The long-lasting Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race could have a brand new residence for the 2026 version of the occasion
Boat Race motion from 2025 (Picture: Getty) This text accommodates affiliate hyperlinks, we’ll obtain a fee on any gross sales we generate from it. Study extra
All that you must know concerning the large change to the Boat Race broadcast for 2026:
- New period: The 2026 Boat Race just isn’t showing on the BBC as a result of the broadcasting rights for the historic occasion have formally moved to Channel 4. This variation marks the tip of a long-standing partnership between the race organisers and the nationwide broadcaster.
- 5-year deal: The brand new settlement will see the broadcaster present protection of each the Oxford v Cambridge Males’s Boat Race and Ladies’s Boat Race for the following 5 years, beginning in 2026. The Boat Race attracted file viewership numbers in 2025, with The Ladies’s Boat Race the most-watched feminine sporting occasion in 2025 on the time.
- Free-to-air: The choice follows a brand new multi-year settlement that grants the channel unique rights to indicate each the lads’s and girls’s elite races. This deal ensures that the competitors stays accessible on free-to-air tv for viewers throughout the UK.
- Reasoning: Business components and the evolving panorama of sports activities media rights performed a big position within the transition between the 2 networks. The BBC had been the long-standing residence of the Boat Race, with its first broadcast protection in 1924, and had remained so, aside from ITV holding TV rights from 2005-09 and LBC holding the radio rights from 2005-10.
- What Channel 4 mentioned: Pete Andrews, head of sport at Channel 4, mentioned the broadcaster was “thrilled to have secured the rights to one of the vital iconic newbie sports activities occasions within the British calendar”. He mentioned: “The Boat Race is wealthy in custom and historical past and British curiosity within the occasion has by no means been stronger,” describing the occasion because the “crown jewel of the rowing calendar”.
- Adjustments on the BBC: The BBC has confronted rising stress to stability its sports activities funds as the prices for main stay broadcasting rights proceed to rise. Relinquishing the Boat Race permits the company to reallocate these funds towards different high-priority sporting and cultural commitments.
- What the BBC mentioned: The BBC claimed it had been “proud to broadcast the Boat Race over a few years”. In a press release, the broadcaster added: “Our choice to not proceed displays the troublesome decisions we have to make to make sure we ship one of the best worth for audiences with the cash that now we have.”
- Following the motion: Regardless of the transfer, the BBC will nonetheless present complete information protection and radio updates of the outcomes all through the day. Their sports activities web site will proceed to host highlights and written experiences for individuals who miss the stay motion.
- Going ahead: The transition displays a broader development in British broadcasting the place conventional “crown jewel” occasions are sometimes shuffled between main networks. Each Oxford and Cambridge athletes are ready to compete beneath the brand new cameras as they battle for glory on the Tideway, with the race getting underway on April 4.
- Learn extra: Most dramatic Boat Race Day sinkings, underwater protests and chaos.
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