Oceania

Cricket:  Indian pay-television broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television acquired the international rights to this month’s India v Pakistan tour for $11.5m (£6m/€8.7m).

Australia’s television networks are gearing up for the first of several fierce rights battles

Football: Russia’s Premier League is set to sign a three-year deal worth $17m (£9m/€13m) a season for its rights from the 2005 season with the Fedcom-media agency

Television broadcasters are having difficulty making use of the matching-rights options they negotiated in earlier contracts.

Tennis: Pan-European cable and satellite broadcaster Eurosport extended its deal for coverage of the Australian Open for a further four years, from 2008 to 2011. Eurosport will also be the distribution agent for the media rights across Europe. The rights were previously held by the European Broadcasting Union, the umbrella group representing the region’s public-service broadcasters.

Golf: The US PGA Tour signed new six-year deals with the CBS and NBC networks, from 2007 to 2012.

Analysts claim that Australian commercial broadcasters Seven and Ten overpaid for Australian Football League rights

Australian, English, South African, New Zealand, Zimbabwean boards to benefit from new Asian television rights deals.

Fifa agreed to sell World Cup rights for 2010 and 2014 to Australian public-service broadcaster SBS for only two-thirds the amount it could have got.

Football’s governing body in Australia hopes to increase television-rights revenue for national team’s matches