Eleven Sports

Eleven Sports’ surprise entrance into the UK sports-rights market will have been welcomed by rights-holders around the world.

Pay-television broadcaster Eleven Sports bolstered its Belgian sports portfolio last month, buying rights to Italy’s Serie A and Germany’s Bundesliga ahead of carriage negotiations.

The 2018 Olympic Games was shown live in Singapore after a late deal with pay-television broadcaster Eleven Sports, which showed some coverage free-to-air.

Competition between sports-rights agencies has helped Spain’s LaLiga grow the value of its media rights in several new deals across Europe.

The NBA has increased its annual media-rights value in Taiwan via a new agreement with Videoland, which has subsequently sublicensed rights to Eleven Sports.

Eleven Sports last month acquired the remaining package of German Bundesliga rights in Poland, ensuring its control over the league’s coverage in the country.

Pay-television broadcaster Eleven Sports Network will pay a small fee to show Fiba events in Taiwan in an exclusive five-year deal agreed last month.

NC Plus has renewed its rights to the three most important speedway properties in Poland – the Speedway World Cup, Speedway Grand Prix and the Polish Ekstraliga – but will share the Ekstraliga with Eleven Sports Network from 2019.

The future of Eleven Sports Network in Singapore is uncertain after the pay-television broadcaster terminated its deal to show the English Premier League.

Eleven Sports Network said this week its strategy of targeting second-tier rights in larger markets, and running a ‘lean and mean’ business operation, would succeed in Italy, despite the country’s pay-television market having proved difficult for other players.

Acquiring the distribution infrastructure of One World Sports was an opportunistic move to get into the US media-rights market with a “headstart”, according to Eleven Sports Network executive chairman Marc Watson.

Interview with Marc Watson, executive chairman of Eleven Sports Networks, about the channel's launch in the US on the back of acquiring One World Sports’ distribution assets.

Strong competition and Robert Lewandowski’s decision to remain with Bayern Munich drove a big increase in the value of Bundesliga pay-television rights in Poland last month.

Uefa took advantage of strong broadcaster interest in Belgium, driven by the success of the national team, to secure an increase in the value of its national team rights package last month.

Eleven Sports Network’s deal for Euro 2016 in Singapore also included rights to the 2020 European Championship, plus European Qualifier matches from 2016-17 to 2021-22

Two recent deals with the National Basketball Association have fulfilled different needs for Eleven Sports Network in Singapore and Taiwan.