A three-year deal has been reached between Endemol Sport and Sky Sports for the Dublin Super Cup, a major new pre-season soccer tournament debuting this July with the first team squads of Manchester City, Inter Milan, Celtic and a League of Ireland XI competing at the Aviva Stadium.

Sky Sports have become the exclusive home of the Dublin Super Cup in the UK and Ireland from the inaugural 2011 tournament through to 2013 under the terms of the agreement, having lost the rights to the Emirates Cup this month, a similar tournament based in the UK at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

The deal guarantees the participation of a leading English Premier League team, a top Spanish or Italian club and another prominent European club competing alongside the Airtricity League XI each year.

Sky Sports will be leveraging its production resources to deliver first class HD domestic coverage and a World Feed for viewers to enjoy internationally.

Sky Sports MD Barney Francis said: “The Dublin Super Cup will be part of our summer of live football on Sky Sports.  We look forward to showing three of the best-known teams in Europe and the finest Irish talent in four live matches.”

Endemol Sport MD Gregg Oldfield added: “This multi-year partnership will see the Dublin Super Cup become a landmark in Sky Sports’ live summer football output. We are extremely proud to be joining forces with Sky and bringing a brand new, world class football tournament to one of the world’s leading sports broadcasters.”

The launch of the annual Dublin Super Cup tournament follows a ten year deal struck in 2010 between Endemol Sport and The Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has agreed broadcast deals in Australia and Israel with SBS and IBA respectively for the free-to-air rights to the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu.

The agreement with SBS, brokered by Dentsu, will see the public broadcaster carry at least 35 hours of coverage.

The deal in Israel with IBA, agreed by IEC in Sports, also includes the rights to all other IAAF World Athletics Series until 2013, such as the IAAF World Indoor Championships and the 2013 edition of the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow.

As a member of the European Broadcasting Union, IBA had previously served as the IAAF broadcast partner in Israel until 2009.

Dentsu and the IAAF expect to be able to announce the final few deals for this year’s World Athletics Championships within the next few weeks. The event itself will take place in the South Korean city from August 27 to September 4.

Virgin Media has followed broadcasters in Central Europe and Scandinavia by signing up to Eurosport’s 3D coverage of this year’s French Open tennis at Roland Garros.

The cable company’s pay-TV customers will be able to watch the whole event in 3D when it gets underway on May 22 – the first time an entire tennis tournament has been shown in 3D in the UK.

Live action from the tournament will be shown on Eurosport HD, British Eurosport and British Eurosport 2, which are available on the Virgin Media and Sky pay-TV platforms in the UK.

Swisscom has signed up to offer the content in Switzerland, while Canal Digital will screen it in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Last year, France Telecom-owned Orange launched a 3D channel on its IPTV platform to cover the tournament and other major events in partnership with pubcaster France Télévisions, which holds broadcast rights to the event.

Sony will film this year’s Wimbledon tennis finals in 3D, despite UK host broadcaster the BBC not having a 3D channel on which to show the footage. It will be available to viewers around the world, distributed by SuperVision Media.

Canal Plus Poland, the national Pay-TV channel, has retained the Polish broadcast rights for the country’s elite soccer division – Ekstraklasa.

The deal has been renewed to run for the next three seasons, with Canal Plus receiving the live broadcast rights to all of the league’s matches in high-definition, as well as exclusivity of the best three matches per gameweek, marking a significant gain for the channel. At present, Canal Plus only shows three games per week, with Orange Sport broadcasting the other five.

Free-to-air broadcaster Polsat Digital and Eurosport have replaced Orange Sport as sub-licensees to show selected Ekstraklasa matches throughout the next three years. Polsat is the biggest winner having secured the rights to four matches a week, whilst Eurosport will reportedly screen one game in each round, available in 20 countries worldwide.  

The deal is believed to be worth around US$40m a year, $4m less than the current contract’s valuation. However, the Ekstraklasa has written a clause into the contract that agreements can be terminated at the end of any season should it develop its own channel to show the matches – an idea the league is pursuing.

Ekstraklasa chairman Jacek Masiota stated: “Even if the clubs were to get less money than expected, you must take into account the increased promotional value. Thanks to the greater number of spectators at Ekstraklasa matches, it will be easier to get attractive sponsorship contracts.”

Monster Energy partnership with FIM Motocross World Championship has been extended for a multi-year term. 

The agreement confirms Monster Energy as the exclusive energy drink partner of the series and sets again Monster Energy as title sponsor of the FIM Motocross of Nations and the MXGP of USA.

Monster Energy will also be the exclusive energy drink sponsor of the European EMX125 and the EMX250 Championships.

The agreement also includes a series of initiatives to further strengthen and elevate the leading role of the FIM Motocross World Championships in the off-road universe.

Mitch Covington, Monster Energy Vice-President, said: “Monster Energy is, once again, proud to be partnering with Youthstream and the FIM Motocross World Championship. The fact that the series now travels to 16 nations and 4 continents truly makes it a world championship. The competition also comes from all over the globe and has reached a world class level creating the planet’s elite motocross championship.

“Motocross racing is in our DNA at Monster Energy, so it is a perfect fit for our brand and a great stage for our world-class racers and famous Monster Girls to meet the passionate motocross fans. 2015 will be especially exciting to see two active legends of the sport, Ryan Villopoto and Antonio Cairoli, come together to fight for national and global pride – And lets not forget the other championship level riders that are very capable of spoiling it for them both. Coupled with our sponsorship of the Monster Energy Supercross Series in the US, and the MXGP’s, we feel we have a nice presence around the world of motocross.”

World and European soccer governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA have appealed against a European ruling that the World Cup and Euro Championships must be on free-to-air TV in the UK after the European General Court said the UK could keep the events on a list of “protected” events of national sporting interest shown for free in February.

The ruling meant that the two tournaments cannot be sold exclusively to pay-TV firms though FIFA and UEFA say they cannot sell the events fairly, with the cases now moving to the European Court of Justice.

A spokesman for the European courts claimed that any actual hearing may not occur for up to year, revealing that appeals processes were currently taking up to one-and-a-half years from start to finish.

The BBC and ITV have once again secured the rights to broadcast the football World Cup finals in 2014 between them for the event staged in Brazil. This means that any potential change of broadcasting towards a future pay-TV model would not take place until the 2018 event in Russia which beat its competitors, including a last placed bid of England, in hosting the tournament last December.

FIFA has also launched a similar appeal against Belgium showing all World Cup games on free-to-air. However, the European courts decision would not affect World Cup finals games featuring England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remaining free to watch.

The argument is over other games featuring non-UK teams and whether they should also be shown for free in the UK.

Expert on TV rights deals at Field Fisher Waterhouse solicitors, Daniel Geey stated: “The grounds of appeal open to Uefa and Fifa appear to be relatively limited.”

He said the soccer bodies could only appeal on points of law – such as the General Court’s competence, or whether the court breached procedural steps or infringed European Union law.

“They cannot not simply repeat arguments that were already set out and heard by the General Court and expect the decision to be overturned,” Mr Geey added.

“UEFA and FIFA are now in injury time if they are to pull off a last minute winner.

“Although not inconceivable, the odds of snatching victory appear to be stacked against football’s two most powerful football bodies.”

FIFA and UEFA have argued that the current set-up interferes with their ability to sell television rights at the best price after FIFA earned a minimum of US$2bn in TV and media rights deals for the South Africa 2010 World Cup.

UEFA said turnover during the three-week Euro 2008 tournament in Austria and Switzerland was $2.04bn, with more than half the cash coming from the sale of broadcasting rights.