Europe

DAZN, the live and on-demand streaming service owned by digital sports media specialist Perform, has bolstered its combat sports content by agreeing a multi-year rights deal with US mixed martial arts promotion Bellator.

Chinese private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital has concluded its deal to acquire a majority stake in Spanish media group Imagina, parent company of the Mediapro agency.

LaLiga, the organising body of the top two divisions of Spanish club football, has reported revenue rises of 15 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, for the sale of domestic and international rights packages to telco Telefónica and the Mediapro agency.

Cypriot pay-television broadcaster CyTAvision has secured rights to a raft of club and national team football content, including domestic competitions.

Media companies ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery have confirmed plans today (Monday) to launch a new OTT platform in Germany that will combine the 7TV, Maxdome and Eurosport Player streaming services.

Polish commercial and pay-television broadcaster Polsat has been given the green light to launch a new channel dedicated to esports.

Italy’s Lega Serie A is set to earn €973m ($1.13bn) per season for its domestic live rights in the next cycle following last week’s deals with Sky and Perform. This can be considered either a success or a failure depending on which benchmark it is measured against

The Premier League’s 20 clubs are unconcerned about the small drop in the value of their domestic live rights in the next cycle, following deals this month with BT and Amazon that brought the protracted sales process to a close.

Sky Österreich will generate more than €5m ($5.9m) per season from the sublicensing of Austrian Bundesliga rights, from 2018-19 to 2021-22.

Uefa Champions League and Europa League rights will increase in value throughout Albania, Kosovo and the Baltics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – from the 2018-19 season, TV Sports Markets has learned.

Sport TV’s attempt to use its dominant position in the Portuguese market to lower media-rights fees has backfired, paving the way for Eleven to become the latest in a long line of competitors.

Türk Telekom has agreed a shock deal for rights to the country’s Basketbol Süper Ligi, unseating beIN – the league’s preferred partner – with a huge bid.

European football’s governing body Uefa has become embroiled in a spat with Turki Al Alshikh, head of Saudi government body the General Sports Authority, over the dispute between Qatar-based beIN Media Group and Saudi-based channel BeoutQ.

Maltese telcos Melita and Go have cast aside their rivalry in the sports rights market by joining forces to launch what they claim will be the best premium sports package in Europe.

UK telco BT has today (Thursday) signed a carriage partnership with internet company Amazon which will bring the latter’s sports content offered via Prime Video to pay-television service BT TV.