As of 1 January 2019, Attheraces (ATR) will be rebranded as Sky Sports Racing (SSR) and, according to the Racing Post, will be available to all Sky TV customers at no additional cost.
Why is this important? Two reasons:
First it reaffirms Sky's commitment to horse racing. The proposed rebranding was announced several months ago, but since then ATR has lost the rights to Racing UK (RUK) to show all Irish racing (and Chelmsford) from the start of next year, something which must have cast doubt on whether Sky would still go ahead with the rebranding of ATR. The fact that they are doing so is highly significant and could spell trouble for RUK. There is no way that Sky will lend its name to a racing channel and then simply let it fail, as might well have happened to ATR without Sky's support. Even more significant is the announcement that two of RUK's current tracks, Bangor and Chester, are switching to SSR next year. This is a clear sign that SSR is out to increase its portfolio of UK courses over the next couple of years and, given the money that Sky has at its disposal potentially to make certain RUK tracks offers which they can't refuse and which RUK simply can't match, Bangor and Chester are unlikely to be the last to switch channels. It's already common knowledge that SSR is interested in taking Ascot from RUK and you can be sure that they will be targeting others as well, especially the independent RUK tracks. My guess is that SSR will be looking to have around 35 UK tracks in its portfolio (perhaps even more), so there are going to be some interesting (and for RUK potentially uncomfortable) times ahead.
no one really knows what the future holds but international racing will be a part of the new package for sure and luckily sa racing times make it a good product.
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