VGTRK (Russia)

Fifa, football’s global governing body, has taken advantage of the stronger advertising opportunities offered by the winter scheduling of the 2022 World Cup in its rights sale to the Telesport marketing agency in Russia.

The 2022 Fifa World Cup will receive widespread free-to-air and pay-TV coverage in Russia after the 2Sport2 consortium picked up the rights

Russian broadcasters VGTRK, Channel One and Match TV have agreed a deal with Fifa for rights to this year’s Confederations Cup, but wrangling over rights to the 2018 World Cup continues.

TV Sports Markets understands the Telesport agency has acquired rights in Russia to four Olympic Games, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and is currently in negotiations with Fifa for rights to the 2018 World Cup.

The International Champions Cup increased rights fees for its 2016 edition in new deals in the UK and Russia last week.

Gazprom Media chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko has said the division of state-owned energy company Gazprom intends to streamline operations of the new Sport 360 project following the deal struck with state-owned broadcaster VGTRK last month.

Russian state broadcaster VGTRK has acquired rights to the 2015 International Champions Cup pre-season club football friendly tournament for its pay-television sports channel Sport 1.

The agreement between Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK and Gazprom Media Holding which will lead to the formation of a new state-backed sports broadcaster also includes the country’s most popular sports website, Sportbox.ru, according to Kommersant.

Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK has been instructed by President Vladimir Putin to hand over the frequency utilised by its Russia 2 channel to Gazprom Media Holding by August 1, ahead of the launch a new state-backed sports broadcaster one month later.

Russian state broadcaster VGTRK has acquired free-to-air and pay-television rights in the country to the 2015 European Games.

Russian state broadcaster VGTRK has acquired rights for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s entire programme of mixed martial arts events throughout 2015.

Uefa is understood to be close to a breakthrough in Russia for the rights to its European Qualifiers but still faces big challenges in Germany, where third-party rights remain unsold, and Singapore, where it has not sold any rights.

Media rights income for Euroleague basketball is likely to be about the same in the 2014-15 season as it was last season, partly due to difficulties in Russia, one of the sport’s key markets.