Skiing

A former Rai head of sports rights acquisitions claims he was forced out after resisting political pressure to overpay for rights to save Infront from bankruptcy.

Basketball: US cable sports channel Versus acquired rights for 16 games of the 2009-10 season of the NBA Develop-ment League, the official minor league basketball competition, in a deal with the NBA.

Football dominated sports viewing in Europe’s top markets in 2009, with Uefa club competitions and World Cup qualifiers delivering the strongest audiences in the big five markets.

Skiing suffers cut as EBU fights off agencies [UPDATE: DEAL COMPLETED IN MAY 2010

The International Ski Federation is facing a cut of at least 10 per cent in worldwide media and marketing fees for the Alpine and Nordic Skiing World Championships.

Mediapro is close to finalising domestic mobile rights deals for Spanish football’s La Liga, the first such deals to be agreed after a three-year hiatus caused by the football war between Mediapro and Sogecable.

Athletics: US free-to-air broadcaster NBC extended its deal with the New York City Road Runners for the television rights for the New York City marathon for three years from 2009 to 2011

Channel Four’s decision to drop its coverage of the alpine skiing, snowboarding and Nordic World Cups has drawn strong criticism from both the sports and television production sectors.

Baseball: US sports network ESPN extended a deal with Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media arm for inter-active television and other digital media rights through to 2013.

The EBU won the rights for World Cup skiing events in Austria despite offering less than its main rival and the previous incumbent, the Infront Sports and Media agency.

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.

Increased competition from Polsat for top sports rights could drive competition

Broadcaster defends decision to move skiing coverage to "graveyard" slot

State broadcaster now close to agreeing three-year deal, after demanding one- or two-month deals last year

Italian agency Media Partners is in talks with state broadcaster Rai about a three-year deal for alpine World Cup skiing, from 2003-04 to 2005-06

Football and winter sports dominate European sports viewing in the TV Sports Markets’ survey for March.