BRC supports free-to-air slot for races

The Brisbane Racing Club will support moves to broadcast its meetings on free-to-air television during the winter.

Behind-the-scenes negotiations have been underway in recent weeks for a free-to-air deal where Sky Racing’s premier Thoroughbred Central station would be shown.

Channel 7, which already shows Sky’s rival Racing.com’s Victorian and South Australian meetings, is the frontrunner.

It would likely be shown on the network’s 7Mate channel, however at least one other network has also shown interest.

Any deal would run for eight weeks with a full media rights deal needing to be finalised by July 1.

Sky is favourite to retain Queensland but a powerful lobby in the state is keen to go with Racing.com.

Media rights in Queensland are complicated because the BRC has a separate deal with Sky while RQ has a contract with Sky for all other Queensland meetings.

BRC chairman Neville Bell said the current negotiations involved Racing Queensland and not the BRC.

“But we would not stand in the way of free-to-air televising of our meetings,” Bell said.

“In fact we would support it to the best of our ability.”

Channel 7 already had the rights to show some of the Brisbane winter on its main channel but the carnival has been drastically reduced with only two Group One races.