Analysis

Football

The acquisition of the Champions League rights earlier this month paves the way for Brazilian commercial channel Esporte Interativo to enter the pay-television market, while simultaneously damaging its future rival ESPN.

The MP & Silva agency this week said it was considering expanding “in a very big way” into new business areas, including sponsorship and production, and played down rumours of a split among its founding partners.

Rugby Union

UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB has moved to solidify its position as a broadcaster of top-class rugby union through two big deals.

Football

Experts point to a number of factors, other than incumbency advantages, which made MP & Silva the overwhelming favourite to retain the international rights to Serie A this month.

Football

The Premier League has a “moral obligation” to provide greater funding for grassroots football from the proceeds of its domestic media-rights sales, the UK’s Labour party said this week.

Football

Italy’s Lega Serie A and its media adviser Infront Sports & Media can point to a near 60-per-cent increase in the value of the league’s international rights to claim that this month’s sales process was a success, despite drawing only three bids.

Football

Greek pay-television broadcaster Nova picked up rights to France’s Ligue 1 earlier this month in an attempt to retain subscribers after losing Uefa Champions League and Europa League rights to rival OTE.

Football

Major League Soccer said it chose the IMG Events & Media agency to handle its media rights because the agency was “aggressive” in its plans, and shared the league’s philosophy about creating a long-term partnership to build the MLS profile globally.

Rugby Union

The Pitch International agency agreed international rights deals for the Irish, Scottish and Welsh rugby unions earlier this month. The deals will help the agency shore up an international rugby rights portfolio which has come under pressure this year.

Basketball

Media rights income for Euroleague basketball is likely to be about the same in the 2014-15 season as it was last season, partly due to difficulties in Russia, one of the sport’s key markets.

Cricket

Giles Clarke, the head of the International Cricket Council’s media-rights negotiation team, hailed this month’s deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Star pay-television operations as “hugely positive for the game around the world.”

Football

The Spanish football league outlined plans to launch its own channel in 2016 at a panel discussion chaired by TV Sports Markets this month at Sportel in Monaco.

Rugby Union

France Télévisions last week agreed a deal covering the European Rugby Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, taking European Professional Club Rugby to a strong rights fee from the French market.

Boxing

The Sauerland boxing agency suffered a cut in the value of its events as commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 replaced incumbent rights-holder ARD.

Motorsport

Dorna Sports, the commercial rights-holder of the MotoGP racing championship, secured a decent increase in its rights fee from the German market in a deal with Eurosport late last month.

Strong interest in Formula One rights across Asia from individual markets and on a pan-regional basis forced Fox International Channels to double its fee to hang on to its rights.

Basketball

There are three main reasons why the National Basketball Association secured a 180-per-cent increase in the value of its domestic media rights this month, according to US rights experts.

Golf

Online subscription service Coliseum Sports Media continued to shake up the previously moribund New Zealand market with the acquisition of the US PGA Tour this month.