Analysis

Tennis

The Sportfive agency has won the distribution rights in Asia for the French Open in a four-year deal with the French Tennis Federation, replacing the federation’s long-term agency partner IMG.

Football

The SPL chose to ignore the potential of an agency bidding war by extending its international television rights deal with Sportfive without putting the rights on the market.
Football

Football: German sports channel DSF acquired the rights for the 2009 Fifa Confederations Cup in June. DSF will show 14 games live including the final and the third-place playoff match
Athletics

Athletics: US broadcaster NBC and its cable and broadband subsidiary Universal Sports acquired the rights for the World Athletics Series, covering Indoor and outdoor World Championships and other events,…
Football

Mediaset’s recent acquisition of the exclusive rights to the Europa League could provide a shot in the arm for a competition that has almost disappeared from the schedules of major Italian broadcasters in recent years.

The decision to move the Australian and Malaysian Formula One grands prix to later timeslots for the benefit of European television audiences has paid off.

Football

The EBU has renewed television rights deals for gymnastics, weightlifting and Greco-Roman wrestling, but pulled out of broadcasting judo, as part of a “reshaping” of its sports portfolio.
Football

RCS-RDS’s plans to launch a new sports channel raise serious questions about the stability of the record television rights deal signed by the country’s top-tier domestic football league last year.
Football

Uefa had a good start to its television rights sales for the Euro 2012 championship, achieving a 25-per-cent increase in fee from co-host country Poland.
Golf

Sogecable is at least maintaining its strong golf rights portfolio, despite fighting a losing battle in the ‘football war’ with the Mediapro agency and facing a major new challenge with the legalisation of pay-television digital-terrestrial services.

Handball

ARD and ZDF went unchallenged in extending their deal for handball’s European Championships this month, with commercial rival RTL deciding to concentrate instead on bidding for the World Championships in 2011.

Football

Football: Sports broadcaster ESPN Brasil acquired pay-television rights in Brazil for the 2010 World Cup in a sublicensing deal with commercial broadcaster Globo
Badminton

Basketball: Eurosport Deutschland acquired live rights for nine selected playoff matches from Germany’s top league, the Basketball Bundesliga, in a deal with the league and rights-holder Sportdigital.tv.
Football

A joint offer from IMG and the Amaury Sport Organisationis the surprise package among four agency bidders invited to make presentations to Uefa next month regarding the European media rights for Euro 2012.

Football

US sports channels Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta are motivated at least in part by the fear that rival ESPN is planning a knockout bid of its own for English football’s Premier League.
American Football

Football television rights values in the Netherlands are plunging, with pay-channel Sport1 succeeding in getting massive rights-fee reductions on key contracts.

The stunning success of Chinese state broadcaster CCTV’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics last year paved the way for its record television rights deal for the 2010 and 2012 Games.
Golf

The escalating Asian golf split between the Asian Tour and the new One Asia Super Series looks certain to disrupt the Asian Tour’s main pan-regional television rights deal with ESPN Star Sports.