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The revenues more than justify the decision to rebrand the competition and extend the centralisation of commercial rights.

For more information, including details of the top deals, see the next issue of TV Sports Markets.

Fifa, football’s world governing body, has recently embarked upon its mobile rights sales for the 2010 World Cup finals, confident that deals will be done in over 200 markets. The event should provide mobile operators around the world with a showcase for advanced technologies.

In the first agreement, Sportsman has the rights to sell live La Liga coverage to betting websites worldwide, with the exception of certain territories. There are various restrictions covering the rights – such as a limit placed on the size of the screen – to ensure that the value of the main audiovisual rights is not undermined.

I-Cable is said to be investing HK$50m in launching the three channels, two of its own plus the Yes TV-owned All Sports Network, which are launching in time for the start of the new European football season and the climax of golf’s US PGA Tour.

Dentsu Alpha, which acquired the Vietnamese rights for the tournament earlier this year, will give the rights to VTV and the two companies will then share all advertising revenues generated around the coverage.

For more information see the next issue of TV Sports Markets.

The uncertainty over Orange’s distribution strategy, in offering its premium channels exclusively to its ADSL subscribers, delayed negotiations for several months and is likely to have been the reason for the deal being limited to just one season. The French competition authority has recommended that Orange’s strategy be allowed for only “one or two years”.

The IAAF is understood to have reopened talks with the EBU despite the two parties failing to agree a deal in a period of exclusive negotiations earlier this year. Since then a month of closed talks with its commercial partner outside Europe, the Dentsu agency, has also proved fruitless.

Indonesian rights-holder ESPN Star Sports is in the middle of a tender process offering non-exclusive Premier League rights for the upcoming season, with pay-operators Telkomvision and Aora TV both reportedly interested.

Ten said that in addition to increasing its capacity from seven channels to 10, the move will also improve picture quality. Peter Hutton, Ten’s chief operating officer, said “We are looking at options for both expanding our own operation and to producing more channels for third parties to use this extra capacity”.

Sky Italia is understood to be paying €580 million each season for the ‘Platinum’ package, covering live satellite rights for all 380 Serie A matches each season. The Lega and its adviser, the Infront Sports & Media agency, had asked for €570 million for 2010-11 and €578 million for 2011-12.

A deal with satellite pay-platform Sky Digital will probably now see ESPN and ESPN America offered together as part of an ESPN mini-package for the same price as proposed for ESPN’s initial single-channel offer - £12 a month for stand alone subscribers or £9 a month for existing Sky Sports subscribers.

Speaking exclusively to TV Sports Markets, after launching the tender process for Serie A rights for the seasons 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, the league’s director general, Marco Brunelli, said: "This is the first time since Sky Italia and Mediaset Premium launched that there can be a genuine partnership between the league and its broadcasters, the kind of partnership you find in other European leag

Coverage of Sunday’s Alps mountain stage from Pontarlier to Verbier drew an average of 5 million, peaking at 7 million viewers when Spanish rider Alberto Contador crossed the finish line to claim the yellow jersey. The two previous stages on Friday and Saturday (Vittel-Colmar, Colmar-Besançon) both drew an average of 4.1 million.

The channel will have the rights for domestic league football as well as coverage of the European leagues. It has acquired the exclusive rights for Spain’s La Liga for the next three years and has agreed to sublicense matches from Germany’s Bundesliga and the English Premier League from pan-European broadcaster Eurosport.

ESS has created the competition as an innovative way to draw new sponsors and advertisers at a time when market conditions have been affected by the downturn. To enter, media agencies and advertisers must pledge $50,000 in advertising spend around one of ESS’s channels in the next year and outline a proposal as to how they will use the FA Cup sponsorship to drive their brand.

The deal follows an alliance between the Asian Tour and the European Tour to form a joint-venture company – EurAsia Golf Limited – that will oversee all business relating to co-sanctioned Asian and European Tour events, including promotion, sponsorship and television.