SportBusiness Media staff

Major League Soccer has formed a new content and distribution division that will produce football programming across multiple media platforms.

The Cricket Australia national governing body has denied suggestions that commercial broadcaster Nine Network may be able to influence the national team’s player selections as part of the new rights deal between the two parties.

Kansas Athletics and IMG College, the multimedia rights-holder for the athletics division of the University of Kansas, have agreed a local rights deal with Time Warner Cable Sports.

New York media company CNY Central has acquired exclusive local media rights to selected American football and basketball games featuring Syracuse University, which is based in the state.

There has been a significant increase in the amount of time British sports fans spend consuming sport, according to a report produced by Perform in conjunction with Kantar Media Sport and TV Sports Markets.

Disney-owned sports broadcaster ESPN is close to agreeing a deal for the sale of its ESPN America channel, the basic-tier American sports channel which is distributed throughout Europe.

New Zealand public-service broadcaster TVNZ has confirmed a partnership with the Coliseum Sports Media company to acquire rights to English Premier League football for the three seasons from 2013-14 to 2015-16.

Liberty Global-owned broadcaster Chello Central Europe has renewed rights for Russian ice hockey league the Kontinental Hockey League in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the next three years, from 2013-14 to 2015-16.

UK media regulator Ofcom will investigate pay-television broadcaster BSkyB over the wholesale supply of its sports channels following a complaint by telecommunications company BT.

Mário Figueiredo, president of the Portuguese Liga, has said that the football league will appeal to the European Commission if the country’s media regulator, the ERC, refuses to block a proposed deal for telecommunications company Portugal Telecom to acquire a 25-per-cent stake in Portuguese pay-television broadcaster Sport TV.