms Reeves' announcements had followed a recent trend that saw increases for the NHS come at the expense of other public services. Ms Curtice said: 'Health accounted for 90% of the extra public service spending, continuing a trend that is seeing the British state morph into a National Health State, with half of public service spending set to be on health by the end of the decade.' Defence was another of Wednesday's winners, Ms Curtice said, receiving a significant increase in capital spending while other departments saw an overall £3.6 billion real-terms cut in investment. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) made similar arguments about 'substantial' investment in the NHS and defence coming at the expense of other departments, although Mr Johnson warned on Wednesday the money may not be enough. In his snap reaction to the review, Mr Johnson said: 'Aiming to get back to meeting the NHS 18-week target for hospital waiting times within this Parliament is enormously ambitious – an NHS funding settlement below the long-run average might not measure up. 'And on defence, it's entirely possible that an increase in the Nato spending target will mean that maintaining defence spending at 2.6% of GDP no longer cuts the mustard.' Ms Curtice added that low and middle-income families had also done well out of the spending review 'after two rounds of painful tax rises and welfare cuts', with the poorest fifth of families benefiting from an average of £1,700 in extra spending on schools, hospitals and the police. She warned that, without economic growth, another round of tax rises was likely to come in the autumn as the Chancellor seeks to balance the books. She said: 'The extra money in this spending review has already been accounted for in the last forecast. 'But a weaker economic outlook and the unfunded changes to winter fuel payments mean the Chancellor will likely need to look again at tax rises in the autumn.' Speaking after delivering her spending review, Ms Reeves insisted she would not have to raise taxes to cover her spending review. She told GB News: 'Every penny of this is funded through the tax increases and the changes to the fiscal rules that we set out last autumn.'
Telegraph
43 minutes ago
- Telegraph
US Open 2025 first round: Leaderboard and latest updates from Oakmont
By Uche Amako Good morning and welcome to coverage of the third major of the year – the US Open. This year's tournament will take place at Oakmont Country Club, which is one of the toughest tests in the sport. Scottie Scheffler is the favourite to make it back-to-back major wins and is well aware of the daunting task ahead. 'There's not really many areas where you step on the tee box and you're like, hey, I can miss it right here, hey, I can shade towards the left side of the fairway because right is really bad,' said Scheffler. 'Actually, if you hit it in the right rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green; if you hit it in the left rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green. So might as well try and split the difference there and hit it in the middle.' Last year's winner Bryson DeChambeau is looking to become the first repeat winner since Brooks Koepka in 2018. 'It's been a lot of fun just experiencing what the fans are giving me. It's so much energy,' said DeChambeau, who briefly held the final round lead at the Masters in April and finished runner-up at the PGA Championship last month. 'The only reason why I'm still here with this much energy is because of them, and even last week [at the LIV Golf event] in Virginia, the crowds were really great and pumping me on. 'Am I tired? For sure. But am I excited? I'm more excited than I am tired.' Rory McIlroy has struggled since achieving the career slam at the Masters and last week missed the cut at the Canadian Open. To win the US Open, he thinks patience will be key. 'It's very penal if you miss,' he said. 'Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win. 'There's definitely been a little bit of rain since I played. Last Monday felt impossible. I birdied the last two holes for 81. It felt pretty good. It didn't feel like I played that bad. 'It's much more benign right now than it was that Monday. They had the pins in dicey locations, and greens were running fast. It was nearly impossible. 'If you put it in the fairway, it's certainly playable. But then you just have to think about leaving your ball below the hole and just trying to make as many pars as you can. 'You get yourself in the way of a few birdies, that's a bonus.'
