Analysis

German telco Deutsche Telekom last week moved back into buying exclusive sports rights with a deal for the domestic basketball league, which was a big increase on the previous value.

Dutch pay-television broadcaster Sport1 last week agreed to pay a decent percentage increase in the value of its rights to the National Basketball Association.

The Cyprus Football Association is to push ahead with its plan to create a television channel for the country’s football league despite three top clubs refusing to take part. The clubs believe they can get better fees through individual deals with broadcasters.

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.

There were mixed results for broadcasters of this year's French Open, Mike Kiernan, analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence explains

France’s top football league, Ligue 1, has become the third major rights-holder in just over a month to renew a long-term media-rights deal many years in advance without an open tender.

Greek pay-television broadcaster OTE paid an increased fee in last week’s renewal for rights to the MotoGP motorcycling series.

Media rights to the Champions Hockey League ice hockey club competition were sold last month in Switzerland, with a rights fee and production costs included.

The value of the media and marketing rights to the bobsleigh and skeleton federation’s main events stayed steady in a renewal with the Infront Sports & Media agency last month.

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.

Uefa was able to secure a modest increase in rights fee for the Champions League from Polish pay-television broadcaster NC Plus in its renewal last month, despite there being no rival bids.

The Euroleague doubled the value of its media rights in Turkey this month as pay-television operator Digiturk ousted incumbent rights-holder, NTV Spor.

The acquisition last week by Hong Kong broadcaster TVB of the rights to the 2016 Olympic Games underlines the determination of the broadcaster to protect its dominant position in free-to-air television while making inroads into the pay-television market.

UK commercial broadcaster ITV this week agreed to pay a small increase for its free-to-air rights to the French Open tennis tournament.

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.