Australia

Australian public-service broadcaster the ABC has acquired rights for the Asian Football Confederation's 2015 Asian Cup national team tournament in a sublicensing deal with pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports.

The AFL Australian rules football league will set an asking price of between A$1.5bn (€1bn/$1.3bn) and A$1.6bn for its next cycle of domestic rights, according to the Australian newspaper.

Australian commercial broadcaster Seven will acquire the rights to the Victorian and West Australian Aussie rules competitions, the VFL and WAFL, after public-service broadcaster the ABC dropped its regional coverage of the sport, according to The Australian newspaper.

BeIN Media Group, the holding company of Qatari pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports, has closed a deal to acquire the Setanta Sports Australia pay-television operation.

Australian pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports and commercial broadcaster Network Ten are set to acquire rights for matches involving the Australia rugby union national team, according to the Australian Financial Review newspaper.

Damien De Bohun, head of Australia’s A-League, has said that a potential expansion of the top-tier football club competition hinges on the backing of the league's broadcast partners.

Bill Pulver, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, the governing body of rugby union in the country, is confident a recent drop-off in viewing figures for the national team will not have an adverse impact on talks for the next cycle of rights beginning in 2016.

Australian commercial broadcaster Seven is set to table an offer to horse racing pay-television channel TVN to acquire rights for races held in New South Wales and Victoria.

Australia’s seven leading sports bodies have joined pay-television broadcasters in urging the country’s Federal Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to reform the so-called ‘anti-siphoning’ list of events reserved for free-to-air television.

Australian pay-television provider Foxtel has confirmed that it will cut the price of its basic cable-television subscriptions by a half and will freeze the price of its sports package.

Australian commercial broadcaster Seven is in talks to expand its partnership with TVN to carry all of the pay-television channel’s horseracing coverage, according to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

Australian commercial broadcaster Seven has expanded its sports portfolio by acquiring rights for the country's Magic Millions horseracing event.

Indian subcontinent pay-television broadcaster Taj TV has acquired rights for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

Australian commercial broadcaster Seven has acquired exclusive rights to the 2018 Commonwealth Games multi-sport event, which will be hosted by the Gold Coast in Queensland.

BeIN Media Group, which is operated by Qatari pay-television broadcaster Al Jazeera, has reached a deal to acquire the Setanta Sports Australia pay-television operation.

The International Softball Federation, the softball division of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, has said all matches from its 14th Women’s Softball World Championship will be streamed online via its official website on a subscription basis.