Grand National receives worldwide exposure – including in the skies and on the seas 

Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree was available to watch in all corners of the globe – and above it – with live coverage of the world’s most famous Jumps race also available on airlines.

Working with The Jockey Club, which owns and operates Aintree Racecourse and stages the Grand National, Racecourse Media Group (RMG) and HBA Media secured 30 broadcasters, including Sport 24, who broadcast the race on 27 airlines and cruise lines.

For the first time, India’s leading OTT sports streaming platform, Fancode, broadcast all three days of the Grand National Festival, while leading broadcast networks such as Viaplay (pan Europe), Setanta (Balkans and Eurasia), Polsat (Poland)  and WeDoTV (Germany, Switzerland, Austria) showcased the fixture in Europe. SuperSport and ESPN Star+ guaranteed pan-regional live coverage across Africa, and South America and the Caribbean.

In the UK the Grand National was broadcast on ITV – which pulled in an audience of 7.5 million – while Virgin Media screened the race in Ireland. RMG’s own TV channel, Racing TV, also showed the race in homes and 10,000 pubs in the UK and Ireland.

CNN covered the race for its flagship World Sport programme, which reaches over 370 million households, while Trans World Sport, the leading global sports magazine programme, provided added exposure. Coverage of the race was also widely available to news outlets across the world via Reuters and SNTV.

Dickon White, The Jockey Club’s regional director for the North West, said: “The wide range of interest from international broadcasters further endorses the Grand National’s status as the world’s most famous Jumps race, if not the most famous horse race anywhere on the planet.

“Working with RMG and HBA Media, we are delighted to attract what will be a truly global audience including via some of the biggest names in sports broadcasting.”

Radio listeners enjoyed live coverage in the UK courtesy of BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT, while Racing TV Radio, which syndicates audio on behalf of Aintree Racecourse, distributed to regional, national and international news stations.