Europe

Sky Sports Racing, which is set to become the new identity for pay-television channel At The Races, has sealed its second major deal this week by securing exclusive rights in the UK and Ireland to the Melbourne Cup.

The MP & Silva agency is close to a deal to acquire French football league rights across Europe, TV Sports Markets understands.

The Pro14 cross-border rugby union league will almost double the value of its UK and Ireland media rights once it completes its remaining deals for 2018-19 onward.

The Greek government will offer the country’s domestic football clubs a massive increase in media-rights revenue, but only if they agree to a series of demands including a restructuring of the league system.

Eleven Sports’ surprise entrance into the UK sports-rights market will have been welcomed by rights-holders around the world.

Match TV and Gazprom Media’s inability to pay an increase for Russian Football Premier League rights has opened the door for new players, one of which has offered RUB 11bn (€145m/$175m) over five seasons

Patrick Comninos, chief executive of the Basketball Champions League, spoke to media at the Fiba Final Four event last week about Greek basketball club Panathinaikos reported interest in joining the competition.

LaLiga has increased the value of its rights in 13 European and Asian markets by about 20 per cent in a single deal with the Advisers Media International agency.

The Discovery Networks Finland division of US media company Discovery has struck a sublicensing agreement with Finnish telco Telia for rights to SM-Liiga, the top division of domestic ice hockey.

The Mediapro agency has confirmed it has appealed a court ruling which cancels its tender for rights to Serie A, the top division of Italian football, stating that the Sky Italia-led action stems from “fear” from the pay-television broadcaster of losing its dominant position in the market.

German telcos Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica Deutschland have hit out following Vodafone’s announcement of a proposed €18.4bn ($22.2bn) takeover of media company Liberty Global’s European assets.

UK telco BT, which operates pay-television broadcaster BT Sport, has today (Thursday) announced plans to cut around 13,000 jobs over the next three years as it admitted its structure is too complex and “overweight” when compared to rivals.

Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia has said it is ready to make an “important offer” to resolve the dispute surrounding Mediapro’s rights for Serie A after a judge today (Wednesday) ruled that the agency’s tender for the top division of Italian football must be scrapped.

German sports broadcaster Sport1 has acquired rights to this summer’s Fifa World Cup national team football tournament and the Formula 2 Championship motor-racing series.

Pay-television channel At The Races, which is set to rebrand as Sky Sports Racing, has struck a three-year extension to its rights deal in the UK and Ireland for US horseracing showpiece the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.