The 2024 Bathurst 1000 race weekend have seen some familiar media faces back on TV with the likes of Molly Taylor, Chris Stubbs & Aaron Noonan at least for Seven who covered this race as Supercars’s free-to-air partner alongside Fox Sports.
We all know Stubbsy has just came back from a huge year himself covering the Grand Slam Daily Tennis shows and also reported the recent Summer Olympics in Paris for Stan Sport as he will continue to do so next year starting with the Australian Open at Melbourne Park since he’s freelance. Plus, Molly came back to TV duties after all since the SpeedSeries season finale event nearly a year ago at this same track also for Stan & 9Gem before Seven regained the rights at season’s end. She wasn’t required to stay on alongside Matt White & Fabian Coulthard, having done some rallying/rallycross driving work since then.
It’s also nice to see her contribute to some pit reporting on the shared broadcast commentary feed at the Mountain alongside Greg Murphy, Mark Larkham, Chad Neylon and Riana Crehan.
Then there’s always versatile sports hosts in Mel McLaughlin & Emma Freedman once a year at our greatest race when Mark Beretta and Jack Perkins continues to steer the ship whenever Seven is allowed to air select Supercars events live every year with everything else being highlights (usually six out of 12/13).
Next Supercars TV rights deal from 2026-2030
Now even though we will see a three-race Finals series for the first time late next year – similar to NASCAR’s Playoffs albeit a much simpler & shorter version, the next TV rights contract from 2026 is still up for grabs that should take another few years to at least around the end of 2030 – coinciding with the arrival of Toyota as the 3rd Supercars manufacturer using Supras.
First of all, the paid TV package will always stay as Supercars’s primary financial source since Seven previously left following the 2014 season as an exclusive broadcaster before Seven came back to replace Network 10 a few years ago as the competition’s secondary TV partner to Fox Sports. There’s also the benefit of watching every event live and on-demand without ads during racing but when it comes to the free-to-air part, it still needs some work. Okay, there’s no way we will get to see all Supercars races live again like it once was a long time ago. It would be great though if they had at least all other Sunday afternoon Supercars-only races live on top of six full event major event races every year – similar to NRL and AFL every week with 3/4 weekly games on free-to-air while the rest being via Pay TV.
Whoever retains or takes over the rights remains to be seen, but hopefully Supercars can get a bit more free-to-air content that is well balanced likewise with the other major sporting codes while still maintaining Pay TV as the competition’s primary source – it should be a win/win for all motorsport people involved here at the end of the day.
