Europe

Niclas Ericson, director of TV at Fifa, will leave his role at football’s global governing body at the end of this year.

UK commercial broadcaster ITV has acquired highlights rights for England’s two-Test cricket series against Bangladesh.

Multi-territory commercial and pay-television broadcaster Modern Times Group has extended a rights deal with the NFL American football league in the Nordic region.

Red Bull Media House has reversed its decision to stop operating commercial broadcaster Servus TV in Germany and Switzerland.

The Infront Sports & Media agency has extended a rights distribution deal with the Ski Association of Slovenia, along with sealing a new rights contract with public-service broadcaster RTV for events organised by the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Sports content company Aurora Media Worldwide has been named as the host broadcaster of the 2016-17 edition of the Six Day Series track cycling competition.

Public-service broadcaster France Télévisions has agreed a five-year extension to its rights deal for the Tour de France as part of a fresh agreement with event promoter Amaury Sport Organisation that will result in enhanced coverage of the cycling ‘Grand Tour’.

French commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6 have reached an agreement in principle to share rights to a host of national team properties of Uefa, European football’s governing body, according to L’Équipe.

England’s Football Association is set to break the billion-dollar barrier for its international media rights, excluding the UK, in deals agreed this week with the IMG and Pitch International agencies, TV Sports Markets understands.

International sports broadcaster Eurosport has agreed an exclusive deal to distribute content from the DR1 Racing drone racing series in 70 countries across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) has agreed a four-year extension to its rights deal with public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

Greek pay-television broadcaster Nova has acquired rights to the Basketball Champions League European club tournament.

Altice is to appeal against a decision by French stock market regulator the AMF to block the telecommunications company’s deal to secure full control of its SFR subsidiary.

UK pay-television broadcaster Sky has played down the importance of a significant fall in viewing figures for its coverage of English Premier League football.

Uefa has failed to secure any meaningful uplift in value for its national team competitions in deals agreed recently in France and Germany. The deals underline that, while Europe remains the bedrock of value for Uefa, it has become a difficult region in which to achieve growth for its national team properties.

Swiss public-service broadcaster SRG has renewed a host of winter sports rights in recent weeks for a combined investment of about CHF62m (€57m/$64m).