ITV has lost the broadcasting rights for four iconic sporting events in 2026, with its snooker coverage set to take a significant hit. Despite having an extensive sports portfolio, which boasts this summer’s World Cup, the broadcaster will no longer air the Players Championship and Tour Championship.<\/p>\n
ITV<\/a> had previously announced a one-year extension to show the World Snooker Tour events in September 2024. The broadcast rights for these competitions have since been snapped up by Channel 5<\/a>, which will also host the British Open, dealing a further blow to ITV. Ben Frow, Chief Content Officer for 5 and Paramount UK, expressed his delight at the deal: “We are delighted to bring the World Snooker Tour to 5.”<\/p>\n He added: “The Tour Championship, Players Championship and British Open are top ranking tournaments featuring the world’s best players and making them available to view on free-to-air TV continues our mission to keep elite live sport accessible for fans across the UK.”<\/p>\n In September, World Snooker Tour chairman Steve Dawson said: “We are delighted to be working with 5 for the first time and to add a new broadcaster to our tour. Snooker has a long history of providing fans with free-to-air events with extensive live coverage so this is fantastic news for everyone who follows our sport.<\/p>\n “The Players Championship and Tour Championship are elite events contested only by the best of the best. Players are striving all season to climb the one year list and earn a place in these prestigious tournaments.<\/p>\n “And from 2026, 5 will also broadcast the British Open which is a historic event with its own unique identity including a random draw. We look forward to working with the 5 team on these events and ensuring that an outstanding product is delivered to snooker’s consistently huge audience.<\/p>\n “Our sport had incredible viewing figures throughout last season and we expect to see that trend continue as we grow across the world.”<\/p>\n The three snooker competitions aren’t the only sporting spectacles leaving ITV this year. Warner Bros Discovery and Eurosport secured a deal to broadcast the Tour de France until 2030, bringing an end to the free-to-air television coverage of the celebrated cycling race.<\/p>\n ITV had held the broadcasting rights for the cycling event since 2001. It has previously been reported that Warner Bros Discovery is considering the prospect of providing free-to-air coverage and highlights packages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ITV has lost the broadcasting rights for four iconic sporting events in 2026, with its snooker coverage set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[73920,1458,77,208,207706,121302,20680,382,16,15,207705],"class_list":{"0":"post-686978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-british-open","9":"tag-channel-5","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-itv","12":"tag-players-championship","13":"tag-tour-championship","14":"tag-tour-de-france","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-world-snooker-tour"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115871483561123344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}