USA

Kickboxing

Glory Sports International, the parent company of kickboxing promotion Glory World Series, has exercised its renewal clause with Spike TV to retain the US pay-television channel as its television partner through 2015.

Baseball

Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles have been granted an extension to an injunction preventing the league from forcing the franchise to pay rival the Washington Nationals higher payments from their jointly-owned US regional cable-television broadcaster MASN.

American Football

US sports broadcaster ESPN has agreed a new long-term media rights deal with the Mid-American Conference US collegiate sports competition.

American Football

The Learfield Sports agency has extended its multimedia rights partnership with the athletics division of Boise State University through the 2024-25 season.

Ajit Pai, a member of the Federal Communications Commission board in the United States, has said that the “time has come” to repeal the so-called ‘blackout’ rule that blocks certain sports events from being shown live on television in their local market if they fail to meet a specified level of ticket sales.

IMG Sports and Entertainment president George Pyne is leaving the newly combined WME/IMG agency to pursue new business interests.

Olympics

US media company NBCUniversal has committed to airing 24.5 hours of the upcoming 2014 Youth Olympic Games on the NBC network and pay-television broadcaster NBC Sports Network – the first time the event will be afforded coverage on the two platforms.

Baseball

A US district judge has ruled that Major League Baseball cannot use an antitrust exemption to avoid facing a lawsuit from fans who claim that the league unfairly dictates broadcast markets for its clubs.

American Football

The Learfield Sports agency has agreed a 10-year deal to manage the multimedia rights of the athletics division of Northern Illinois University.

Ice Hockey

North American pay-television broadcaster One World Sports has agreed a three-year deal for the rights to new pan-European club ice hockey competition the Champions Hockey League.

Boxing

Kazakh boxer Gennady Golovkin’s promoter, K2 Promotions, has signed a multi-fight rights deal with US pay-television broadcaster HBO.

Baseball

US cable-television operator Time Warner Cable has said it is willing to let an arbitrator determine a fair price for carriage of the SportsNet LA regional pay-television sports channel in the hope of ending a dispute with other operators over distribution of the platform, which is owned by MLB baseball team the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Basketball

US pay-television broadcaster Comcast SportsNet has extended its local rights deal with NBA basketball franchise the Sacramento Kings.

The Fox Sports Digital and Sporting News Media digital services have confirmed a multi-platform content, distribution and media partnership in the US.

Multi-sport

Pac-12 Networks, the content and multi-platform media company for the Pac-12 US college sports conference, is to distribute programming to international audiences through a subscription channel on video-sharing website YouTube.

Multi-sport

US cable-television operators Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have agreed carriage deals with sports broadcaster ESPN for the SEC Network, a new pay-television sports channel dedicated to college sport’s Southeastern Conference.

Football

Mike Kiernan, Analyst for SportBusiness Intelligence, looks at television audiences in the major European markets and America for the 2014 Fifa World Cup

Football

The NBC Sports Group division of US media company NBCUniversal has struck a deal with Fathom Events, a company that shows unique entertainment events in movie theatres, to show live English Premier League football matches in cinemas during the upcoming 2014-15 season.