Analysis

Recent football and athletics rights deals in China show that opportunities are beginning to open up for sports rights holders in a country where it has been notoriously difficult to achieve ‘proper’ market value for rights.

The Finnish Competition Authority has been widely criticised for its decision to force pay-broadcaster Canal Plus to sublicense on domestic ice hockey rights in return for approving its merger with Swedish broadcast group TV4.

The IAAF is to make major changes to the rules and format of its World Championships in a bid to halt declining television audiences and strengthen its hand in upcoming rights talks.

Sports rights agency Mediapro is thought to be close to renewing a deal for Spanish football’s top-tier La Liga with pan-regional pay-operator DirecTV Latin America.

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s expectation of an early pay-day from its new lucrative television rights deal has been struck a major blow by last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Uefa has paid out an estimated €5 million ($6.4 million) to broadcasters in compensation for the signal blackouts during the Germany-Turkey semi-final in this summer’s Euro 2008 championship.

EBU members reacted with shock and disbelief this week as the sales process for the European rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games proceeded to a fourth round without them.

The German football league exploited interest from ESPN to secure a significant last-minute increase in rights fee from pay-television platform Premiere

American Football: US cable sports network ESPN acquired the rights for the college football Bowl Championship Series.

Football: Greek public-service broadcaster ERT, commercial broadcaster Mega and triple-play operator On Telecoms acquired packages of Champions League rights for the three-year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

A review of South Africa’s listed-events legislation is generating concern among the country’s broadcasters and rights holders.

Spanish television audiences for the 2008 MotoGP season rose for the third year in succession, with young local riders Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo both contending for the championship.

Despite the most exciting Formula One season in recent memory, with the driver’s and constructor’s championships going down to the wire, television audiences fell in a number of major European markets.

The economic downturn has finally had an impact on the Team Marketing agency’s Champions League football rights sales.

Analysts are reining in their forecasts of the value of the next English Premier League live rights deal, on the basis that regulatory intervention and the economic downturn will limit competition.

Greek telecoms company Forthnet, owner of the country’s leading pay broadcaster Nova, is facing its biggest challenge yet after rival telecoms companies last week acquired sports rights for the first time, much earlier than anticipated.