Football

Horseracing:  UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 signed a one-year deal to continue its horseracing coverage in 2006 after the horseracing and betting industries agreed to pay the channel £4.95m (€7.4m). 

Football:  Norwegian commercial channel TV2 an telecoms company Telenor acquired the rights to all Norwegian football in a record NKr1bn (£85m/€127m) deal (page 1)

Spanish television’s near-black-out of the final of football’s domestic cup competition, the Copa del Rey, last weekend underlined a major flaw in Spanish listed-events legislation

Pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus won the rights for 15 of the 20 clubs in Italy’s Serie A football league last week

Two agencies have put in pre-emptive bids for the rights for the top Swedish league and the national football team

Setanta, the pay and pay-per-view company, has emerged as a major player in the UK and Irish markets

The race to win the 2010 World Cup television rights in Europe, outside of the top five markets, has come down to three agencies

The biggest-ever sports-rights deal in the history of Nordic television was agreed late this week

Brazilian and Argentinian world tour friendly matches sold to Japan Sports Marketing

Pan-Asian broadcaster in tough talks over continued distribution of its channels in Thailand, following loss of English Premier League football rights to UBC

EBU membership threatened and other Scandinavian public service broadcasters angered by cost-cutting measures

The television coverage of the World Cup in Germany has come under fire from European broadcasters for being cautious and old-fashioned.

The Infront acquisition of Media Partners is set to be the first in a series of pending big-money deals involving the sale of top sports agencies.

Football World Cup agency Infront is close to acquiring the Milan-based agency Media Partners in a €130 million cash deal.

IMG, recenlty on the acquisition trail itself, could be a future target for French media group

Football: UK commercial operator ITV and pay-broadcaster Setanta acquired the rights for the FA Cup knock-out competition and England national team matches in a four-year, £425m (€623m) deal with the En…