Frank Dunne

The World Cup rights deals signed by Fifa in the UK and Germany just before the current tournament kicked off confirmed the difficulties the governing body has had in securing decent fee increases in both markets and in Europe generally.

Interview with William Field, founder of Prospero, the media and technology consultancy, on the return of telcos to the sports-rights market.

IMG Media’s acquisition of the international rights to European club rugby was due to be confirmed late this week. The deal was reported exclusively in the last issue of TV Sports Markets.

The 20 clubs of Italy’s Serie A are trying to pick the best possible combination of bids from a rights auction marked by an extraordinary degree of tactical bidding that has thrown the process into confusion.

Two services due to launch soon show the increasing strategic and commercial importance of short-form content to the big US sports leagues and underline the degree to which US sport is leading the way in exploiting digital media.

The latest rights auction for Serie A was anything but predictable, and leaves the league with more questions than answers.

Data from the Know the Fan – The Global Sports Media Consumption Report 2014 suggests that an opportunity for sports and media companies to engage fans and drive revenues by using internet-connected TV sets is being missed.

The centenary version of the Copa América, which will take place in the US in June 2016, looks likely to earn at least twice as much in media rights income as the 2015 Copa América.

The IMG Media agency today (June 13, 2014) confirmed a deal to distribute global media rights to European club rugby's new elite tournaments, run by European Professional Club Rugby.

Read here TV Sports Markets' report from two weeks ago on how IMG won the bidding war with rival agencies to land the rights.

The International Olympic Committee has robustly defended last week’s long-term deal with US media group NBCUniversal on the three key areas in which it has come under scrutiny.