North America

US golf’s PGA Tour says that it expects to win increased fees for its next domestic television rights deal

The newly-owned and rebranded US motor racing series Champ Car made a decent start to the season in its first two races.

Ice Hockey: The US National Hockey League signed a two-year deal with the NBC network, with an option to renew for a further two years

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.

US cable broadcaster ESPN has revived its interest in boxing almost a year after it seemed set to quit the sport.

The revival of the India-Pakistan hockey test series after an interval of five years has attracted high television interest.

There is considerable pressure on UK boxing promoter Frank Warren and his biggest fight asset, Ricky Hatton, to come up with a top-ranking US opponent in the next few months.

Horseracing: Two rival dedicated cable and satellite horseracing channels could be launched in the UK within the next month with the country’s racecourses split evenly between the two new ventures. 

Football: Fifa, world football’s governing body, rejected a minimum offer of $2.8bn (£1.6bn/€2.3bn)

The Athens Olympics attracted impressive ratings for Europe’s public-service broadcasters

Cricket: Asian broadcaster Ten Sports is set to acquire the worldwide rights to international cricket in Sri Lanka in a four-year deal, from 2005 to 2008.

Sepp Blatter, president of Fifa, world football’s governing body, said that Fifa may take the selling of television rights for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups in-house.

Olympics: The Japan Consortium, consisting of public-service broadcaster NHK and commercial broadcasters Fuji TV, NTV, TV Asahi, TBS and Tokyo TV, acquired the media rights for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics…

Cricket: Australian sports broad-caster Fox Sports acquired the rights for Australia’s next two tours to India, including the four Test series in October and the seven one-day internationals in 2009, i…

The Deutscher Fussball-Bund, the German football federation, signed a five-year extension, ending 2009, to its television rights deal with German public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF

American Football and the Winter Olympics contested the top television sports viewing in the US, taking nine of the Top 10 positions in the 2002 network chart.

Football: Spanish commercial broadcaster Cuatro and digital satellite operator Digital Plus, both owned by media group Sogecable, acquired the rights for Euro 2008 from Uefa, in a deal brokered by the…

Football: Greek public-service broadcaster ERT acquired the free-to-air rights for all 31 matches of Euro 2008 in a €9.5m (£6.5m) deal with the Sportfive agency.  It is the first deal done for the championship.  Italian public-service broadcaster Rai is also set to sign a deal for Euro 2008, paying €120m.