Nine's Wide World of Sports
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| Division of: | Nine Network |
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| Headquarters: | Willoughby, New South Wales |
| Major Broadcasting Contracts: |
NRL State of Origin Rugby League Four Nations Suncorp Super Netball Constellation Cup The Ashes International Cricket Cricket World Cup Matador BBQ Cup Tour Down Under |
| Parent: | Nine Entertainment Co. |
| Website: | wwos |
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.
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.
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