Analysis
Central sale paves way for Serie A’s cultural revolution
The Lega Calcio, said that the return to the collective selling of Serie A’s media rights had laid the basis for a “cultural revolution” in Italian football.
Rights inflation spoils Multichoice subscriber boom
Multichoice’s booming subscriber growth is being offset by increased costs, including a massive 1,000-per-cent inflation in the average price of football rights.
New Setanta hopes for different story second time round
A reincarnation of sports broadcaster Setanta looks to have secured at least its short-term future in Ireland.
Authority ruling fails to lift clouds over Orange Sport
The pay-television ambitions of Orange appear to have suffered a major blow after the country’s competition authority advised that its present distribution strategy could not be justified.
TV Rights Deals 1: Scottish and English Premier League rights and more
Football: UK pay-broadcasters BSkyB and ESPN acquired the rights for the Scottish Premier League in a three-year deal, from 2009-10 to 2011-12, with the league having an option to extend the deal for a…
TV Rights Deals 2: All the latest boxing, cricket, ice hockey and motosport deals
American Football: The IMG agency agreed a deal to distribute the television rights of the National Football League in certain international territories in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America…
ESPN and BSkyB settle down into marriage of convenience
ESPN’s arrival in the UK market prompts two key questions: how competitive will it be with dominant pay-operator BSkyB? And will it succeed where Setanta failed?
Club channel agency wars
Considerably increased revenue from international distribution deals is set to help Premier League club channels Arsenal TV and Liverpool TV overcome the financial shortfall left by the collapse of UK pay-broadcaster Setanta.
FASTRACK
Abu Dhabi Sports Channel gave the English Premier League the spectacular start to its international rights sales it was looking for with a staggering deal, beating strong favourite Al Jazeera Sport and incumbent Showtime.
Dutch La Liga deal leaves door open
Sport1 has negotiated itself a loophole in its new deal for Spanish La Liga rights that gives it the freedom to renegotiate just one year into the three-year deal.
Tough times ahead for Nova as OTE splashes the cash
OTE has embarked on a sports-rights spending spree as its new IPTV service, Conn-x TV, looks to muscle its way into the country’s pay-television market.
Three-year cycle rings the changes again at Sportfive
The structural reorganisation at Sportfive continues a three-year cycle of evolution since it was first formed in 2001, according to Stephane Schindler.
Pitch poised for more after Six Nations coup
The Pitch International agency is poised to further extend its rugby union portfolio following on from this week’s deal for Six Nations international rights.
French federation gets friendly in bid to halt falling fees
The French Football Federation has come up with an innovative tender in an attempt to avoid a significant cut in television revenue for French national team matches.
Lega helpless after lack of offers hands Sky everything
The Lega Basket was forced to accept a very small increase in the value of its media rights for the next two seasons after expected rival bids failed to materialise.
ESPN profits as USA goes all the way in South Africa
The USA team’s unexpected run to the final of Fifa’s Confederations Cup earned cable broadcaster ESPN its highest non-World Cup audience for a national team match.
TV Rights Deals 1: Football – Premier League, La Liga, French and Greek deals
Football: Sports broadcaster ESPN acquired the UK rights previously held by Setanta for 46 Premier League matches from the 2009-10 season and 23 matches a season for the three years from 2010-11 to 2012-13,…
TV Rights Deals 2: All the latest golf, basketball, rugby, cricket and MotoGP deals
Basketball: Italian pay-broadcaster Sky Italia acquired the exclusive live rights for the top-tier domestic Serie A league in a two-year deal with Lega Basket, paying €5.4m ($7.6m).