C7 Sport

C7 Sport
C7 Sport Logo
Launched	19 September 1995
Closed	7 May 2002
Owned by	Seven West Media
Picture format	576i (SDTV)
Slogan	See More Action, C7 Sport
Country	Australia
Language	English
Replaced	Sports Australia (prior in March 1999)
Sister channel(s)	C7 Twelve C7 Thirteen
Availability at time of closure
Satellite
Austar	Channel 12, 13
Cable
Optus Vision	Channel 12, 13

C7 Sport was a pay-TV service in Australia, owned and run by Seven Network. The service was carried on the Austar and Optus Vision pay-TV networks between 1995 and 2002. Seven unsuccessfully pursued court action against competitors, seeking damages of $480 million, but lost the case and was described by the judge as exhibiting "more than a hint of hypocrisy" in regard to the issue of price-ramping of broadcast rights.

When Optus Vision launched in 1995, it carried two sports channels: Sports Australia, and Sports AFL (which showed Australian Football League games.) These channels were run by a company called Sports Vision, in which Seven Network was a partner. A third channel, Sports Australia 2, was added during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and later used to show additional live programming.

The programming lineup on the Sports Australia service rivalled Fox Sports, with the AFL, Australian Rugby League premiership, the Australian National Soccer League, the FA Premier League, and Sheffield Shield cricket. At the time, Fox Sports focused on less popular sports.

In 1997 Sports Vision ran into financial difficulty; Sports Australia struggled to get viewers due to the limited reach of the Optus cable, and aggressive marketing of the Fox Sports service by Foxtel. The company eventually collapsed, but the Seven Network bought the channels and relaunched them on 1 March 1999 under the C7 Sport brand. Sports Australia became "C7 Gold", or "C7 Twelve", after its channel assignment on Optus. Sports Australia 2 became "C7 Blue", or "C7 Thirteen". Sports AFL's programming was carried on the other two channels.

Shortly afterwards, Seven signed a deal with Austar that saw C7 become available to most of regional Australia from April. Austar had many more subscribers than Optus at the time. Before the deal, C7 had only been available in the small Optus cabled areas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. C7 was never available to the majority of people in the capital cities (except Hobart and Darwin).