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July 19, 2007
Sat.1 buys German TV rights
IHT.co | Sat.1 jumps in to cover Tour de France after it was dropped by two German stations
German TV station Sat.1 has acquired rights to the remainder of this year's Tour, starting today, after two German public broadcasters dropped the coverage in response to Patrik Sinkewitz's positive “A” sample for testosterone in June.
“I'm very happy that we can show one of the world's biggest sports events on such short notice — everyone connected to cycling deserves good coverage,” Sat.1 boss Matthias Alberti said.
ARD and ZDF are the two stations that dropped the coverage, and on Thursday, ZDF said it may seek compensation for lost income that resulted when ZDF stopped broadcasting the Tour.
“We bought the rights to a clean sports event,” ZDF managing editor Nikolas Bender told the Berliner Zeitung. “We will seek out talks with the Tour organizer Amaury Sports Organization.”
I hope they're not broadcasting golf.
Posted by Frank Steele on July 19, 2007 in Television | Permalink
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For part of Stage 11, I watched the new Tour live coverage on Sat.1 who bought the German rights...... [Read More]
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Comments
I can't believe this entire sport, or at least the dozen and dozens of cyclists coming up positive for some banned substance are all dirty when they know they are going to be tested, have a hell of chance of getting tested and sure as heck are going to get tested if they win. The rules of logic overwhelm that argument. So I am left to conclude there is something drastically wrong with the testing procedures. Floyd's book was an eye-opener about the testing authority and procedures, but I have to believe someone can clean this sport up, and I'm beginning to believe it's not the athletes that need the cleaning.
Posted by: Lisa at Jul 19, 2007 3:46:27 PM
Lisa,
I completely agree with you. If anyone knows, please explain why they don't throw that infamous lab out and acquire an unbiased, heavily checked lab to do the testing. It seems like an obvious decision to me but I may not know the whole story. I also thought Bob Roll made a really good point at the begining of the Tour saying that cycling is under so much scrutiny BECAUSE they are trying to be so aggressive to clean it up. I sure would love to see how Barry Bonds would do with all these restrictions. I heard poor David Miller couldn't even use a certain type of UV protector on his skin due to his latest sun allergy. So now we have topical drug concerns??
Posted by: Laura at Jul 19, 2007 4:29:04 PM
Here's how it works: A doctor or "nutritionist" is hired for the team. He provides "supplements" for the cyclists (or golfers or whatever -- no sport is clean). The cyclists *may* suspect something but generally no questions are asked. When they're caught, they're surprised. Sometimes the surprise is even genuine.
On the sports medicine side of things there's an arms race between the providers developing undetectable drugs and the regulating authorities finding them, banning them, and developing tests for them.
Posted by: Fritz at Jul 19, 2007 7:54:04 PM
