Football

The German football league exploited interest from ESPN to secure a significant last-minute increase in rights fee from pay-television platform Premiere

Football: Greek public-service broadcaster ERT, commercial broadcaster Mega and triple-play operator On Telecoms acquired packages of Champions League rights for the three-year period from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

The economic downturn has finally had an impact on the Team Marketing agency’s Champions League football rights sales.

Analysts are reining in their forecasts of the value of the next English Premier League live rights deal, on the basis that regulatory intervention and the economic downturn will limit competition.

Greek telecoms company Forthnet, owner of the country’s leading pay broadcaster Nova, is facing its biggest challenge yet after rival telecoms companies last week acquired sports rights for the first time, much earlier than anticipated.

Negotiations for the European rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics were building to a climax this week, as talks intensified between the EBU and the IOC

The efforts of sports rights holders to protect the exclusivity of their broadcast deals from ‘pirate’ live transmissions were given a boost last week by the UK’s High Court.

A Latin American deal for the next two football World Cups in 2010 and 2014 may have to be renegotiated, with local broadcasters struggling to meet rights fee payments against the background of global recession.

Olympics: Turkish commercial network Fox Turkey acquired the rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games.

Football: The African Union of Broadcasters signed a deal with Fifa for the English, French and Portuguese-language television and radio rights to the 2010 World Cup.

A new strategic cooperation between the African Union of Broadcasters and Fifa, covering the 2010 football World Cup, will give Fifa a direct relationship with broadcasters in the region for the first time.

Greek football’s top-tier Superleague finally approved a new collectively-negotiated television rights deal, albeit without the two clubs presently top of the league table.

The Premier League may offer overseas broadcasters a ready-made Premier League channel in the next three-year rights cycle, as it looks to maintain the steep increase in its international rights revenue in a softening market.

The Deutsche Fussball Liga has generated about €30 million (£23.5 million) through last week’s sale of three territory-based packages of international Bundesliga rights.

Globo said that it was in talks with the Team Marketing agency about the possibility of acquiring rights for European football’s Champions League competition from 2009-10 to 2011-12.