Italy

Overall Champions League rights fees in Italy have fallen about 10 per cent, after the Team Marketing agency concluded its sales.

New domestic deals for two of Europe’s top five football leagues accounted for two of the three biggest television rights contracts signed in 2008.

Football: Japanese pay-broadcaster SkyPerfecTV acquired the communication-satellite (CS) rights for all 64 matches of the 2010 World Cup in a deal with the Dentsu agency

Football: Philippines commercial broadcaster ABS-CBN acquired the rights for the 2010 World Cup in a $1m (€750,000) deal with the Football Media Services agency.

Italian state broadcaster Rai has become the only real bidder for free-to-air rights to top sport in the country, forcing down the value of rights even for major football competitions like the Uefa Champions League.

Uefa has paid out an estimated €5 million ($6.4 million) to broadcasters in compensation for the signal blackouts during the Germany-Turkey semi-final in this summer’s Euro 2008 championship.

Spanish television audiences for the 2008 MotoGP season rose for the third year in succession, with young local riders Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo both contending for the championship.

Despite the most exciting Formula One season in recent memory, with the driver’s and constructor’s championships going down to the wire, television audiences fell in a number of major European markets.

Football: The African Union of Broadcasters signed a deal with Fifa for the English, French and Portuguese-language television and radio rights to the 2010 World Cup.

The Premier League may offer overseas broadcasters a ready-made Premier League channel in the next three-year rights cycle, as it looks to maintain the steep increase in its international rights revenue in a softening market.

The IOC’s preference for direct relationships in key markets looks set to further loosen the grip of the pan-regional broadcast unions that have traditionally acquired Olympic television rights.

Baseball: US sports network ESPN extended a deal with Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm for inter-active television and other digital media rights through to 2013.

The IOC took the first step in its new European broadcast rights sales strategy this week with a deal with Sky Italia for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games.

Sky set to become Italy’s biggest broadcaster.

Cricket: Pan-Asian broadcaster ESPN Star Sports acquired the rights for Twenty20’s cricket’s Champions League.

Italian state broadcaster Rai acquired the rights for Italy’s domestic rugby union league, the Super 10 after Sky Italia chose not to renew its three-year deal.