Nine's Wide World of Sports

For other uses, see Wide World of Sports (disambiguation).

*Nine's Wide World of Sports*

Division of:	Nine Network
Headquarters:	Willoughby, New South Wales
Major Broadcasting Contracts:	NRL State of Origin Rugby League Four Nations NBL The Ashes International cricket in Australia Cricket World Cup Matador BBQ Cup Tour Down Under
Parent:	Nine Entertainment Co.
Website:	wwos.com.au

Nine's Wide World of Sports is a long running sports anthology brand on Australian television, aired on the Nine Network. All major sports, events and series covered by the network are broadcast under this brand, the flagship sports being rugby league (National Rugby League), cricket (Australian Summer of Cricket), spring and autumn horse racing, swimming and golf (British Open). Australian rules football was also aired until Nine lost the Australian Football League free-to-air broadcast rights in 2006.

History

Wide World of Sports (WWoS) is a long-used title for Nine's sport programming. All sports broadcasts on Nine air under the WWoS brand. It was also the name of a popular sports magazine program that aired most Saturdays and Sundays. This program filled many of the summer daytime hours. The program premiered at 1:00 pm on Saturday, 23 May 1981, and was initially hosted by Mike Gibson and Ian Chappell, before being hosted in the 1990s by Max Walker and Ken Sutcliffe. Ian Maurice was the regular anchor at the WWOS Update Desk. The show ended in 1999, due in large part to the rise of Fox Sports (which Nine's owner owned half of) and other subscription sport channels., but the show returned in 2008 on Sunday mornings.

From the late 1970s, the main sport aired nationally under the WWoS brand was cricket. Nine's majority owner Kerry Packer created World Series Cricket in part because he couldn't obtain the rights to Australian test matches at home, even though he offered the Australian Cricket Board a $1.5 million 3-year contract which was rejected by the ACB who signed a 3-year deal with the ABC to broadcast test matches. This led to Packer signing in secret some of the world's best cricket players for a breakaway competition. The ACB and Nine then signed a truce after a long dispute in 1979, with Nine securing the exclusive rights to telecast Australian cricket.

From that point until 2006, Nine based its summer schedule around broadcasts of cricket internationally and domestic. Its cricket broadcasts in that era revolutionised the way the sport was covered, featuring cameras placed at both ends of the field (after Packer famously complained about seeing "cricketer's bums" every second over), instant replays, and other innovations. World Series Cricket made many other changes to cricket, having a huge impact on the game.

In 1984, Billy Birmingham (The Twelfth Man) released a best-selling comedy album making fun of the cricket portion of the show. He went on to release a series of albums ridiculing all aspects of Wide World of Sports, calling the show "Wired World of Sports". From the first to the most recent (2006), all have reached number one on the Australian album chart.

January 1995 saw the beginning of Premier Sports Network, the channel that was to become Fox Sports. It secured the rights to Australia's cricket tour of the West Indies, Nine's first challenge since winning its World Series war. Nine tried to stop the broadcast under Australia's 'anti-siphoning' rules, which exist to stop certain popular sporting events being screened exclusively on pay television. But it failed when Premier Sports Network came to an agreement to broadcast the tour free to air on Network 10.

WWoS's other main sport was and is rugby league. This was challenged in 1997 by the establishment of Super League, the repercussions of which led to Nine's parent company owning half of Fox Sports that year, and ultimately Nine's move away from popular live sport.

This partial purchase of Fox Sports roughly coincided with the end of Nine's traditional Saturday and Sunday daytime schedule of sports programming. What had once filled it now filled subscription channels, mainly Fox Sports. Old movies and other low rating programs filled much of the space.

Between the late 1970s and 1997, when Australians had wanted to watch continuous sport at home on a summer weekend, they had largely done so by tuning to Nine. Those in NSW, Queensland and the ACT did this all year round, due to rugby league's popularity in those areas. Now Fox Sports had that mantle, and gave viewers continuous sport all week long.

On 25 January 2001, The Nine Network acquired broadcast rights for Friday night and Sunday games in the Australian Football League, the elite Australian rules football competition in 2001. They shared the rights with Network Ten and Foxtel from 2002 through to 2006, but the deal assigned the rights for finals matches to Network Ten, a deal which reportedly flabbergasted Nine boss Kerry Packer.

As it also had the rights for all major swimming competitions until 2008, with major swimming competitions shown in primetime. During the early to mid-2000s, Nine for the first time had the FTA rights to the highest competitions of Australia's four biggest spectator sports: rugby league, Australian rules (shared with Ten), cricket and swimming. While Nine no longer had the volume of sport it once had, during the 2000-2006 period it dominated non-Olympic sport broadcasting in Australia.

In January 2006, the Seven Network and Network Ten exercised their "first and last" rights agreement with the AFL to trump the Nine Network's $780 million bid for broadcasting rights for the years 2007 to 2011. If Seven and Ten were unable to match the AFL's "quality of coverage" demands by 5 May 2006 (better coverage into regional areas, northern states and on pay television, as promised in the Nine bid) the AFL would have been allowed to award the broadcasting rights back to Nine. The Seven/Ten consortium, however, obtained the rights, with Nine broadcasting its last AFL match on a Sunday hosted by Tony Jones with a guest appearance from Nine's then chief executive and former AFL commentator Eddie McGuire.

From the beginning of the 2006-2007 cricket season, Nine no longer broadcast Australian domestic cricket but replaced the coverage with ldelayed National Basketball League matches. The domestic cricket matches, long a mainstay of Nine's summer programming, moved exclusively to Fox Sports.

It was thought that the Seven Network would continue its tradition of airing the Olympic Games for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. However, Nine in joint partnership with Foxtel, has secured broadcasting rights which the network has described as the most comprehensive coverage of the Olympics. The partnership also won the rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

For more than 40 years, the Nine Network had also broadcast the prestigious Wimbledon tennis tournament before ultimately dropping it after the 2010 tournament, citing declining ratings.^[1] The last Wimbledon match televised by Nine was the men's singles final played between Rafael Nadal and Tomáš Berdych, which Nadal won. The Seven Network have since picked up the broadcasting rights to Wimbledon, from 2011 onwards.^[2]

Return

After a ten-year hiatus, it was announced that the 'Wide World of Sports' program would return to Nine on 16 March 2008.^[3] This show is hosted by the previous host Ken Sutcliffe, with footy show star James Brayshaw as well as former Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist.

In 2009, revolving co-hosts included former swimmers Giaan Rooney, Nicole Livingstone and former cricketer Michael Slater. The show originally aired for 90 minutes but was recently extended to two hours. It airs on Sunday mornings at 9am till 11am.

Wide World of Sports returned for another year in 2009. Michael Slater and Grant Hackett joined the team as co-hosts alongside Ken Sutcliffe and Giaan Rooney. Nicole Livingstone did not return to the program in 2009, as she joined Network Ten as a commentator. Giaan Rooney resigned from the Nine Network at the end of 2012 to join the Seven Network.

The show was nominated for the Most Popular Sports Program award at the 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015 Logie Awards, being beaten by The NRL Footy Show on all occasions.

The show is currently airing in 2015 at 10AM Sundays.

Events

Nine's Wide World of Sports holds broadcast rights to the following events:

Current

Sport	Event	Broadcast Partners(s)	Dates	Notes
Basketball	National Basketball League	Fox Sports (2007, 2015–)	2007, 2015–	1 match every Sunday afternoon match Live on 9Gem
Basketball	FIBA Oceania Championship		2015	Australian Boomers matches only, Live on Nine
Basketball	FIBA Oceania Women's Championship		2015	Australian Opals matches only, Live on Nine
Cricket	Australia in England	Fox Sports (2010-2013)	1977–1997, 2010–	All Test Matches, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals, Live on Nine
Cricket	International Cricket in Australia		1979–	All Test Matches, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals live on Nine into all states
Cricket	Matador BBQs One-Day Cup		1980s–2005-06, 2013-	Most matches live on 9Gem
Cricket	World Twenty20	Fox Sports	2007, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016	All Australian Matches Only
Cricket	World Cup	Fox Sports	1992, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015	All Australian Matches only and final live on nine.
Cycling	Tour Down Under		2012–	5 stages highlights package, last stage live. All Stages live on 9Gem
Rugby league	National Rugby League	Fox Sports	1961–1970, 1992–	3 live matches each week. 1 Thursday night match LIVE, 1 Friday night match LIVE and 1 Sunday afternoon match LIVE. All finals matches live including grand final. All 3 matches shown LIVE on 9Gem in VIC, SA & WA.
Rugby league	State of Origin series	Fox Sports (Highlights)	1983–1989, 1991-	Live on Nine
Rugby league	ANZAC test		1997–
Rugby league	Rugby League Four Nations	Fox Sports	1999–	Every match live on Nine in NSW & QLD and all matches live on 9Gem in VIC, SA & WA.
Rugby league	World Club Challenge		2008-	Live on Nine or 9Gem
Rugby league	Queensland Cup	Fox Sports	2012-	One match live each round on Sunday on Nine into Queensland Only.
Soccer	International Champions Cup		2015–	All matches Live on Nine or 9Gem
Surfing	Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Ironman Series		2014–	Highlights on Nine

Past

Sport	Event	Broadcast Partners(s)	Dates	Reason/Subsequent Broadcasters
Winter Olympics	Albertville 1992, Lillehammer 1994, Vancouver 2010	Foxtel (2010)	1992, 1994, 2010	Outbid: Seven Network
Summer Olympics	Melbourne 1956, Montreal 1976, London 2012	ABC (1956-1976), Seven Network (1956-1976), Foxtel (2012)	1956, 1976, 2012	Outbid: Seven Network
Australian rules football	E. J. Whitten Legends Game		1996–2015	Dropped: Seven Network
American football	National Football League		1990s	Dropped: 7mate, ESPN
American football	Super Bowl		1990s	Dropped: Seven Network, ESPN
Australian rules football	Australian Football League	ABC (1957-1960s), HSV (1957-1960s), ATV (1965-1960s), Network Ten (2002-2006), Fox Footy Channel (2002-2006)	1957–1960s, 2002–2006	Outbid: Seven Network, Fox Footy
Australian rules football	International Rules Series		2005	Dropped: 7mate
Australian rules football	South Australian National Football League	ABC	1988–1992	Dropped: Seven Network
Baseball	Major League Baseball	ESPN (2014)	1980s–1990s, 2014	Dropped: ESPN
Commonwealth Games	Auckland 1990, Kuala Lumpur 1998, Melbourne 2006	Foxtel (2006)	1990, 1998, 2006	Outbid: Seven Network
Cricket	World Series Cricket		1977–1979
Golf	Australian Masters	Fox Sports	2009–2011	Dropped: Seven Network
Golf	British Open	Fox Sports	1980s–2011	Dropped: Fox Sports
Golf	U.S. Masters		1990s–2006	Dropped: 7mate
Golf	U.S. PGA Championship		1980s-2000s	Dropped: Fox Sports
Golf	Presidents Cup	Fox Sports	2011	Dropped: Fox Sports
Horse Racing	Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival	Sky Racing	2007–2012	Dropped: Seven Network
Horse Racing	Autumn Racing Carnival	Sky Racing	2007–2012	Dropped: Seven Network
Motor Racing	A1 Grand Prix	Fox Sports (2005-2009)	2009
Motor Racing	Formula One		1980–2002	Dropped: Network Ten
Motor Racing	Moto GP		1987–1996	Dropped: Network Ten & Fox Sports (2015-)
Motor Racing	IndyCar World Series	Fox Sports	1996-2000s	Dropped Fox Sports
Rugby league	European Super League		2009–2011	Dropped Eurosport
Rugby league	European Challenge Cup		2009–2011	Dropped Eurosport
Rugby league	Rugby League World Cup	Fox Sports	1992–2008	Dropped: TBA
Rugby union	Rugby World Cup	Fox Sports	2011, 2015	Dropped:
Rugby union	Super Rugby	Fox Sports	2011–2012	Dropped: Network Ten (Highlights) & Fox Sports (Live)
Rugby union	Bledisloe Cup	Fox Sports	2011–2012	Dropped: Network Ten & Fox Sports
Rugby union	The Rugby Championship	Fox Sports	2011–2012	Dropped: Network Ten & Fox Sports
Rugby union	Wallabies Rugby Internationals	Fox Sports	2011–2012	Dropped: Network Ten & Fox Sports
Rugby union	Wallabies Spring Tour	Fox Sports	2011–2012	Dropped: Network Ten & Fox Sports
Soccer	2002 FIFA World Cup	SBS	2002	Dropped: SBS
Swimming	Australian Swimming Championships		1985-2008	Outbid: Network Ten
Swimming	Pan Pacific Swimming Championships		1985–2006	Outbid: Network Ten
Tennis	French Open	Fox Sports	2003–2009	Dropped: Fox Sports
Tennis	Wimbledon	Fox Sports	1970–2010	Dropped: Seven Network
Tennis	U.S. Open	Fox Sports	1980s–2009	Dropped: Fox Sports
Tennis	Masters Cup		2001
Yacht racing	18ft Skiff		1990s
Tennis	Fast4 Tennis		2015	N/A

¹ The Nine Network televised the 2011 US Open final between Serena Williams and Samantha Stosur in its entirety.^[4]

Programs

Nine's Wide World of Sports has presented the following recurring programs:

Sport (Event)	Program	Years
All	Wide World of Sports	1981–1999, 2008-
All	Saturday Night Sport Time Live	2015-
Australian Rules Football	The AFL Footy Show	1994-
Australian Rules Football	The AFL Sunday Footy Show	1993-
Australian Rules Football	Any Given Sunday	2005–2006
Cricket	The Cricket Show	1995-
Cricket	Ashes to Ashes	2006
Rugby League	The NRL Footy Show	1994-
Rugby League	The NRL Sunday Footy Show	1993-
Rugby League	Boots N' All	2001–2005
Rugby League	The Sunday Roast (NRL)	2005-2014
Rugby League	Footy Classified NRL Finals (NRL)	2015-

Presenters and commentators

Nine's Wide World of Sports has hosts and commentators for a variety of sporting events. The following is a list of past and present personalities featured: