Europe

The late afternoon Saturday kick-off slot in the Liga, the top division of football in Spain, will be pushed back “to accommodate the UK audience” next season, according to Spanish Football League (LFP) president Javier Tebas.

Cricket Australia will take a more flexible approach to its rights sales when its global advisory deal with the IMG Events & Media agency expires after the 2015-16 season.

The Swedish second-tier ice hockey league, the HockeyAllsvenskan, will earn a decent increase in the value of its media rights in the next cycle, following a deal with C More last month.

RCS Media Group, the parent company of Italy’s Gazzetta TV channel, bought exclusive live rights to this month’s Copa América.

Joseph Rivers, research analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence examines free-to-air television audiences in the big five European markets for the 2014-15 Uefa Europa League

Interview with Stefan Bengtsson, managing director of the Swedish HockeyAllsvenskan, about the league’s new media rights deal with pay-television broadcaster C More.

Pay-television broadcaster beIN Media Group has acquired rights in France for qualifying matches ahead of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations national team football tournament.

Premiership Rugby has reported a six-per-cent increase in the audience for its live matches on UK pay-television broadcaster BT Sport.

Media company Constantin Medien, which operates German sports broadcaster Sport1, the Sport1 Media sports marketing company and the Plazamedia production company, is anticipating a “clear sales and earnings increase” for its sports division for the remainder of 2015.

Russian pay-television broadcaster NTV Plus has acquired rights for the Wimbledon tennis championships, according to a report on the Sports.ru website.

UK public-service broadcaster the BBC will offer up to 15 live online streams simultaneously during its most extensive coverage yet of the upcoming Wimbledon tennis championships in London.

Production company Plazamedia has extended a deal to produce German public-service broadcaster ZDF’s coverage of the Uefa Champions League European club football tournament.

BT Sport has announced plans to launch a free-to-air digital channel, BT Sport Showcase, to offer live coverage of some Uefa Champions League and Europa League football games next season, as the UK pay-television broadcaster confirmed today (Tuesday) a new price structure for viewers from the 2015-16 season.

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has confirmed that plans are in place to launch a new state-backed sports channel on September 1.

Gazzetta TV, the Italian sports channel operated by the RCS MediaGroup, has acquired rights for the 2015 edition of the Copa América national team football tournament.

German sports broadcaster Sport1 has acquired rights for the 2015 Uefa U-21 European Championship, which will take place in Czech Republic from June 17-30.