SportBusiness Media staff

French public-service broadcaster France Télévisions has struck a rights deal for coverage of the national basketball team at major events operated by Fiba, the international basketball federation, according to French newspaper L’Equipe.

Norwegian public-service broadcaster NRK has acquired rights for International Biathlon Union (IBU) events in a four-year deal, according to the Kampanje news website.

The IMG Media agency has extended its deal with English Premier League football club Chelsea to exclusively distribute its Chelsea TV channel on a global basis for the three years, spanning the 2013-14 to 2015-16 seasons.

Portuguese pay-television sports broadcaster Sport TV will launch a new channel called Sport TV Live in August, according to the A Bola news website.

UK public-service broadcaster the BBC has secured rights to the 2013 EuroHockey Nations Championship international hockey tournament.

Mixed martial arts promotion Cage Warriors Fighting Championship has agreed rights deals with UK pay-television broadcaster Premier Sports and Irish pay-television broadcaster Setanta Sports.

Canadian multilingual broadcaster OMNI Television will provide an exclusive Mandarin-language broadcast of today’s (Thursday) Toronto Blue Jays game at the Boston Red Sox – the first time an MLB baseball game has been shown in Mandarin in Canada.

Fisu, the governing body of international university sport, has struck a rights deal with US pay-television broadcaster ESPN for live coverage of the Summer Universiade multi-sport event next month in Kazan, Russia.

Cambodian free-to-air broadcaster CTN has acquired the exclusive free-to-air and pay-television rights to the 2014 Fifa World Cup football tournament, according to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

Dutch pay-television channel Eredivisie Live will be rebranded as Fox Sports Eredivisie ahead of the start of the 2013-14 season of the top football division in the Netherlands, according to the Media Magazine website.