Sky Sports gets on track with W Series

Sky Sports has signed a three-year deal to broadcast the W Series.

Every qualifying session and race will be shown by the broadcaster, with the competition joining F1 on the pay-TV provider.

The agreement also includes distribution of W Series content across Sky’s channels, including linear, digital, and social.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 will broadcast highlight coverage from every W Series race in 2022.

The coverage will include build-up, paddock insights and analysis, with every race also being available on demand on All4. In addition, it will air the Silverstone race live to tie in with its live broadcast of the F1 race that takes place the same day. 

This is a drop in coverage from last year, when Channel 4 aired every race live.

The all-female racing series begins 7 May, with the first race taking place in Miami, USA. Its third season will feature eighteen women drivers compete for the W Series championship title, including last year’s champion Jamie Chadwick, and five drivers making their W Series debut. There are ten races this year, a new all-time high for the competition. 

W Series CEO Catherine Bond Muir said: “I’m delighted to announce our landmark broadcast partnership with Sky Sports, which is another significant step in W Series’ continued rapid expansion. Throughout our conversations with Sky, I’ve been impressed by their commitment to women’s sport and plans to amplify coverage of W Series across their vast portfolio of distribution channels, which will add real weight to our offering across broadcast, digital, and social platforms.

“This partnership enables W Series to continue to expand its viewership within the UK. Alongside Sky, Channel 4 will continue its free-to-air coverage of the entire W Series season with highlights of every race, and will also broadcast live our home race at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July. With this broad broadcast offering, we have the perfect mix of coverage across our UK audience.

“W Series is an increasingly international series – more than half of the races during the 2022 season will take place outside Europe, including our first-ever race in Asia in support of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. Our broadcast partnership with Sky Sports reflects this, giving us great breadth of coverage across Sky’s global platforms and we’re excited to showcase incredibly exciting racing through fantastic content, direct to our fans.”

Sky Sports MD Jonathan Licht commented: “In addition to Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, Sky Sports are delighted to be growing our motorsport portfolio with this recently established elite women’s series. It feels like Sky Sports is a natural home for W Series, given we have such a dedicated motorsport audience and a dedicated motorsport genre channel.

“We pride ourselves in being a good partner to sport and it’s been a privilege to work alongside Catherine and her team to come up with a broadcast offering that works for everyone. It is clearly a very exciting time to be a part of this journey.

“At Sky Sports we are committed to making sport more inclusive and I can now proudly say that, with the addition of W Series, every genre channel at Sky Sports now has both men’s and women’s sports coverage.

“We look forward to sharing the excitement of this upcoming season with our viewers.”

Channel 4’s head of news & current affairs & specialist factual & sport, Louisa Compton added: “The return of W Series is great news for motorsport fans and we’re very excited to bring viewers coverage of the 2022 season. The all-women motor championship perfectly aligns with Channel 4: innovative, boundary-breaking, and is sure to keep fans on the edge of their seats.”