Italy

Legislation requires collective selling of Italian football rights, possibly in breach of EU competition law

Only one agency invited to make presentations to league on how it could increase value of rights

Clubs from Italy’s Serie A last week voted in favour of the principle of a return to the collective selling of television rights abandoned seven years ago.

Hamilton, Raikkonen, Kubica, Alonso attract big audiences in home markets, but German, French and Italian audiences fall

Cricket: Australian free-to-air broadcaster Nine Network acquired the rights to this month's Champions Trophy and the 2007 World Cup in a deal with News Corporation subsidiary Global Cricket Corporation.

Football: Romanian public-service broadcaster TVR acquired the rights for all 31 matches of the Euro 2008 tournament in a deal with the Sportfive agency.

The International Olympic Committee’s surprise gatekeeper deal with Italian pay-television operator Sky Italia for the rights to the Olympic Games of 2010 and 2012 could be a blueprint for the IOC’s future rights-sales strategy in Europe

American Football:  UK pay-operator British Sky Broadcasting acquired the UK and Ireland rights for the National Football League in a four-year deal from 2007-08 to 2010-11.

·   Football: Canadian public-service broadcaster CBC acquired the rights for all Fifa events for the eight-year period from 2007 to 2014, including the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. 

Italy’s troubled telecoms giant, Telecom Italia, is on a collision course with the government over deals it agreed with five Serie A clubs.

Football: Japanese pay-television operator J Sports acquired the rights to Japan’s top-tier J-League in a five-year deal from 2007 to 2011.

Football: The threatened delay to the start of the Serie B season in Italy was averted when Rupert Murdoch’s satellite platform, Sky Italia, signed a last-minute, one-season deal to broadcast all Serie B matches live.

International rights sales for Spanish football’s La Liga are likely to bring in more than €100 million a year.

A new television deal between the Italian basketball league, Lega Basket, and Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia was hit by the withdrawal late this week of Virtus Bologna, one of the sport’s biggest clubs.

Olympics: Korean free-to-air broadcaster SBS acquired the rights for four Olympic Games from 2010 to 2016.

The Italian match-fixing scandal is continuing to sow confusion in the television-rights market.