News

Dorna Sports is pleased to announce that the 2016 WorldSBK season will have global broadcast coverage across six continents, ensuring the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship incredible exposure worldwide and giving every Round of the 2016 season a global audience in the hundreds of millions. The 2016 season recently got underway at Phillip Island in Australia with two classic last lap battles sure to have set the tone for another incredible year of wheel-to-wheel racing, with the action even more accessible than ever before for the fans.

Europe
In Europe, Eurosport provides in-depth coverage of WorldSBK for fans across the continent, with exclusive live coverage of all races and qualifying sessions of WorldSBK and WorldSSP in 2016 for the United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Germany, BMW’s home soil, with exclusivity remaining in the UK until 2018 as recently announced. The Discovery Group Sports Channel will also provide wide-ranging coverage in more than 40 other European countries, meaning the entire continent from Portugal to 2015 WorldSSP Champion Kenan Sofuoglu’s home nation of Turkey will have world-class coverage of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship from 2016.

In the UK, the exclusive deal on British Eurosport will see every Round of the WorldSBK and WorldSSP Championships broadcast live throughout the country, including every STK1000 race and both classes of the Tissot-Superpole sessions. Eurosport will ensure no fan is left without coverage of the world’s premier production motorcycle racing series. In addition, there will be free to air coverage for UK fans with ITV4 airing a 46 minute highlight programme featuring all the best of the weekend’s racing, transmitted every Tuesday after the Round in an evening prime time spot.

In Spain, TVE Sports’ channel Teledeporte will continue to broadcast the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, with home fans able to follow the on track success of their riders Xavi Forés and Jordi Torres in WorldSBK, with all the WorldSSP and Tissot-Superpole action from both Championships also shown live. TVE’s commitment to WorldSBK is guaranteed as the network has announced its intention to present the Spanish rounds live from the circuits, with a HF camera and tailor-made programming for Spanish fans. 

TV3 will further provide live coverage throughout Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Andorra from 2016 on, with the Catalan broadcaster adding another language to the many in which WorldSBK already enjoys in-depth and unrivaled coverage. Catalan rider Jordi Torres will form the focus of TV3 broadcasts, giving the passionate home fans of the rider from Barcelona a previously unseen level of customized coverage in Catalan.

In Italy, the superlative coverage of Mediaset’s channel Italia 1 will transmit every race of WorldSBK, WorldSSP and STK1000 live for the fourth consecutive year. With an on-site presence at every single Round of the season, the broadcaster will give the millions of Italian fans of WorldSBK incredible coverage of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship as Aprilia and Ducati aim to reclaim the title in 2016 and the likes of MV Agusta set their sights even further up the grid. Mediaset will also provide special content and retransmissions throughout the Italian rounds of the Championship.

Asia & Oceania
Asia has always played an important part in WorldSBK and consequently can count on industry-leading coverage courtesy of Fox Asia, spanning more than 25 countries across the continent. The Asian giant will broadcast every WorldSBK, WorldSSP and STK1000 race either live or later the same day, ensuring fans continent-wide can see WorldSBK on the home of Asian two-wheeled motorsport. WorldSBK especially embraces Fox Asia coverage of the rounds in Thailand and Malaysia, and Thai Channel 3 will also air all the races live of the Thai round; in addition showing a 46 minute highlight programme after each round.  Fox Asia will focus especially on the new Malaysian arrival to the WorldSBK paddock Zulfahmi Khairruddin with special interviews before and after each round.

In Japan, JSPORTS will provide coverage across the Land of the Rising Sun as key protagonists Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha face each other down on the track. Both WorldSBK and WorldSSP races will be shown live or SDD (later the same day), ensuring fans never miss a lap of the action. The broadcaster will also stream some rounds on the internet, and special coverage of some rounds will focus on home riders such as WorldSSP rider Hikari Okubo.

In Australia, Fox Sports Australia will provide exclusive coverage of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, with every race shown live and WorldSBK Tissot-Superpole sessions either shown live or later the same day. Australian fans have high hopes for the coming seasons in the likes of the new arrivals in the paddock: Josh Brookes and the youngster Josh Hook. If someone missed the exciting races, they will have a new opportunity to catch up on SBS2 with free-to-air highlights and extended coverage compared to 2015.

SKY will provide exclusive coverage throughout the neighbouring nation of New Zealand, with every race of WorldSBK, WorldSBK and STK1000 also shown live or later on the same day.

The Americas
beIN Sports is now the home of two-wheeled racing in the US and Canada, with the channel renewing exclusive broadcast rights to WorldSBK and MotoGP also joining the network from 2016. The channel will show every race live or later the same day as fans watch home heroes Nicky Hayden in WorldSBK and PJ Jacobsen in WorldSSP try to take on the titans of their classes and lift the title, whilst also following the Spanish speakers with Spanish language transmissions.  The network will also offer unilateral special coverage and commentary of the US round, to be held at the iconic Laguna Seca circuit, as well as promoting the championship throughout beIN programming, such as in news and sports magazine shows.

In Brazil, ESPN Brazil will provide English and Portuguese coverage of the Championship, with every Round broadcast across the country. WorldSBK, WorldSSP and STK1000 will all be shown live or SDD, with the exclusive deal signed until 2018.

Throughout the rest of Latin America, Fox Sports LATAM will broadcast WorldSBK with an exclusive deal ensuring fans continent-wide get all the action from the MOTUL FIM Superbike World either live or later on the same day. Argentinian fans will again be focusing on Leandro Mercado, who will try to clinch his second STK1000 Cup title.

Middle East & Africa
In the Middle East and across North Africa, continental network beIN Sport will broadcast WorldSBK in Arabic, Farsi, English, Spanish and French in more than 20 countries, with both WorldSBK and WorldSSP races transmitted live or SDD, paying special attention to the Qatari rider Al Sulaiti.

Africa also has a continent-wide agreement with the SuperSport network, which will offer each race and qualifying session live or later the same day in the language of each of the more than 50 nations covered, from Angola to Zimbabwe and South Africa.

As well as the race broadcasts, Reuters, SNTV and Perform News agencies will be distributing WorldSBK news worldwide, ensuring update is always at fans’ fingertips. 

Further to following WorldSBK on TV, web traffic to WorldSBK.com has also increased significantly, with 16.53% more traffic over the 2015 season than the previous year. With 20.79% more new users, it is not only on television that the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is growing. Unique page views also grew 8.29% over the 2015 season, with users spending an average of 10.35% more time per visit on WorldSBK.com.

Social media has also followed this pattern of growth, with the WorldSBK Twitter community now 40% bigger than the start of the 2015 season. Instagram followers have also increased by 120,000 since the first round of 2015, and Facebook, the biggest online community, has increased by 40% and has shown a 130% increase in total reach, now in the region of a million.

Wherever you are in the world, World Superbike will be broadcast for fans all over the globe like never before in 2016, making sure you never miss a lap of the world’s premier production motorcycle racing Championship: WorldSBK.