IMG

Football

German pay-television broadcaster Sportdigital picked up the rights to four football leagues in recent weeks as it bolstered its international football programming.

Motorsport

The IMG Events & Media agency said this week that US stock car racing operator Nascar was open to all ideas for expanding its series beyond its core US audience, including bringing in international drivers and developing race circuits abroad.

American Football

The athletics division of US college Syracuse University has signed a new multi-year multimedia rights deal with IMG after last month electing to break its contract with the agency in favour of seeking a more lucrative agreement.

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

The IMG agency has struck a 10-year deal, from 2015 to 2024, to develop North American stock car-racing series Nascar’s international media business.

Chris Liddell has been appointed as the new chief financial officer at the WME-IMG agency.

Football

Pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus beat competition from main rival beIN Sports to pick up third-party European Qualifier football rights in France earlier this month.

Football

Rupert Murdoch’s two Italian pay-television businesses – the Sky Italia satellite platform and the Fox Sports premium channel – reinforced their football portfolios this week as rival operator Mediaset inched closer to a deal to sell a stake in its Mediaset Premium platform to Qatari broadcaster beIN Sports.

Football

Pay-television broadcaster Star India asked for a delay to the start of the Indian Super League because of internal issues with the franchise football tournament, not, as widely reported, to avoid a clash with the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament.

IMG said this week that its new merged events and media division would create efficiencies and provide opportunities that had been stymied by the compartmentalised management structure operated by private equity owners Forstmann Little prior to the sale of the agency late last year.

Interview with Michel Masquelier and Ioris Francini, chairman and president of IMG Events & Media respectively, on the WME/Silver Lake takeover of IMG and the creation of a new IMG division covering events and media.

The athletics division of US college Syracuse University has elected to break its multimedia rights contract with the IMG agency in favour of seeking a more lucrative deal.

Baseball

US media group Time will launch 120 Sports, a new all-digital sports network, on June 25, it was announced today.

The IMG and William Morris Endeavor agencies have appointed Greg D’Alba as president of global sales and marketing.

Rugby Union

IMG Media’s acquisition of the international rights to European club rugby was due to be confirmed late this week. The deal was reported exclusively in the last issue of TV Sports Markets.

Ice Hockey

The International Ice Hockey Federation this week secured a strong increase in the value of the media and marketing rights to its World Championship, but some experts believe it could have earned even more.

Rugby Union

The IMG Media agency today (June 13, 2014) confirmed a deal to distribute global media rights to European club rugby's new elite tournaments, run by European Professional Club Rugby.

Read here TV Sports Markets' report from two weeks ago on how IMG won the bidding war with rival agencies to land the rights.

Football

Uefa is on course to earn more than expected from the sale of its European Qualifiers media rights from 2014-15 to 2017-18, according to research conducted by TV Sports Markets with local media sources over the last 12 months.