Australia

Changes sought to make rights easier to sell on

The games may be great, but timing hits key audience

Cricket Australia has surprised television sports experts by not going out to tender when it awarded exclusive rights for Australian cricket to Nine network

Ice hockey:  Finnish ice-hockey’s domestic SM-liiga signed a three-year joint-deal with pay-television operator Canal Plus Nordic and free-to-air commercial broadcaster Nelonen worth about €3.7m (£2.5m) a

Football: Czech commercial broadcaster Prima TV acquired the rights for Euro 2008, paying €4m (£2.6m) in a deal brokered by the Sportfive agency.

Cricket:  Indian pay-television broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television acquired the international rights to this month’s India v Pakistan tour for $11.5m (£6m/€8.7m).

Network Ten the only free-to-air bidder for 2007 US Masters

sale of the Australian free-to-air rights for this summer’s England v Australia Ashes cricket series is a blow to pay-broadcaster Fox Sports

Top markets may be carved out from European television-rights deal for 2014 and 2016 Olympics

Australia’s television networks are gearing up for the first of several fierce rights battles

·   Football: The Dentsu and Infront agencies acquired the Rest of Asia rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups in a deal with Fifa, football’s world governing body.  De

Television broadcasters are having difficulty making use of the matching-rights options they negotiated in earlier contracts.

Golf: The US PGA Tour signed new six-year deals with the CBS and NBC networks, from 2007 to 2012.

Analysts claim that Australian commercial broadcasters Seven and Ten overpaid for Australian Football League rights

Australian, English, South African, New Zealand, Zimbabwean boards to benefit from new Asian television rights deals.

Fifa agreed to sell World Cup rights for 2010 and 2014 to Australian public-service broadcaster SBS for only two-thirds the amount it could have got.