Middle East

Football

Israel’s Premier League is targeting an increase of at least 29 per cent in the value of its domestic media rights, with three packages of rights on the market.

Horse Racing

Satellite Information Services, a provider of end-to-end products and services to the betting and broadcast industries, has extended its exclusive licensed betting offices rights deal with Dubai’s Meydan Racecourse for a further two years.

Athletics

Lagardère Sports, the sports marketing division of conglomerate Lagardère, has been named the host broadcaster of the Dubai Marathon under a three-year deal.

Horse Racing

Racecourse Media Group, the holding company responsible for a range of media and data rights involving 34 of the UK’s premier racecourses, has agreed a deal to distribute Dubai-based Meydan Group’s international broadcast rights.

Cricket

UK sports production and media company Sunset+Vine has been awarded the broadcast production contract for new Twenty20 cricket competition the Pakistan Super League.

Football

The B4 Capital agency has acquired the international media rights to games played by Bahrain’s national football team.

Cycling

Organisers of the 2015 Abu Dhabi Tour have said the inaugural edition of the cycling event will be shown in 169 countries around the world across 10 television networks, with eight of them covering the race live.

BeIN Media Group is planning to expand its operations by launching movie channels in the Middle East, according to reports.

Football

The beIN Media Group has confirmed a wide-ranging rights deal with the German Football League (DFL) taking in the Middle East and North Africa region, along with France and Australia.

Multi-sport

Persian-language broadcast group GEM TV has secured the exclusive rights to the Baku 2015 European Games multi-sport event in Iran.

Cycling

The IMG agency has expanded the reach of its action sports and lifestyle channel Edgesport by agreeing a carriage deal with multi-platform media and entertainment organisation Abu Dhabi Media Company.

Martial Arts

The IEC in Sports agency has agreed a deal to market the media rights to the 2015 Asian Judo Championships.

Boxing

Filipino commercial broadcaster ABS-CBN has struck a deal to distribute media rights across the Middle East for the upcoming world welterweight boxing clash between Manny Pacquiao from the Philippines and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Football

The Qatar Football Association has appointed the AspireInfront agency as its exclusive media and marketing partner for the men’s national team matches.

SRO Motorsports Group, promoter of the GT Series, has sealed a number of new rights deals ahead of the start of the 2015 season of the motor racing championship.

Football

Abu Dhabi Media Company has reached an agreement for the pay-television and free-to-air rights to North America’s Major League Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa.

Sports broadcaster ESPN will show live and on-demand coverage of the 2015 IndyCar motor racing series in Europe, the Middle East and Africa via a new channel on its digital subscription service ESPN Player.

Horse Racing

UK horse racing pay-television broadcaster Racing UK has acquired rights for the finale of Qatar’s International Equestrian Sword Festival.