There’s a slew of digital activity from Eurosport at the moment. The sports broadcaster says it’s signed a deal with United Arab Emirates telco DU to deliver breaking sports news and info online and to mobiles in the Middle East and North Africa – its first ever deal in the region. Eurosport says it’s websites “will be adapted to the specifics of the Arabic language, culture, needs and affinities of sports fans in the region”. Release. Two years ago, Eurosport outsourced the platform for its websites to Yahoo – four of the nine sites, including one for China, are now operated as a JV with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), but it’s not clear whether Yahoo will have a hand in the Arabic sites Eurosport tells us the Arabic sites won’t involve Yahoo.
The broadcaster is this year celebrating its twentieth year in the business. It is also responding to relaxing European betting regulation by launching a gambling website, EurosportBET.co.uk on June 1, offering pre-match betting on nine sports and, from the summer, both live betting and poker games., MediaWeek says: “Eurosport plans to launch two new sites a year for the next five years, with a target player base of 530,000 by 2014.”
In yet another deal this month, America’s National Basketball Association has agreed to syndicate video highlights to the Eurosport/Yahoo sites in Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK, in return for Eurosport promoting NBA’s League Pass Broadband, which gives subscribers access to more than 40 NBA regular season games online each week, both live and on-demand for 24-hours, even in those European countries. Release.