Ice Hockey

Baseball
Europe

Sportinveste and PT Multimedia likely to buy
Cycling
Belgium

Qualifying matches for football’s European Championship next year dominated the April charts in TV Sports Markets monthly survey.
Football

The collapse of Scandinavian sponsorship and rights agency Sponsor Service has put the future of a number of television-rights deals in doubt.

Athletics
Denmark

Danmarks Radio accused of not fulfilling its role as a public-service broadcaster
Cricket
Asia

Rugby Union:  The BBC extended its deal for rugby union’s Six Nations Championship for a further four years, from 2006 to 2009.  The deal includes radio, television and internet rights.  T
American Football
North America

Ice hockey: US broadcasters ABC and ESPN, which are seeking to renew a five-year deal with the National Hockey League, are said to have offered only about half the $120m (£66m/€94m) a year they now pa…
Football
Scandinavia

A landmark investigation by the Swedish tax authority into whether television-rights income should be subject to tax could have major financial implications
American Football
Asia

Ice Hockey: The US National Hockey League signed a two-year deal with the NBC network, with an option to renew for a further two years
American Football
Australia

American Football:  The National Football League signed new deals with three of its five major US television partners – the CBS and Fox networks and digital satellite platform DirecTV

Bobsleigh/skeleton
France

Rugby union: Pay-television operator British Sky Broadcasting acquired the live rights for English international and domestic rugby in a five-year deal, 2005-06 to 2009-10, with the Rugby Football Union, the sport’s national governing body, and Premier Rugby, the umbrella body of the country’s top-tier clubs.

Basketball
Germany

Basketball:  Spain’s top domestic league, the ACB Liga, failed to agree television deals in time for the start of its season for the second successive year.

Ice Hockey
Europe

The German ice hockey league started the new season last week without a live-rights television deal in place.

Cricket
Belgium

Cricket: Asian broadcaster Ten Sports is set to acquire the worldwide rights to international cricket in Sri Lanka in a four-year deal, from 2005 to 2008.

Handball
France

Ice hockey: US network NBC agreed a one-year extension to its revenue-sharing deal with the National Hockey League, through to the end of the 2008-09 season
Air Racing
Australia

Olympics: Australian telecoms provider Telstra agreed a A$9m (£4.2m/ €5.3m) deal with Seven Media Group to show exclusive live coverage of the Beijing Olympics on its BigPond mobile service. 
Athletics
Australia

Motorsport: German pay-broadcaster Premiere extended its deal for live Formula One rights by one year, until the end of the 2007 season.

Baseball
Asia

Football: Italian broadcaster Mediaset acquired the broadcast rights across any medium to top Serie A club Inter Milan in a two-year deal worth €200m (£137m), covering the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons.

Football
Czech Republic

The Czech Republic’s victory in the final of last year’s ice hockey World Championship attracted the country’s top sports television audience in 2005.