Clydesdale Bank have ended their title sponsorship of the Scottish Premier League (SPL), denture seeing out the rest of the contract that will finish at the end of the 2012/13 season.

The Clydesdale Bank has been the title sponsor of the league since 2007.

Neil Doncaster, cure Chief Executive of the SPL, said: “The SPL and Clydesdale Bank have enjoyed an extremely successful partnership and the relationship has gone from strength to strength over the years. I would like to thank the Clydesdale Bank for their support and commitment to Scottish football and look forward to working alongside the Clydesdale Bank to ensure the final 18 months of the partnership continue that great success.

“Work also now begins on seeking a new title sponsor for the foremost sporting competition in Scotland from 2013/14. The Scottish Premier League has consistently demonstrated that it provides terrific value to its sponsors. I am sure that success will be important in the work we now undertake.”

Steve Reid, Retail Director of the Clydesdale Bank, added: “It has been a privilege to support Scottish football over what will be a six-year period. As well as supporting our national sport, we entered into the sponsorship to raise awareness of our brand and it is fair to say we will have achieved more than we could have hoped for.

“However, we believe that at the end of our current deal in 2013 the time will be right to hand the partnership over and, in making the announcement now, we are giving the SPL 18 months in which to find the league’s next sponsor.

“We remain firmly committed to the remaining period of the sponsorship and look forward to working with the SPL throughout this time.”

Technology giants, BT have announced a major broadcast deal with Premiership Rugby, worth a whopping £152 million ($244m) in a four-year deal.

In a ground-breaking move for the club game in England, BT will have the exclusive live broadcast rights for four years to show Aviva Premiership Rugby and the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Sevens from the 2013-14 season.

BT will also have exclusive live broadcast rights to matches played by Aviva Premiership Rugby clubs in any future European competitions from 2014-15 for three years.

Live Aviva Premiership matches are currently split between BSkyB and ESPN so the new deal means that from next season, rugby fans will be able to catch all of the excitement of the Aviva Premiership in one place with the bonus of additional live coverage from future European competitions from 2014.

“This is a game-changing agreement and will deliver a service that I know our club supporters will enjoy,” said Mark McCafferty, Chief Executive of Premiership Rugby, the umbrella organisation of the Aviva Premiership Rugby clubs.
“We are delighted to have concluded our discussions with such an ambitious partner that will help bring Premiership Rugby to new audiences.

“BT is a company at the cutting edge of technology and that is one of the reasons it makes them such an exciting broadcast partner for Premiership Rugby.
“We will develop a broad partnership. As well as showing the live games, BT will assist us in further upgrading the technical infrastructure of our clubs’ stadia and by building Community programmes with us.”

Marc Watson, BT Vision CEO added: “BT is delighted to have secured this deal. Rugby Union is entering a thrilling phase with the World Cup being staged here in 2015 and rugby returning to the Olympics in 2016. We plan to bring the excitement of the very best matches to as wide an audience as possible. We will also be bringing all of the action together in one place and will look to distribute it on a variety of platforms.”

“BT is serious about sport and this deal means we will be offering the very best rugby action alongside some of the most thrilling football matches from the Premier League. That is a winning combination and one that will appeal to fans of both sports.”

 

Tottenham Hotspur recent financial report has steered them towards taking the Premier League club off the stock market as they look to fund a new stadium.

Their latest report showed record revenues, boosted by a season of Champions League football that pushed football revenue to £163.5m,up from £119.8m in the previous year. Tottenham’s operating profits also increased,to £32.2m.

Gate receipts and prize money from the Champions League alone were worth £37.1m, while sponsorship and hospitality income increased 24% to £31.8m.

Despite those results, the club remain determined to leave their home at White Hart Lane. With a move to the Olympic Stadium now seemingly dead in the water, the club are expected to return to plans for a new stadium adjacent to the current ground. The move to take the club off the stock market is aimed at securing funds for that project.

Daniel Levy, the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, said: “It is clear to us that increasing the capacity of the club’s stadium is a key factor in the continued development and success of the club and will involve the company inconsiderable additional capital expenditure. Given this requirement, we believe that the AIM listing restricts our ability to secure funding for its future development.

“We are ambitious for the club and have always taken the steps that we believe to be in its best interests.”

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ProTV has been awarded certain media rights in Romania until 2015.

As part of the deal, order Sport.ro will broadcast each matchweek one live game and a highlights programme. Matches featuring local participation will be shown on ProTV and will be followed by a wrap-up of the matchweek action.

All rights have been granted on a platform-neutral basis, with the rights also being exploited on the internet via www.protv.ro and www.sport.ro, as well as on mobile.

The rights have been awarded to Pro TV on a co-exclusive basis with pay television operators RCS RDS (DIGI Sport) and RomTelecom (Dolce Sport), whose deals were announced previously. This therefore concludes the sale of the UEFA Europa League media rights in Romania for 2012–15.

Barcelona president Sandro Rosell believes Europe’s elite domestic competitions, including the Premier League, must be cut to 16 clubs in order to boost the Champions League and suggested a breakaway league may be formed in 2014 if demands are not met.

Rosell, speaking at a conference in Qatar, went as far as to suggest a breakaway European competition could be created by the bigger clubs if UEFA did not agree to such demands made by the European Club Association [ECA], of which Rosell is vice-president.

Premier League clubs would also need to agree to the changes, but with the ECA’s memorandum of understanding with UEFA expiring in 2014, the organisation is lobbying for changes which Rosell says could lead to a ‘European Super League’.

“The objective of reducing from 20 to 16 teams is to give more space to our players,” said Rosell. “We want a bigger Champions League and hope one day we could play perhaps Barcelona versus Manchester United on Saturdays. It’s something all of them would have to agree to. That includes the Premier League.

“We want to have the Champions League under the UEFA umbrella but we want UEFA to hear our demands. We are asking for more revenue. We are asking for governance, transparency, insurance. We would like to have a Champions League with more teams.

“If UEFA and the ECA reach an agreement then that’s good for both parties. If not, with or without the UEFA umbrella, the ECA is entitled to organise their own champions’ competition by themselves. In the worst case scenario, we will go away from UEFA.”

Rosell also believes FIFA and UEFA should pay players’ wages during international tournaments. The Spaniard confirmed the ECA had already broached the subject with football’s governing bodies in previous meetings and was hopeful of a resolution.

“We don’t think it’s fair that we pay the salaries and they use our players and they get income using our players. We are not trying to eliminate dates for national teams – but the number of days our players are used by the national associations is huge,” Rosell said.

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MCS TV Group has today confirmed a four year deal with IEC in Sports and sports media group PERFORM to exclusively broadcast over 400 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) matches per year across their network of channels. 

The four year deal, which covers all platforms, starts at the Brisbane International on the 2nd January 2013 and will include access to 22 WTA Premier tournaments every year, concluding with the season finale TEB-BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul.

MCS TV Group’s channels include Ma Chaine Sport, MCS Extrême, MCS Bien-être and MCS International and are distributed across Numéricable, Canalsat and ADSL, reaching over 14 million viewers in multiple territories including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Israel, Portugal and selected territories in sub-Saharan Africa. As part of the acquisition, MCS TV Group will launch a new channel specifically to showcase their tennis content. The MCS Tennis channel will feature all of the WTA Premier events alongside specific men’s ATP World Tour events for which the MCS TV Group own the rights.

Nicolas Rotkoff, President of MCS TV commented: “We are proud to announce this long term contract with the WTA that really reinforces and grows our tennis offering with the best of women’s tennis.”

PERFORM and IEC in Sports, who partnered to acquire and market the WTA’s Premier events in December 2011, plan to double the number of current live matches produced, by increasing both the number of courts and days covered. In addition, PERFORM will provide extensive coverage of the WTA on all its digital platforms, including (i) TennisTV.com, the WTA’s and ATP World Tour’s official live streaming subscription website, (ii) ePlayer, the sports VOD broadcast platform that reaches over 130 million sports fans each month, (iii) a bi-monthly TV and digital magazine show featuring on and off-court WTA highlights, (iv) a global TV and digital news service of match highlights and player interviews in seven different languages, and (v) Watch&Bet.

Speaking about the MCS deal, Stacey Allaster, Chairman and CEO of the WTA commented: “This is a very significant deal and marks an exciting evolution in the distribution and exposure of women’s tennis. Our ambition alongside that of PERFORM and IEC in Sports is to ensure we reach as many fans of women’s tennis around the world, and this deal is the first of many that will see us fulfill this goal.”

Simon Denyer, PERFORM’s joint-CEO added: “The WTA is a fantastic sports right property which recognises that fans are now consuming sport differently. Our expertise in digital rights combined with IEC in Sports expertise in broadcast distribution is really starting to pay off, as you will see with a number of additional announcements over the coming months.”
Nick Haigh, Chairman of The International Board at IEC in Sports added: “MCS has already established itself as a major player in the sports broadcast industry – this partnership is another reflection of that and we look forward to continuing our existing strong relationships with MCS still further with this landmark deal.”

Story 4 and DIGI Sport have been awarded the Hungarian rights to the Europa League from 2012-15, viagra UEFA have announced.

Sanoma Digital Media has been awarded the right to have first pick of which game to broadcast live each matchweek, viagra order to be transmitted on its main channel, Story 4. Coverage of the live fixture will be followed by a highlights programme.

Pay television operator DIGI Sport has been awarded the rights to the remaining live games, with the final being granted on a co-exclusive basis. Each matchnight, DIGI Sport Hungary and DIGI Sport Plus Hungary will broadcast one live match, as well as a highlights programme.

All rights have been granted to Story 4 and DIGI Sport on a platform-neutral basis, with the rights also being broadcast online via www.story4.hu and www.digisport.hu, and on mobile.

Real Madrid are seeing the dividends of their early kickoff on Sunday against Osasuna after Beijing TV calculated 60 million Chinese viewers tuned in to see the game at the Santiago Bernabéu.

The game kicked off at midday in the Spanish capital, anesthetist meaning it was watched at peak viewing time of 7pm in the China, site and the figures will come as music to the ears of La Liga BBVA bosses who have introduced the earlier kick-off time to maximise the exposure of Spanish football in Asia.

Despite national television sports channel CCTV5cough Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;”> choosing not to broadcast the encounter it was shown on free-to-air television in the country’s capital, a move which went down well with the Chinese themselves and the numerous bars in central Beijing. Most were crowded with sports fans wanting a glimpse of stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, who did not disappoint with a hat-trick in Real’s thrashing of José Luis Mendilibar’s team.

The initiative of La Liga in making inroads into the Chinese market has led to the opening of an office in Beijing in order to promote the competition, but a spokesperson recognised that it was still going to ‘take a great effort.’ to make a difference in a English Premier League dominated market.

Univision Deportes has acquired mutliplatform U.S. media rights to both the French and German national soccer teams, and France’s professional league, Ligue 1.

The deal also includes Germany’s DFB Cup and the French Cup. The agreements grant Univision Deportes rights to all qualifiers played in Germany and France in the lead to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, including the France vs. Spain match in March 2013. Home friendly matches of the German and French National Teams are also included.

“The acquisition of these important European national team matches, league tournaments and first division French league matches serve as a perfect complement to our already robust soccer portfolio from the America’s,” said Juan Carlos Rodriguez, president of Univision Deportes. “These acquisitions solidify our commitment to remain the undisputed home for Hispanic sports fans.” 

This deal is Univision Deportes’ first rights acquisition for European teams.