Football Federation Australia announced broadcaster Crocmedia secured the exclusive commercial radio rights to its competitions for five years. The deal will see the syndicator deliver live commentary across Australia and New Zealand from the A-League, the W-League and the country's national team games until '22. The agreement represents FFA's "first commercial radio deal" (SOCCEREX, 8/25).
Sportflix, a new company based in Mexico, said that it will launch its live sports SVOD service globally on Wednesday. But "various rights holders" contest Sportflix's claims. The SVOD service said that it will offer major sports events including the Champions League and the Premier League, among others. However, various rights holders including Globo of Brasil, Fox Sports Latin America, ESPN and others said that "there were no contracts in place" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 8/25).
Canal+ "teamed with sports daily L'Equipe as it enhances its content offer." Canal's sports offer already includes Canal+ Sport, beIN Sport and Eurosport. A new digital edition of L'Equipe will now be available from 12:30am daily. It will feature "all the content from the printed edition" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 8/25).
Zimbabwe blocked a pay-TV service launched by mobile phone operator Econet, saying that "it had not been granted a licence." Econet started rolling out Kwesé TV last week, but on Thursday, the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe "warned people against subscribing to the service" (TODAY, 8/24).
Broadcast on L'Équipe, the Belgium-France men's European Volleyball Championship pool match drew an average audience of 340,000 viewers. A peak audience of 600,000 viewers watched Belgium beat France 3-2 (L'Équipe).
Ligue 1 side Monaco became the second-most "liked" Ligue 1 team on Facebook this weekend. More than 4.9 million Facebook users have liked the team's official page. Paris St. Germain remains Ligue 1's most popular team on Facebook with more than 30 million likes (L'ÉQUIPE, 8/27).
