Eurosport Wins Champions League Rights

15 Sep 2009 | tshego

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British Eurosport has struck a rights deal to be the exclusive broadcaster of the first ever Champions League Twenty20 tournament – the new international cricket competition for domestic clubs.

As part of this arrangement with rights holder ESPN STAR Sports, British Eurosport will have the exclusive, live, UK media rights for the tournament, to be played in India from October 8th to 23rd.

The contract is part of a pan-European deal which will also see the event broadcast exclusively on Eurosport 2 throughout the continent.

Eurosport will have access to the TV, internet, VOD and mobile rights for the event and will also broadcast matches exclusively live on its online service.

Somerset and Sussex will be the first English representatives to take part in the tournament after reaching the final of the English Twenty20 Cup. England Twenty20captain Paul Collingwood and teammate Owais Shah will also be involved, representing Indian side the Delhi Daredevils.

The 2009 tournament will be contested by 12 teams, starting with a round robin format, with four pools of three teams. Each pool will have one IPL team, with games played across three venues in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The top two teams from each pool will advance to the knockout stages. A total 23 matches will be played over a 16 day period. The winning team will collect $3m in prize money.

The tournament, which was originally scheduled to take place in 2008 but was cancelled due to security concerns, features the leading teams from the respective countries own Twenty20 competitions including the best Twenty20 teams from India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka.

These include the Deccan Chargers, Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore from the IPL, New South Wales Blues and Victorian Bushrangers from Australia, Cape Cobras and Diamond Eagles from South Africa, Otago Volts from New Zealand. The winners of the Stanford 20/20, Trinidad & Tobago and Wayamba from Sri Lanka complete the line-up.