Italy

Italy’s Serie A agreed deals covering free-to-air highlights, internet and mobile highlights and clip rights for the next rights cycle, from 2015-16 to 2017-18, in deals agreed just before Christmas.

Mike Kiernan, analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence, reviews television audiences across the big five markets for the recently concluded Formula One World Championship

Italian DTT sports broadcaster Sportitalia has acquired rights to the Liga ACB, the top division of basketball in Spain.

Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia has agreed a deal to air the inaugural edition of the European Games multi-sport event, which takes place in Azerbaijan this year.

Bamba TV, a new free-to-air television platform in Kenya, has acquired rights to the Italian Serie A top-tier football league, according to the Telecom Paper news website.

Italian pay-television operator Sky Italia beat competition from state broadcaster Rai to land the rights to next year’s EuroBasket.

Italian pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia has acquired rights to the EuroBasket 2015 men’s and women’s national team basketball competitions.

Mike Kiernan, analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence, examines live television audiences in Europe’s five largest markets for motorcycling’s MotoGP world championship

Betradar, a division of sports and betting-related services company Sportradar, has struck a carriage deal with Italian bookmaker Sisal Matchpoint for its Live Channel service.

Pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports has acquired rights in Italy to the finale of the 2014 Major League Soccer season.

Italian media company RTI has approved the transfer of sports media-rights and pay-television operations to a new company, Mediaset Premium Spa, on December 1.

BSkyB is to be renamed as Sky after the UK pay-television broadcaster confirmed that it had completed acquisitions of Sky Italia in Italy and a majority stake in Sky Deutschland in Germany and Austria.

Lega Serie A, which operates the top division of football in Italy, could launch its own television channel as early as 2018, according to Marco Bogarelli, the president of the Infront Italy division of the Infront Sports & Media agency.

The B4 Capital agency has struck a deal to distribute global media rights for the Italy national rugby union team.

Italy’s RCS MediaGroup plans to spend up to €60m ($75m) over five years on launching a new sports television channel, according to the TV Digital Divide website.

UK pay-television broadcaster BSkyB could aim to merge Sky Italia with rival pay-television service Mediaset Premium when it finalises a deal to acquire the Italian company, according to analysts at Bernstein.