United Kingdom

The European Commission admitted that it was “naïve” in its attempt to break up BSkyB's monopoly over the Premier League’s television rights.

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.

The 66 Premier League matches broadcast by British Sky Broadcasting in the season just ended attracted an average audience of 1.356 million.

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)

Commercial broadcaster ITV was unopposed when it won the UK television rights for motorsport’s Formula 1 championship.

Rugby union: Pay-television operator British Sky Broadcasting acquired the live rights for English international and domestic rugby in a five-year deal, 2005-06 to 2009-10, with the Rugby Football Union, the sport’s national governing body, and Premier Rugby, the umbrella body of the country’s top-tier clubs.

Football: A consortium of pan– Scandinavian free-to-air broadcasters acquired the live and delayed rights for all 64 matches for the 2006 World Cup in a deal with the Infront Sports & Media agency

ITV said that it had probably underestimated the effect that losing exclusivity would have on its coverage.

UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 wants to cut back its Test match cricket coverage

Television audiences for the final stages of English rugby league’s Super League have fallen in the UK for the first time in three years.

Basketball:  Spain’s top domestic league, the ACB Liga, failed to agree television deals in time for the start of its season for the second successive year.

Cricket:  The Board of Control for Cricket in India, after extensive legal wrangles, finally signed a deal for the Indian rights to the three tours taking place this year, a four-Test series against Australia, a two-Test series against South Africa and a one-off one-day international against Pakistan, with state broadcaster Doordarshan.

Many officials across squash are highly critical of the Professional Squash Association

Marked differences in the out-comes of the European Commission’s investigations into England’s Premier League and Germany’s Bundesliga

Television viewing of live coverage of English football’s Premier League has fallen heavily this season.