Baseball

Major League Baseball is considering the launch of its own cable network to broadcast games covered by its main television-rights package.

Ice hockey: Canadian public-service broadcaster CBC retained the rights for live coverage of the US National Hockey League in a six-year deal that will keep its flagship Hockey Night in Canada programme…

Olympics: Brazilian free-to-air broadcaster TV Record acquired the Brazilian media rights across all platforms for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Olympics Games in London in a $60m (£31m/€45m) de…

Football: French commercial broad-caster TF1 agreed a deal with the Infront agency for the pay-television rights for the 2006 World Cup and sublicensed them to pay-broadcaster Canal Plus and its own cable and satellite channel Eurosport.

American football:  US network NBC acquired the so-called “network package” of American football’s National Football League rights, the main package of 23 matches per season, paying $600m (£316m/€465m) a year ov…

Canadian public-service broadcaster CBC is expected to renew its long-standing rights deal with US ice-hockey’s National Hockey League, although it will have to pay more and share the most attractive m…

Commonwealth Games:  UK public-service broadcaster the BBC acquired the rights to the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in a deal with the Fastrack agency, which is selling the rights on behalf of the organisers.

Motorsport: German pay-broad-caster Premiere acquired the exclusive live rights for motor racing’s Nascar and Indycar series for the 2006 season.

Major League Baseball may have left negotiations with the US television networks too late to sell its main rights package for an increased fee.

UK pay-operator’s English Premier League deal was year's largest television sports-rights deal.