United Kingdom

Hamilton, Raikkonen, Kubica, Alonso attract big audiences in home markets, but German, French and Italian audiences fall

Champions League, Football League, Rugby League and Rugby World Cup properties on the market in next few weeks

Football: Romanian public-service broadcaster TVR acquired the rights for all 31 matches of the Euro 2008 tournament in a deal with the Sportfive agency.

The opening two matchweeks of football’s Champions League have got good audiences for the competition’s new rights holders.

Uefa is in talks with clubs, leagues and football associations about a possible overhaul of European club competitions.

American Football:  UK pay-operator British Sky Broadcasting acquired the UK and Ireland rights for the National Football League in a four-year deal from 2007-08 to 2010-11.

Pay-per-view audiences for English football’s Premier League are up by 27 per cent for the opening matches of the season.

Setanta last week renewed its deal for German football’s Bundesliga for a further three years.

BSkyB exploited the connections of its parent company, News Corp, to keep hold of the UK rights for American football’s National Football League.

Boxing: German commercial broadcaster RTL acquired the rights for the next four fights of Ukrainian heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko in a deal with the Sportfive agency worth €10m (£6.8m).

Football: Japanese pay-television operator J Sports acquired the rights to Japan’s top-tier J-League in a five-year deal from 2007 to 2011.

Poor viewing for the European athletics championships in Gothenburg will not help the European Athletics Association get the fee increase it is trying to get.

International rights sales for Spanish football’s La Liga are likely to bring in more than €100 million a year.

The management of Octagon CSI is understood to be working on a buy-out of the division.