SportBusiness Staff

Basketball: Spanish commercial broadcaster La Sexta acquired the rights to this year’s basketball World Championships in a deal with Fiba, the international basketball federation.

Football: Spanish Primera Liga champions FC Barcelona agreed a long-term deal with the Mediapro agency which guarantees the club at least €1bn (£685m) for its domestic and international television rights for the seven years from 2006-07 to 2012-13.

The Belgian Football Association is threatening to sell the home matches of the national team on a match-by-match basis in Flanders.

German broadcasters could be forced to pay much more for the Euro 2008 rights because of strong competition.

Sportfive has postponed the selling of Euro 2008 pay-television rights in the Netherlands after the only bidder offered less than €500,000.

German pay-television company Premiere got its last orders from the Bundesliga when it failed to win the league’s rights for public-place viewing.

Strong competition for the Euro 2008 rights in France should lead to a steep increase in rights fees because of the rivalry among the country’s terrestrial broadcasters.

The Premier League’s £171.6 million deal with the BBC takes the league’s audiovisual-rights income to more than £680 million.

Pay-television operator British Sky Broadcasting is considering launching a Sky Sports channel on the digital-terrestrial service Freeview.