The fever with which eight national newspapers dived in to stream England’s World Cup football qualifier in Ukraine following the collapse of the broadcaster Setanta last year has yet to be replicated on such a scale. (Let’s not dwell here on the technical troubles that blighted much of that match).
Despite this national newspaper websites are growing increasingly accustomed to showing sports packages on their websites.
The Guardian is just one which shows highlights of Premiership rugby and other sports.
Telegraph Media Group has now proved that it is hungry to add regular live action to the sporting reflection that has been more traditional newspaper fare through live streaming sports which don’t have such a big impact when broadcast on TV.
Related
Telegraph.co.uk has this week been showing exclusive online coverage of live matches from the Hockey World Cup in India.
It has also signed a deal to stream live coverage of the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha on its website later this month.
The deal with the International Association of Athletics Federations will allow TMG to show coverage of the GB & NI team in action in the Qatari capital from 12-14 March.
The fillip to all of this is a sponsorship deal with Aviva (which also sponsors UK Athletics) for the Doha coverage. Perhaps other newspapers should be looking at less TV friendly sporting events as a way to make the paywall more appealing to readers?
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