Italy

Football

Lega Calcio, is up almost €1.6 billion ($2.3 billion) after the first hand in a game of high-stakes poker with the Italian antitrust authority.
Cycling

The return of Lance Armstrong to this year’s Tour de France looks to have played a key role in driving strong television audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Football

Football: Italian satellite broadcaster Sky Italia acquired the live satellite rights for all Serie A matches from 2010-11 to 2011-12 in a deal with Lega Calcio. Sky will pay €580m ($824m) a season.
Football

The Infront agency looks close to achieving a result which defies market logic: increasing the Lega Calcio’s rights fees without generating any direct competition between media operators.

Football

The Lega Calcio, said that the return to the collective selling of Serie A’s media rights had laid the basis for a “cultural revolution” in Italian football.
Basketball

The Lega Basket was forced to accept a very small increase in the value of its media rights for the next two seasons after expected rival bids failed to materialise.
Basketball

Basketball: Italian pay-broadcaster Sky Italia acquired the exclusive live rights for the top-tier domestic Serie A league in a two-year deal with Lega Basket, paying €5.4m ($7.6m).
Football

The cumulative average television audience across the big five European markets for this season’s Champions League final was 27 per cent up on the final in 2007-08.

Football

Italy’s antitrust and communications authorities are close to approving the guidelines for the sale of the media rights to Serie A and Serie B from the 2010-2011 season onwards.
Basketball

The European basketball league managed a 24-per-cent increase in television revenues this season and is optimistic of further growth next season.

Basketball

The Lega Basket has started private talks with five broadcasters after failing to elicit bids for its media rights in an auction last month.

Football

Mediaset’s recent acquisition of the exclusive rights to the Europa League could provide a shot in the arm for a competition that has almost disappeared from the schedules of major Italian broadcasters in recent years.

The decision to move the Australian and Malaysian Formula One grands prix to later timeslots for the benefit of European television audiences has paid off.

Badminton

Basketball: Eurosport Deutschland acquired live rights for nine selected playoff matches from Germany’s top league, the Basketball Bundesliga, in a deal with the league and rights-holder Sportdigital.tv.
Rugby Union

Ireland’s first Grand Slam victory since 1948 helped rugby union Six Nations broadcasters in Ireland and the UK post record television audiences for the 2009 championship.

Football

Football: The Sportsman Media Group, which is distributing the rights for the German Bundesliga in 16 markets across Southern Europe and Asia, has agreed deals in 13 territories
Football

An EC decision on the stringent conditions under which Sky Italia is forced to do business will go a long way to determining how the media rights for Serie A football are sold in the next round of deals and how much they are worth.

Basketball

Rai wants to force a way back into coverage of club basketball after having been out of the picture several years.