Italy

Football: German public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF acquired the rights for up to 49 matches in football’s 2006 World Cup from Swiss agency Infront Sports & Media.

The rocky marriage of Italian club basketball and state broadcaster Rai is to end in divorce.

The Sportfive agency looks to be in a strong position to take the international rights of the rest of the Serie A clubs.

Rai Trade, commercial arm of state broadcaster Rai, is to quit the selling of sports rights on the international market.

Sky Italia’s expensive and quickly-negotiated deals with Italy’s top three football clubs were to at least a large extent the result of a rival bid from a newly-formed group of top sports executives and bankers.

Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset is set to make another attempt to show the national football team’s matches for the first time.

Sky Italia’s new deals with Italy’s top three clubs cover two seasons, 2005-06 and 2006-07.

EBU to patch together a “pan-European” bid for the next round of Olympic Games television rights.

Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia pay-television company astonished experienced industry observers by signing lucrative rights deals with Italy’s top three clubs.

Italy’s biggest clubs, Juventus and AC Milan, enriched by individually-sold television-rights contracts, have wondered for the last few years how they could get even richer.

Hope that changes to the rules about the use of mini-spot advertisements during football matches will be enough to appease the European Commission.

Basketball:  Spain’s top domestic league, the ACB Liga, failed to agree television deals in time for the start of its season for the second successive year.

The European Commission has opened an investigation into the television rights deals which Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia signed with Italy’s top three football clubs

Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio accept Bologna complaint that the annual €100 million payment by Serie A clubs to Serie B clubs is 'excessively onerous'

Lega Calcio buys €3 million stake in ppv football channel

Cricket: Indian broadcaster Zee Telefilms made a $308m (£174m/ €257m) bid for the worldwide television rights to Indian cricket for four years, from October 2004 to September 2008.