A PAY TV-only shift for next year’s Bathurst 12 Hour is expected to be one of the flow-on effects of Supercars’ new TV deal.
Supercars used Monday night’s Bathurst 1000 launch to announce its long-awaited new broadcast deal, hailing a “record-breaking” new multi-year arrangement with existing partners Foxtel and Seven.
While Supercars declined to announce the nuts and bolts of the new deal, Australian Financial Review is reporting that it is a four-year deal worth around $200 million.
That’s a step up from its previous deal, which netted the same sum in cash and contra but over a five-year period.
But it is expected to come with the reduction of one round on free-to-air television, with Supercars and Seven yet to confirm its 2026 plans beyond the Bathurst 1000, Gold Coast 600 and Adelaide Grand Final.
The Bathurst 12 Hour will also likely become a Foxtel-only event next year under the new deal.
After being broadcast live in its entirety by Seven since 2015, industry sources have indicated to V8 Sleuth that next year’s event will not be shown on FTA.
Returning Supercars CEO James Warburton flagged in June that navigating the FTA component of the new broadcast deal was made complex by the differing investment levels between its two partners.
Supercars has been co-owners of the event with Bathurst Regional Council in mid-2015, and the organisation has worked hard to return the event to the scale of its pre-COVID boom with large fields underpinned by international teams and drivers.
Next year’s Bathurst 12 Hour will again shift dates to February 13-15, two weeks back from its traditional spot early in the month, in a bid to find clear space in the international GT calendar to draw more overseas entries.