Rugby Union

Cricket

Football: Five Italian Serie A clubs sold the rights for their remaining home games of the season to pay-operator Sky Italia in deals worth between €300,000 (£201,000) and €350,000 a match.  Th
Cricket

Celtic unions were worried that switching to commercial broadcaster would have placed into doubt BBC coverage of Autumn Internationals
Cricket

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
Football

Olympics:  The International Olympic Committee will start a tendering process in March for the sale of television rights in Europe to the 2010 Olympics and beyond.
Rugby Union

Terrestrial channel snatches rights from incumbent Rai for a 300-per-cent rights fee increase
Cricket

Football: French pay-broadcaster Canal Plus acquired the exclusive live rights and a highlights package for the French football league in a three-year deal

Basketball

Football: German public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF acquired the rights for up to 49 matches in football’s 2006 World Cup from Swiss agency Infront Sports & Media.

Rugby Union

French public-service broadcaster France Télévisions, commercial broadcaster TF1 and pay-broadcaster Canal Plus look set to compete for the rights for rugby union’s World Cups in 2007 and 2011
Rugby Union

The International Rugby Board has whittled down the five agencies it invited to bid for the commercial rights for rugby union’s 2007 World Cup to two.
Bobsleigh/skeleton

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.

Cricket

Cricket:  The Board of Control for Cricket in India, after extensive legal wrangles, finally signed a deal for the Indian rights to the three tours taking place this year, a four-Test series against Australia, a two-Test series against South Africa and a one-off one-day international against Pakistan, with state broadcaster Doordarshan.

Cricket

Cricket: Indian broadcaster Zee Telefilms made a $308m (£174m/ €257m) bid for the worldwide television rights to Indian cricket for four years, from October 2004 to September 2008.

Rugby Union

Italian state broadcaster Rai has agreed a one-year deal with the Lega Italiana Rugby Eccellenza for the exclusive rights to the top division
Rugby Union

British Sky Broadcasting acquired the rights for European rugby’s Heineken Cup competition in a three-year deal said to be worth £20m (€28.7m), entering talks at the last moment.  In
Handball

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

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. 
Rugby Union

After a record-breaking 2007, television audiences for the 2008 Six Nations rugby union tournament fell in all four markets of the participating countries

Cricket

Olympics: CCTV.com, the new-media arm of Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, acquired the new-media rights for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in a deal worth an estimated $7m (£3.5m/ €4.9m