Europe

European football’s governing body Uefa has today (Tuesday) signed rights deals in Ireland for its Champions League and Europa League club competitions with commercial broadcaster TV3 and public-service broadcaster RTÉ.

The RDA agency has been appointed as the exclusive agent for international distribution rights to the Super League, the top tier of club rugby league in England.

International sports broadcaster Eurosport has further diversified its offering with the launch of Eurosport Shop, its first e-commerce platform.

Ace IPTV, a platform that showed pirated content from football’s English Premier League, has been forced to liquidate after agreeing to pay £600,000 (€681,000/$812,000) for breaching the league’s copyright.

UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 has acquired rights to the World Rallycross Championship (World RX) motor-racing series.

Sky has sealed a rights deal with Matchroom Boxing that will allow the UK pay-television broadcaster to show the promoter’s US fight nights.

International sports broadcaster Eleven Sports is poised to enter another market with deals lined up in Portugal for rights to club football competitions the Uefa Champions League and Spanish LaLiga.

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.