UK pay-operator BSkyB’s new five-year deal with the Rugby Football Union was a classic smash-and-grab move that will strengthen its position in the ongoing negotiations for English rugby union’s top-tier domestic league.

The IOC’s preference for direct relationships in key markets looks set to further loosen the grip of the pan-regional broadcast unions that have traditionally acquired Olympic television rights.

The Premier League may offer overseas broadcasters a ready-made Premier League channel in the next three-year rights cycle, as it looks to maintain the steep increase in its international rights revenue in a softening market.

Fox Turkey, the News-owned general entertainment channel that last week won the rights for 2014 and 2016 Olympics, hopes that the acquisition will help it fulfil its ambition of becoming Turkey’s most popular network.

Greek football’s top-tier Superleague finally approved a new collectively-negotiated television rights deal, albeit without the two clubs presently top of the league table.

The launch of Australia’s first-ever free-to-air sports channel, One, is an unprecedented challenge to leading pay sports broadcaster Fox Sports.

A new strategic cooperation between the African Union of Broadcasters and Fifa, covering the 2010 football World Cup, will give Fifa a direct relationship with broadcasters in the region for the first time.

A1 GP chief executive Pete da Silva says that the nation-based motor-racing series will make a $30 million (€22.5 million) profit in the 2009-10 season, allaying fears for its future.

Doubts remain over the long-term future of the football-branded motorsport series Superleague Formula, as it nears the end of its inaugural season. The concept for the series has been around since 2000 but only got off the ground this year.

The IOC took the first step in its new European broadcast rights sales strategy this week with a deal with Sky Italia for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games.

The IRB secured a massive increase in television rights fees in Australia as pay broadcaster Fox Sports fought off a major challenge from free-to-air network Ten to win the rights for the 2011 and 2015 rugby union World Cups.

Scant evidence of the credit crunch affecting the sports rights industry at this week’s Sportel trade fair in Monaco, which attracted record numbers of participants.

Forthcoming negotiations for the domestic rights for English rugby union’s Guinness Premiership will act as an interesting barometer of the state of the UK sports rights market, three months before the start of football’s Premier League rights talks.

Fast Track is facing tough talks with broadcasters for the 2010 Commonwealth Games rights

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.

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.

The Deutsche Fussball Liga has generated about €30 million (£23.5 million) through last week’s sale of three territory-based packages of international Bundesliga rights.

The FIA could struggle to find a promoter for the World Rally Championship series on the terms laid out in its recent tender.