Europe

UK public-service broadcaster the BBC has agreed a deal with the Professional Darts Corporation to continue showing live coverage of its Champions League of Darts competition.

Lega Serie B, the governing body of the second tier of Italian football, has approved guidelines for the sale of its next set of broadcast rights, while it has assessed proposals from three bidders to become its new centralised marketing advisor.

Specialist boxing pay-television channel BoxNation has acquired the UK rights to the heavily-anticipated fight between Gennady Golovkin and Saul Alvarez, which will take place in Las Vegas on September 16.

Portuguese commercial broadcaster TVI has acquired rights to the World Touring Car Championship motor racing series.

American football league the NFL has entered into a partnership with global sports marketing company Bruin Sports Capital and advertising and public relations giant WPP in order to drive expansion of its Game Pass over-the-top service throughout Europe.

Germany’s Handball-Bundesliga (HBL) has opted to take the marketing of its international broadcast rights in-house, with Scandinavia outlined as a key target market under the new approach.

German media company Constantin Medien has launched a bidding process with the aim of selling all its shares in German sports broadcaster Sport1 and the Sport1 Media advertising sales agency.

The Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y La Competencia (CNMC), Spain’s competition regulator, has hit LaLiga, the organising body of Spanish club football, with a €250,000 ($280,000) fine after upholding a complaint lodged by commercial broadcaster Mediaset.

Greek public-service broadcaster ERT has acquired rights to events operated by the International Basketball Federation (Fiba).

Organisers of the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, England, will stream live coverage of the multi-sport event through the WorldParaAthletics.org website.

International sports broadcaster Eurosport has upgraded its rights deal for the Tour de France through an agreement that will provide more live coverage of the cycling ‘Grand Tour’ event.

The FIH, the global governing body of hockey, has agreed rights deals with a number of broadcasters in various regions around the world.

UK viewing audiences for the week between Monday 29th May and Sunday 4th June. We also look at leading audiences for this seasons English Championship. Watching Brief Vol. 160

International sports broadcaster Eleven Sports has agreed a sublicensing deal for rights in Poland to domestic speedway competition the Ekstraliga.

Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia has become the new rights-holder of the Uefa Champions League and Europa League club football competitions in Italy.

Chinese investment fund Orient Hontai is the remaining bidder in the race to acquire Imagina, the parent company of Spanish agency Mediapro, according to the El Español news service.