The Telegraph<\/a> reported that the BBC’s director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski ‘showed very little enthusiasm’ for picking up the rights because he considered the race ‘elitist’. Times Radio has picked up the rights for free, on the agreement that they promote it across News UK’s network.<\/p>\nREAD MORE: Cheltenham tips: Tuesday’s best bets for EVERY race from our top tipster Newsboy<\/span><\/span>READ MORE: Thousands of Brits descend on Benidorm for cheaper Cheltenham alternative<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe BBC have seen a decline in viewing figures for the Boat Race in recent years, while production costs have increased.<\/p>\n
Kay-Jelski took over BBC Sport in 2024 and has overseen a change in the corporation’s approach, with the Commonwealth Games also lost alongside the Boat Race. There are reportedly doubts internally over the BBC continuing to show Wimbledon and the Six Nations, with Kay-Jelski insistent that the BBC doesn’t necessarily need live sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can still be relevant, you can still matter if you don\u2019t show the sport. No one out there can show it all. So, you just have to make sure you\u2019re in the conversation of the things that matter,” he said at the Financial Times\u2019s Business of Football Summit last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, we have audio rights to Formula 1 but not video rights, but we still have reporting and live pages and digital video that draw in millions and millions and millions of people. We\u2019re all living in this very different media landscape now where most of us are seeing things first on our phone anyway, and we\u2019re all swiping on the same tiny little screen.<\/p>\n
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\nThe Boat Race was first televised in 1938<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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\u201cThe BBC might have thought, traditionally, it was up against ITV, or Sky, or various other broadcasters. Well, guess what? We\u2019re not. We\u2019re in a race to not be swiped, up against people selling you holidays, or clothes companies, or two-for-one chicken breasts on sale from the supermarket, or football teams, or athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chair of The Boat Race Company, Siobhan Cassidy said of the deal: \u201cWe\u2019re delighted to announce Times Radio as our new radio partner on a multi-year deal commencing with this year\u2019s Boat Race on Saturday 4 April.
\u201cThe Boat Race prides itself on heritage, tradition, precision and quality and these are values shared by the Times Radio team and their listeners, to whom we are incredibly excited to deliver live coverage and supporting content of this year\u2019s and future events.\u201d<\/p>\n\nFREE William Hill Shop Bets inside your Mirror every day of Cheltenham<\/h3>\n\n
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Don’t miss a FREE shop bet inside your favourite racing paper every day of the Cheltenham festival! Plus, get expert inside from our top tipsters with pullouts every day from Tuesday March 10 – Friday March 13, 2026 covering the runners, riders, and everything you need to make the 102nd Cheltenham festival the biggest ever. Find out more here.<\/p>\n
Bet 18+ only. Terms and conditions apply. See paper for details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The BBC has lost the TV and radio rights to show the Boat Race this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}