The BBC was refused permission to screen Lincoln City's "historic FA Cup upset" of Brighton & Hove Albion instead of ManU's "stroll" against Wigan Athletic, according to Gary Lineker. The corporation "came under fire on Sunday" for failing to show National League clubs Lincoln or Sutton United's triumphs over League Championship opposition, which "ensured two non-league sides' places in the fifth round for the first time." Football Focus presenter Dan Walker responded by revealing the BBC "asked to do Lincoln live" (London TELEGRAPH, 1/30).
German media group
Wige Media "created a sports portal offering
live and on-demand coverage of amateur sports events." The founding partners of sporttotal.tv are Deutsche Telekom with support by Microsoft's cloud platform Azure, Deutsche Post and Allianz Deutschland. The "free-of-charge, ad-supported portal will capture the competitions through a fully automated" 180-degree HD camera installed at the locations. In a joint trial with the German FA (DFB) and Bavarian FA (BFV), sporttotal.tv will "cover games of amateur football leagues in the second half" of the '16-17 season (
BROADBAND TV NEWS, 1/30).
The Czech Republic's Nova Group acquired the broadcast rights to "the best darts competitions in the world for the next three years." As a result, Nova viewers "can look forward to over 400 hours of live broadcasts from tournaments such as Premier League Darts and World Cup of Darts each year" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 1/30).
Fight Channel Group "introduced its linear channel and VOD content to the Romanian market." Both the channel, which is known as Fight Channel World HD, and Final Fight Championship VOD events are being offered by the new OTT platform Streamark, in its Extra Basic and SVOD packages, respectively. Fight Channel World HD is distributed worldwide in English (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 1/29).
Twitter will live stream Sky Sports coverage of transfer deadline day "for the first time on Tuesday." The social media platform announced that "three hours of coverage from Sky Sports News HQ will be available to stream online, with broadcasts scheduled for 12pm-1pm, 5pm-6pm and 10pm-11pm" (London EVENING STANDARD, 1/30).
Swiss public broadcaster SSR and UEFA reached an agreement for the media rights to the Swiss men’s national football team's matches through the 2022 Qatar World Cup. SSR remains the exclusive broadcaster of the national team for the next four years. SSR will also broadcast the women’s Euro 2017 tournament. In total, the deal comprises the qualification matches for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, all of Euro 2020, UEFA Nations League matches and all Swiss friendlies through ’22 (SSR).
