Eastern Europe

Direct-to-home and IPTV platform Digi has acquired rights for German football’s Bundesliga in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Czech broadcast group TV Barrandov has said it is interested in acquiring rights to the First League, the top division of club football in the country.

Discovery Communications secured three late sublicensing rights deals ahead of last month’s winter Olympic Games, taking it closer to its sublicensing revenue target.

Uefa has reversed the falling value of its club competition media rights in Cyprus via an exclusive deal with telco Cyta.

Ukrainian media group MGU and telco Kyivstar have teamed up to launch a new OTT service dedicated to football coverage.

Esports event operator ESL has extended its rights deal with German media group ProSiebenSat.1 and has agreed a new partnership with Polish public-service broadcaster TVP.

Digital entertainment company Modern Times Group has completed the disposal of its international entertainment operations by selling Bulgarian commercial broadcaster Nova to PPF Group, the investment company controlled by Czech billionaire Petr Kellner.

Competition between sports-rights agencies has helped Spain’s LaLiga grow the value of its media rights in several new deals across Europe.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s new deal in Poland is aimed at elevating its brand in the country, which has long been dominated by local promotion KSW.

Polish MMA promotion KSW is entering the 15th year of its partnership with commercial and pay-television broadcaster Polsat – a key reason for its enduring popularity in the country. Martin Lewandowski speaks to TV Sports Markets about the promotion's past, present and future, and how it can remain number one despite the increasing presence of the UFC in Poland.

Ukrainian public-service broadcaster UA:PBC has said it will not broadcast the 2018 Fifa World Cup, despite holding rights to the national team football tournament.

BHRT and MRT, the public-service broadcasters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, respectively, have struck rights deals to show the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the 2020 summer Games in Tokyo.

Aggressive bidding from telcos has helped Uefa substantially grow the value of its club competition rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Uefa has more than doubled the value of its club competitions in Czech Republic and Slovakia by striking an exclusive deal for the Champions League with pay-television broadcaster O2.

The MP & Silva agency has extended its partnership with LaLiga through a deal to distribute media rights to the top division of Spanish club football in five European markets.

Madrid-headquartered International Sports Broadcasting has retained its position as the host broadcaster of the European Games by seeing off competition from two other companies for the contract for next year’s edition of the multi-sport event.