Swedish commercial and pay-television broadcaster TV4 has sublicensed free-to-air rights for the Swedish SM-Liiga ice hockey tournament to pan-Nordic broadcaster SBS.
TV4 has retained pay-television rights for its pan-Nordic pay-television broadcaster C-More, with both C-More and SBS showing the tournament’s finals this year.
The deal will run for the 2013 edition of the competition, but according to the Kampanje website, TF4 is in talks to sell SBS the free-to-air rights for the 2014 tournament.
The report added that TV4 is also in the process of negotiating the sale of its basic-tier Swedish channel TV11 to SBS.
“During the autumn we looked at our sports rights and we have sold some of them,” TV4 chief executive Casten Almqvist said. “This sale marks the end of this process. Now we have created room for new initiatives.”
In November, TV4 sublicensed rights for five Sweden national football team matches to SBS-owned commercial broadcaster Kanal 5 after having sold the rights for the Germany v Sweden World Cup qualifier on October 16 to the same broadcaster.