UKTV deal will see live basketball online
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UKTV, the joint media venture between ntl-owned Flextech and BBC Worldwide, has announced a deal with Euroleague Basketball that will secure the opportunity for a double first for the pay-television company.
UKTV will be able to debut live sport events on its regular channels, and the broadcaster will also transmit its first broadband coverage on the new uktvslam.tv web site.
The online service follows an agreement with Premium TV, which handles digital rights for sporting organisations including the English Football League, that will allow bi-weekly streaming of Euroleague matches.
Premium TV will supply the technology by which users can access video-on-demand highlights, and it will also be responsible for ensuring that all web broadcasts are only accessible to audiences in the UK and Ireland.
Subscribers will be charged a monthly fee of £3.99 or be able to sign up for 12 months for an annual payment of £39.99.
This will be the first time Euroleague Basketball have been seen on British television, where UKTV will transmit the league's quarter finals and its 2006 Final Four tournament. The new agreement means that games are now broadcast in 30 European nations and more than 50 countries worldwide.
UKTV's sport development manager, Martin Henlan, praised the "terrific opportunity for UKTV and Euroleague to work together to build the presence of basketball in the UK", while Euroleague director Andrea Bassani was happy that the new deal has brought the "satisfaction of having achieved this in our first year of managing our audio-visual rights in-house".
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