Analysis

A Latin American deal for the next two football World Cups in 2010 and 2014 may have to be renegotiated, with local broadcasters struggling to meet rights fee payments against the background of global recession.

Olympics: Turkish commercial network Fox Turkey acquired the rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games.

Football: The African Union of Broadcasters signed a deal with Fifa for the English, French and Portuguese-language television and radio rights to the 2010 World Cup.

Doubts remain over the long-term future of the football-branded motorsport series Superleague Formula, as it nears the end of its inaugural season. The concept for the series has been around since 2000 but only got off the ground this year.

A1 GP chief executive Pete da Silva says that the nation-based motor-racing series will make a $30 million (€22.5 million) profit in the 2009-10 season, allaying fears for its future.

A new strategic cooperation between the African Union of Broadcasters and Fifa, covering the 2010 football World Cup, will give Fifa a direct relationship with broadcasters in the region for the first time.

The launch of Australia’s first-ever free-to-air sports channel, One, is an unprecedented challenge to leading pay sports broadcaster Fox Sports.

Greek football’s top-tier Superleague finally approved a new collectively-negotiated television rights deal, albeit without the two clubs presently top of the league table.

Fox Turkey, the News-owned general entertainment channel that last week won the rights for 2014 and 2016 Olympics, hopes that the acquisition will help it fulfil its ambition of becoming Turkey’s most popular network.

The Premier League may offer overseas broadcasters a ready-made Premier League channel in the next three-year rights cycle, as it looks to maintain the steep increase in its international rights revenue in a softening market.

The IOC’s preference for direct relationships in key markets looks set to further loosen the grip of the pan-regional broadcast unions that have traditionally acquired Olympic television rights.

UK pay-operator BSkyB’s new five-year deal with the Rugby Football Union was a classic smash-and-grab move that will strengthen its position in the ongoing negotiations for English rugby union’s top-tier domestic league.

The FIA could struggle to find a promoter for the World Rally Championship series on the terms laid out in its recent tender.

The Deutsche Fussball Liga has generated about €30 million (£23.5 million) through last week’s sale of three territory-based packages of international Bundesliga rights.