Belgium
Belgacom blasts BeTV blow-out
An extraordinary situation has arisen this week in Belgium, whereby the climax of the top-tier domestic football league will be shown by BeTV, a rival of the league’s main broadcaster, Belgacom TV.
TV Rights Deals 1: Football: Uefa deals, Belgian Pro Ligue and Greek Superleague
Football: Australian public-service broadcaster SBS and pay-channel ESPN acquired the rights for Uefa club competitions the Champions League and Europa League in a three-year deal, from 2009-10 to 2011-12,…
Proactive ACB finds it pays to go exploring
Spain’s top-flight basketball league has tripled its distribution deals and rights fee revenue only one year after launching an in-house marketing drive to increase international exposure.
FASTRACK
The lack of government legislation in India over news access to sports events is provoking further tension between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the Nimbus Communications agency.
TV RIGHTS DEALS 1: Greece, Israel, World Cup Qualifiers and more
Football: Greek commercial broadcaster Antenna acquired the rights for top Greek club Olympiacos’ home first round match in the Uefa Cup and its two home group stage matches, paying €1.605m (£1.25m)
FASTRACK
News in Brief
TV RIGHTS CLIPS 1: Belgian league, Champions League and Uefa Cup
Football: Portuguese mobile operator Optimus acquired exclusive mobile rights in Portugal to Uefa’s Euro 2008 championships, in a sublicensing deal worth close to €1.2m
Pro Ligue deal finally meets the right Standard
A new television rights deal for Belgium’s top-tier domestic football league was finally agreed this week
Collapse of UPC-Canal Plus deal is bad for both sides
UPC will have to delay plans to launch sports channel in Netherlands
England out of step over TV qualifying games
How national football team matches are protected in different European territories
UPC to start sports channel
Cable operator pays €25m for Canal Plus Nederlands pay channels, Canal Satelliet Digitaal
Top TV Sports programmes in Europe
Qualifying matches for football’s European Championship next year dominated the April charts in TV Sports Markets monthly survey.
Italy stands alone after other leagues drop channel plans
The Italian league appears to be ploughing a surprisingly lonely furrow in setting up its own channel.
Cycling to centralise rights
The UCI is planning a controversial overhaul of the rights-distribution and television production of the men’s road World Cup.
How the strong get stronger from secret TV deals
Bayern Munich’s secret television deal with the now-defunct Kirch Gruppe may be the most dramatic example of an unorthodox rights deal but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
Europe 2002
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and football’s World Cup in Japan and Korea were the two major events that dominated European sports viewing in 2002.
Selling Golden League TV rights ‘will be tough’
Athletics Managements and Services have said that selling the television rights for the Golden League will be tough.