Basketball

French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus is planning to close its Sport Plus television channel, according to L’Equipe.

US pay-television broadcaster Univision Deportes has agreed a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to provide fans in the US with Spanish-language content from the North American basketball league.

Pac-12 Networks, the content and multi-platform media company for the Pac-12 US college sports conference, has agreed a multi-year distribution partnership with the Metta Sport agency covering the Latin America region.

Euroleague Basketball has agreed a partnership with digital sports media group Spox.com to provide online video content for fans of the pan-European club competition in Germany.

Media rights clips from February 26 to March 11

Nova Broadcasting Group, part of multi-territory commercial and pay-television broadcaster Modern Times Group, has agreed a deal with the National Basketball Association to show the North American basketball league in Bulgaria.

Pan-African pay-television operator StarTimes has agreed a two-year deal for the rights to the German Bundesliga football competition and will launch a new premium sports channel to exploit the content, according to Rwandan newspaper the New Times.

Russian sports news website Sports.ru has struck a deal to become an official premium media partner of the Euroleague Basketball club tournament.

NCAA Digital, a joint venture between the Turner Sports division of US cable-television broadcaster Turner Broadcasting Systems and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, has launched a channel on video-sharing website YouTube for this year’s NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.

US pay-television network ESPN has acquired rights for the 2015 edition of the Basketball Tournament, an amateur, single-elimination competition in the country.

ARD and ZDF will pay a decent rights fee, plus broadcast sponsorship, for EuroBasket 2015 rights in Germany - with value driven by the country hosting some matches.

Media rights clips from February 12 to 25

Italy’s RCS MediaGroup has launched its new Gazzetta dello Sport-themed television channel.

Italian DTT sports broadcaster Sportitalia has acquired rights to the 2015 Copa del Rey de Baloncesto, the annual knockout competition of Spanish club basketball.

The National Basketball Association’s exclusive digital rights deal with Chinese internet operator Tencent, agreed late last month, looks to be a landmark one for the country’s media-rights market.

Media rights clips from January 29 to February 11