KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney to be live on Seven Network as league announces free-to-air partnership With less than one month to go until the league returns to Sydney
SailGP, the purpose-driven, global racing league, and one of the world’s fastest-growing sports properties, continues to expand its broadcast offering in Australia with the announcement it has secured a new free-to-air partnership with the Seven Network for the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix I Sydney.
In one month’s time more Australian viewers than ever can enjoy the on-water action of the league’s Sydney event on February 18-19, with the award-winning broadcast available live on both Fox Sports, Kayo Freebies and now the Seven Network.
The new partnership provides Seven with the right to broadcast the Sydney event live and free. The 90-minute live broadcast will be aired on 7mate from 16:00 to 17:30 AEDT on both days of racing, as Tom Slingsby’s Australia SailGP Team chase a third straight season title. In addition, Seven’s broadcast video-on-demand platform 7plus will showcase a ‘behind the scenes’ highlights programme for the remaining SailGP Season 3 race calendar, covering SailGP events in Sydney, Christchurch and the Grand Final in San Francisco in May 2023.
With SailGP’s global broadcast and digital audiences experiencing exceptional growth, fans clearly like what they see on the water. At the close of Season 2, the league’s total broadcast audience (dedicated and secondary) saw an increase of 220% to 826.7 million viewers with the dedicated broadcast audience of 41.2 million representing a 131% increase on Season 1. Over 700 broadcast hours were enjoyed per event in over 186 territories with the league being seen by more fans than ever before around the world. There were also 16 million event live stream views on SailGP’s digital platforms, including YouTube and Facebook, with a total watch time of 2.5 million hours.
Australia SailGP driver and CEO Tom Slingsby said: “It’s a huge achievement that in just its third season SailGP is forging partnerships with some of the biggest global names in sports broadcasting.
“Sydney was the destination for the first ever SailGP event in February 2019 and this February’s event will mark the fourth time SailGP has been staged on iconic ydney Harbour. This latest partnership with Seven highlights the significant commercial growth of SailGP in the Asia Pacific region and the confidence our partners have in our league.”
SailGP also recently registered the highest U.S. broadcast figures for the sport in 30 years as highlights of the Range Rover France Sail Grand Prix | Saint-Tropez were watched by over 1.6 million people.
With SailGP’s ambition to be the world’s most sustainable and purpose-driven global sports and entertainment platform, technology is at its heart. Each F50 catamaran competing in a SailGP race delivers 30,000 data points every second via Oracle Cloud. This gives broadcasters access not only to typical race information on a boat’s position, time and current leg, but more in-depth technical data to enhance their commentary and true insights into what it takes to
compete at the highest level and the complexities of the hydrofoiling F50.
This live free-to-air broadcast partnership with Seven for the Australian event and highlights program for remaining Season 3 events is in addition to SailGP’s ongoing partnership with Fox Sports. All Season 3 SailGP events will continue to be broadcast live across Fox Sports and Kayo Freebies. SailGP’s docu-series Racing on The Edge will also be available on Fox Sport, Kayo Freebies and 7plus.
The Seven Network partnership was facilitated by IMG, SailGP’s global agency for media rights, sponsorship and host venue rights. IMG is part of Endeavor, a strategic investor in SailGP.
Dale Levin, Senior Vice President and Co-Head of Media, APAC at IMG said: “The KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix I Sydney is fast becoming one of the most exciting events in the calendar and this latest deal with Seven Network shows the enormous appeal that the sport has for fans. We’re committed to finding new opportunities for fans to experience SailGP and help build the sport’s audience around the world.”
The KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix I Sydney is proudly supported by KPMG, the New South Wales Government through Destination New South Wales, Genesis, Place Management NSW and Skyy Vodka.
SailGP Season 3 Schedule // 2022-2023
2022
May 14-15 Bermuda Sail Grand Prix presented by Hamilton Princess
June 18-19 T-Mobile United States Sail Grand Prix | Chicago at Navy Pier
July 30-31 Great Britain Sail Grand Prix | Plymouth
August 19-20 ROCKWOOL Denmark Sail Grand Prix | Copenhagen
September 10-11 Range Rover France Sail Grand Prix | Saint-Tropez
September 24-25 Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucía – Cádiz presented by NEAR
November 12-13 Dubai Sail Grand Prix presented by P&O Marinas
2023
January 14-15 Singapore Sail Grand Prix | East Coast Park
February 18-19 KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney
March 18-19 ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Christchurch
May 6-7 United States Sail Grand Prix | San Francisco
Season 3 Grand Final
Media Release – Seven
