MENA

Abu Dhabi Sports Channel gave the English Premier League the spectacular start to its international rights sales it was looking for with a staggering deal, beating strong favourite Al Jazeera Sport and incumbent Showtime.

Football: Sports broadcaster ESPN acquired the UK rights previously held by Setanta for 46 Premier League matches from the 2009-10 season and 23 matches a season for the three years from 2010-11 to 2012-13,…

In monetary terms at least, no-one will emerge a winner should the present impasse in Formula One between eight of the 10 teams and FIA president Max Mosley lead to the creation of a breakaway series.

Athletics: US free-to-air broadcaster NBC extended its deal with the New York City Road Runners for the television rights for the New York City marathon for three years from 2009 to 2011

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

Football television rights values in the Netherlands are plunging, with pay-channel Sport1 succeeding in getting massive rights-fee reductions on key contracts.

A Formula One television rights deal in the Middle East looks set to go down to the wire, with just two weeks left until the season-opener.

Spain’s top-flight basketball league has tripled its distribution deals and rights fee revenue only one year after launching an in-house marketing drive to increase international exposure.

The court date set for this month that was to rule, once and for all, on the ownership of television rights to Spain’s football Liga has been postponed by at least six months, to next June or July.

Athletics: UK public-service broad-caster the BBC extended its deal for domestic athletics events for a further six years, from 2009 to 2014

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.

Globo said that it was in talks with the Team Marketing agency about the possibility of acquiring rights for European football’s Champions League competition from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

Football: Greek commercial broadcaster Antenna acquired the rights for top Greek club Olympiacos’ home first round match in the Uefa Cup and its two home group stage matches, paying €1.605m (£1.25m)

A planned media auction for the live broadcast rights for the United Arab Emirates’ newly-formed top-tier domestic football league, the Pro League, never got off the ground

Olympics: The Asian Broadcasting Union agreed deals in Indonesia for the 2008 Beijing Games with free-to-air broadcaster TVRI and pay-operator Astro.

Football: German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 acquired the free-to-air rights for the Uefa Champions League.

A new potential bidder for the Middle East rights for Wimbledon and Australian Open tennis emerged last week.

Football fans in the Middle East have had a battle to access Al Jazeera Sport’s coverage of Euro 2008.