Asia

American Football:  UK pay-operator British Sky Broadcasting acquired the UK and Ireland rights for the National Football League in a four-year deal from 2007-08 to 2010-11.

Pakistan cable and satellite broadcaster Geo TV will launch a sports channel in time to show cricket’s Champions Trophy.

The ICC is expecting fees of up to $1 billion (£535 million/€790 million) for its next television and new-media rights deal.

Boxing: German commercial broadcaster RTL acquired the rights for the next four fights of Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko in a deal with the Sportfive agency worth €10m (£6.8m).

Football: Japanese pay-television operator J Sports acquired the rights to Japan’s top-tier J-League in a five-year deal from 2007 to 2011.

Football: The threatened delay to the start of the Serie B season in Italy was averted when Rupert Murdoch’s satellite platform, Sky Italia, signed a last-minute, one-season deal to broadcast all Serie B matches live.

ESPN Australia consolidated its position in the country’s pay-television market by outbidding Fox Sports for European rugby union’s Heineken Cup rights.

Japanese professional football’s J-League has agreed a new television-rights deal with a new broadcaster.

International rights sales for Spanish football’s La Liga are likely to bring in more than €100 million a year.

Broadcasters will push for financial compensation from the IOC it changes the traditional timetable at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to meet NBC's demands.

The deal agreed by Star Television to distribute the sports channels of the Nimbus agency could herald the death of ESPN Star Sports.

Olympics: Korean free-to-air broadcaster SBS acquired the rights for four Olympic Games from 2010 to 2016.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India hopes that the sale of its worldwide mobile rights will land it another financial windfall.

Move by SBS to break away from the traditional cartel of free-to-air broadcasters marks the beginning of a new era in the sports rights market.