'Sport fans across Europe suffering from World Cup fatigue are offered an alternative '

Sports fans across Europe suffering from World Cup fatigue will be offered an alternative with a distinctly Northern Irish flavour next Friday June 23.
The thrills and spills of the North West 200 will be broadcast on Eurosport 2 for the second year running, allowing millions of fans in 53 countries to see just it is that makes the event the most celebrated motorcycle road race in the world.
And for the second year running, the broadcast has been brought about by an unlikely source – kickboxing kingpin Billy Murray.
Last year, when race organisers were looking for a major international broadcast partner, they contacted Murray because of his long relationship with Eurosport. Murray was only too happy to broker the deal and continue this year. The race was shot by UTV Sport.
“I’d been working with Eurosport and ESN for 15 years, initially providing them with kickboxing content and then setting up several live pan-European broadcasts of kickboxing shows from Belfast,” he said. “Through mutual associates I was introduced to the NW200 organisers. I’ve been a fan since my grandfather introduced it to me and we used to go up there quite a lot to watch it. So it was something of a labour of love to be able to help get it seen by the widest possible audience. It’s thrilling and every year it seems to get better than the last, so I hope the Europeans get a sense of that when they watch it.”
He added: ”Besides, it’s much better than football!”
The NW200 is broadcast on next Friday night at 6pm GMT and 7pm CET.

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