Europe

Cricket

No one anticipated the huge excitement and success of the Ashes cricket series between England and Australia
Cricket

Ice hockey: Nordic pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus acquired the live pay-television and pay-per-view rights for the Swedish Elitserien, the country’s top-tier league, from the Svenska Hockeyligan in a four-year deal, 2006-07 to 2009-10

Football: French commercial broad-caster TF1 acquired the free-to-air Champions League rights for a further three-years, from 2006-07 to 2008-09

Basketball

The French Basketball Federation is in talks with the country’s two pay-television operators

Ice Hockey

The recent trend of Nordic broad-casters paying massively increased fees for sports rights continued
Cricket

Cricket’s much-anticipated first Ashes Test between England and Australia drew one of the biggest sports audiences in recent years for UK commercial broadcaster Channel Four

Football

Commercial broadcaster RTL Klub snatched the Hungarian rights for the 2006 World Cup
Football

Dutch public-service broadcaster NOS has filled the gaping hole in its schedule with two top foreign football leagues

RTL Group is understood to be in talks to acquire the Serbian Channel 3,

RTL, the broadcasting arm of German media giant Bertelsmann, is facing challenging times
Boxing

Formula 1: Spanish sports agency Mediapro acquired the rights for Formula 1 in a five-year deal, 2009 to 2013, in a deal thought to be worth about €35m (£24m) a year.
Basketball

Football: Jamaican commercial broadcaster CVM TV sublicensed rights for the 2010 and 2014 World Cup competitions from Caribbean sports cable operator SportsMax
Football

Average live English Premier League audience lowest since 2001-02

Football

Parliament votes to drop legal imposition that rights must be sold platform-by-platform

Agency believed to be committed pay €35m per year, current deal worth €10m per year
Football

Football: Spanish pay-television broadcaster Sogecable acquired the pay-rights for the Champions League in a three-year deal from the 2006-07 to 2008-09 with the Team agency

Football

Scandinavian football’s Royal League is set to radically increase the knock-out element
Football

The French contenders for Champions League football asked to submit a second round of bids.