The Ivy League and the NBC Sports Group have announced they have renewed their national television rights agreement and have expanded it to include an increase in football games, and the first-ever rights for the NBC Sports Network to televise men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse games.

Beginning with the upcoming 2012 football season and continuing through the 2014 lacrosse season, the NBC Sports Network will televise a minimum of six, but no more than 10, football games, six-to-10 men’s basketball games, and up to four men’s lacrosse games annually.

Even more Ivy League games may be seen on a national basis within this agreement as the NBC Sports Network has acquired the rights to sublicense additional football and men’s basketball games to a national sports network.

“The Ivy League is excited to continue our relationship with the NBC Sports Network,” said Robin Harris, Ivy League Executive Director. “The NBC Sports Network has been an outstanding partner and we appreciate their interest in enhancing our existing relationship by increasing the number of games and sports. We are pleased to showcase more Ivy League competition nationally to our passionate fan base which has a thirst for Ivy League athletics.”

“We are proud to again partner with the Ivy League, a conference whose institutions and student-athletes consistently comport themselves with great distinction while attracting an audience with a favorable demographic for our growing sports network,” said Jon Miller, President, Programming, NBC Sports & NBC Sports Network. “With this renewal, the Ivy League will now provide quality content for the NBC Sports Network across three college seasons.”

As part of the agreement, the NBC Sports Network will televise the annual football game played between Harvard and Yale, known as “The Game”, in both 2012 and 2013. In 2012, “The Game” will be played at Harvard and will mark the 129th iteration of the rivalry. Yale leads the series 65-55-8.

Enterprise IP video leader VBrick Systems and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth have agreed a partnership to broadcast the Formula Hybrid Competition from the New Hampshire Motor Speedway throughout the day on Thursday, prostate May 3, order 2012.

More than 30 colleges and universities are participating in this year’s competition.

The Formula Hybrid Competition features high-performance hybrid and electric race cars built by teams of undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Like Formula SAE, students compete in all aspects of design, acceleration, handling, and endurance of their vehicle following a specific set of rules. Formula Hybrid teams are also faced with the additional challenge of optimizing both energy efficiency and sustainability of materials used in their cars.

Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth is leveraging the power of VBOSS, VBrick’s Online Streaming Service, to broadcast the event for people to watch directly from their computer. This streaming event is illustrative of how VBrick’s solutions are being used across the globe for people to communicate simultaneously with hundreds of thousands of people. Media outlets can also take the stream and embed it into their websites to stream directly to their audience.

Irish free-to-air broadcaster RTÉ Sport has retained the rights to broadcast the Champions League on Wednesday nights from September 2012 until 2015.

RTÉ has secured the premium package of Irish terrestrial rights to Wednesday night matches with exclusive coverage of the Champions League final and Super Cup, amounting to 18 live matches on RTÉ Two, RTÉ Two HD and RTÉ.ie.

Wednesday night highlights and a weekly magazine programme are also part of the package. Coverage on RTÉ.ie will include live clip rights, with rights secured for coverage on RTÉ.ie mobile also.

On the new agreement, Ryle Nugent, Group Head of Sport, RTÉ, said “We are delighted to have been able to secure these rights in the current difficult financial climate in line with our policy of significantly reducing sports rights costs.

“We’re particularly delighted to be able to continue to deliver UEFA Champions League live coverage to fans in Ireland until 2015.

“In an increasingly competitive climate securing the premium package for Wednesday night matches is a significant coup for a public service broadcaster.

“This is good news for Irish sports fans and means that all Champions League first choice matches continue to be free for Irish audiences for the next three years.

“It also means that RTÉ Sport will be able to continue to bring our viewers top quality coverage of Wednesday night matches, including the final, with our hugely popular team of pundits and presenters.”

by Ismail Uddin

The much prized Premier League football rights are now up for grabs following the football governing body’s invitation to tender for the domestic UK broadcast rights for the 2013-14 to 2015-16 football seasons.

The Premier League is offering rights to a total of 154 matches. These will be split into seven packages plus a free-to-air highlights package – including ‘catch-up’ rights.

The former will consist of five packages of 26 matches and two packages of 12 matches. No single buyer will be allowed to acquire more than 116 matches so that, says the Premier League, it can create “a more attractive and compelling offering for both broadcasters and fans”. Furthermore it says that in doing this it will allow the “continued protection of the Saturday 3pm ‘closed window’ and minimise further displacement of Premier League fixtures”.

In a separate sales process for the other packages, the Premier League will create two “near live” long form packages each containing 226 matches; one for linear and the other for on-demand exploitation, plus an Internet-based clips package for all 380 matches.

The Premier League assures that both the live and “near live” packages, rumoured to be broadcast at 8.30pm on a Saturday, will be available for exploitation on a technology-neutral basis.

The new deal is expected to see increased competition with Sky which has dominated the Premier League since its inception, and which currently owns five out the existing six packets of 23 games. ESPN, which also owns limited Premier League rights, Al Jazeera, which has netted French football rights over the last six months, plus IT firms such as Google and even Apple are also thought to be interested in making a play for the Premier League cash machine.

The Football Association (FA) has continued its exclusive broadcast and digital media rights partnership covering Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe with UK-based agency Advisers Media International (AMI).

The existing contract, cough established in 2009, health was set to expire this year, however it has now been extended for a further six years until 2018. It includes all FA Cup matches, as well as select international and friendly matches played by the national football team of England, in the 27 territories covered by Advisers Media International.

Stuart Turner, commercial director, FA, said: “We are extremely pleased to be continuing our partnership with AMI. They have a proven track record in distributing the FA rights across a variety of platforms and technologies and I have no doubt that they will continue to help develop the accessibility and reach of our rights across their territories.”

AMI already holds rights for the English Premier League, Formula One World Championship and National Hockey League (NHL) in Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.

by Ismail Uddin

Perform is looking to revolutionise the new digital age by offering live sports matches and video on demand content via Facebook.

The sport TV specialist is to adopt Facebook’s social APIs throughout its LIVESPORT.TV platform, offering more than 50 digital sports channels on the social network.

LIVESPORT.TV channels include a range of live and VOD content from a number of sports competitions including European and South American football leagues, World Snooker, Australian Rules Football (AFL), PSA squash, Mixed Martial Arts, Handball, Darts, Hockey, Tennis, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Pool plus a number of one-off box office sporting events from sports such as boxing.

The integration will allow viewers to connect with the LIVESPORT.TV application and watch premium sports content without leaving Facebook. LIVESPORT.TV’s network of websites will also be integrated with Facebook, allowing people to log in via their Facebook account, via Facebook social plug-ins.

All video on demand content will be available for free, whilst payment for the LIVESPORT.TV subscription service will initially be managed through PayPal or via credit card, with localised pricing starting from £2.99 per month dependent on the sport. Facebook credits are expected to be introduced in the coming months.

LIVESPORT.TV says that going forward it will use Facebook’s targeted advertising to reach potential subscribers for each sport. The LIVESPORT.TV platform will also be made available for other sports content owners to distribute their live and highlights content to targeted groups of connected fans globally.

Oliver Slipper, Joint-CEO at Perform, said: “This is an exciting integration. We believe that making LIVESPORT.TV available through Facebook presents a great opportunity to build our subscriber business and increase our VOD audience. Our focus with Facebook will be to use the targeted advertising to communicate with niche fans around the world looking for special interest live sports content and use the in-built virality of the platform to target the hundreds of millions of sports fans on Facebook to share our VOD sports content and drive video views globally.”

by Ismail Uddin

Irish fans will see live coverage of the Paralympics for the first time after Setanta secured the TV rights for the event.

All coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games will be broadcast on a freeview basis on the Setanta Ireland channel.

Setanta Sports also confirmed that they will be showing this coverage on a ‘freeview’ basis on Setanta Ireland. This means that the coverage on the Setanta Ireland channel on satellite will be unencrypted so that all viewers in Sky homes will have free access to the channel whether they are a Setanta subscriber or not. This combined with the Setanta Ireland channel being free on UPC and the Setanta player being available in all eircom broadband homes means that approximately 1.3 million households will be able to view the games.

Present at the launch were five Irish Paralympic athletes who are targeting success at London 2012. Mark Rohan, buy Orla Barry, bronchi Padraic Moran, pills Eimear Breathnach and Darragh McDonald were delighted to know that those friends and family who won’t be able to make it to London will still have a chance to see them compete.

Brian Quinn Marketing Director of Setanta Sports commented “We are delighted to be broadcasting the games on a freeview basis. This means that the majority of Irish households will be able to follow the Irish performances. I would like to pay tribute to Allianz for their support. They are not simply a sponsor of our coverage, they have played a far bigger role than that. Without them live Paralympics TV coverage would not be seen in Ireland. We appreciate their vision and are very thankful to have the opportunity to bring live coverage to the friends, families and fans of Irish Paralympians.”

Brendan Murphy CEO of Allianz Ireland added “For the first time ever Irish audiences will witness the achievements of Team Ireland as they happen, which for Allianz, as a long-time partner of the Paralympic Movement, was seen as a fundamental need in the Irish market. By supporting Paralympics Ireland and Irish athletes, Allianz supports their quest for medals but also, through our association with Setanta, to drive awareness of the Paralympic movement and provide live, real time access to all that is achieved.”

Liam Harbison CEO of Paralympics Ireland, said: “This is a momentous announcement for Irish Paralympic sport. The Irish Team are on the cusp of great success at London 2012 and we’re thrilled that the support of Setanta and Allianz will allow the Irish public to view, admire and be inspired by the achievements of Ireland’s elite Paralympians. Paralympic sport at the top level is exciting, gripping and ferociously competitive – we look forward to Setanta bringing this to Irish sports fans.”

by Ismail Uddin

RTL has gained media rights for the 2012–15 UEFA Champions League in Belgium.

Free-to-air broadcaster RTL has secured the right to the best match each matchnight in the French language. Every matchnight RTL will broadcast one live match as well as a highlights programme on its channel Club RTL.

This announcement concludes the sale of UEFA Champions League media rights in Belgium following the recent announcements of deals with VMMA and Belgacom.

After talks were held yesterday (January 4) between representatives of all 12 Scottish Premier League (SPL) soccer clubs, it seems that plans to reformat the league are edging ever closer. Some members and fans were strongly opposed to the latest proposal of reducing the league back down to a top-10 tier but it appears that the decision is looking more and more likely.

Ralph Topping chairman of the SPL believes that the other radical change possibility of a 16 or 18-team League has been dismissed, “It’s two (divisions of) 10s or the status quo in my view. If you look at Scottish football, a 16-team League wouldn’t work economically and it would have a knock-on effect in terms of the quality of players you can attract” he said.

Stewart Milne chairman of Aberdeen soccer club revealed that no alternative to a 10-team top flight had been put forward at the meeting. “Each option has been fully evaluated and the one that delivers way above any of the others is a 10-team league,” he claimed.

St Johnstone chairman Geoff Brown added: “The meeting went well and I would be fairly confident of the two 10-team leagues. All we have had are discussions and every club can make their own minds up, but I would like to think we have a consensus.”

A vote will be taken on a reform package with the final decision set to be made on January 17 which could also include a winter break demanding an earlier start to the season.

The Croatian public broadcaster Hrvatska Radiotelevizija (HRT) has been awarded media rights to cover the forthcoming three seasons of the UEFA Europa League.

Radiotelevizija has been awarded the right to the best match each matchweek. Accordingly, order HRT will broadcast on its channel HRT2 one live match as well as a highlights programme every matchweek.