As no Sydney races will be seen on Sky Channel from 20/3/04 it's time all punters gave the Sydney race clubs the message and refused to bet on Sydney meetings. The turnover loss will be disasterous in my opinion.

The race clubs have an excellent commodity to sell but broadcasting it on a channel available to very few punters is beyond belief.

When Joh Bjelke Petersen was premier of Queensland the car stickers read YOU'RE IN JOE'S STATE TURN BACK ALL CLOCKS 10 YEARS.
They will now have to produce a new sticker for Sydney racing, THE'RE RACING IN SYDNEY TURN ALL CLOCKS BACK 20 YEARS AND LISTEN TO THEM ON THE RADIO.

The Sydney race clubs are a joke.

TLM,
I agree with you on one point - the loss of revenue from not having SKY broadcast Sydney races will be huge. The biggest loser will in fact be SKY's owner - the NSW TAB!
Personally I think the NSW & VIC race clubs plan to "buy back the farm" has a great deal of merit.
I guess they had to do it now - when the NSW and VIC TABS amalgamate their collective bargaining muscle will be even harder to counter.
It would be refreshing to watch the main gallop meetings without being constantly interrupted by every dog, pacer, camel race from here to Woop-Woop. Detailed race previews from people without any agenda to increase turnover is one obvious feature an independent broadcaster could provide.
My main query is how will the race clubs' new channel operate?
Will it be available on Foxtel and Optus?
If so at what extra cost?
Does SKY have any exclusive arrangements?
I don't know - has anyone on the forum heard anything??



[ This Message was edited by: zorro on 2004-03-18 23:11 ]

From what I can understand it will be broadcast by the clubs on channel 31, which at this stage I can not access, so looks like extra dollars if we wan't to watch syd racing.

You can watch Saturdays Sydney races live on the internet at http://www.stc.com.au