Russia: NTV-Plus extends its domestic broadcast rights of the national championship until 2018

NTV-Plus, a satellite package of the Russian broadcaster NTV (owned by Gazprom-Media), acquired the domestic broadcast rights to the 2015 to 2018 period of the SOGAZ Russian Football Championship, the Russian first division, on 16/07/2015. The 2015-16 Russian league season starts on 17/07/2015 with the opening match Spartak Moscow - FK Ufa, at the Otkritie Arena (45,000 seats) at 19:00 local time.

The rights, acquired from Liga-TV, a subsidiary of the RFPL (Russian Professional Football League) cover all distribution platforms. The amount is estimated at 6.6bn rubles (€106.5m as of 07/17/2015) for the 2015-2018 period (an average of €35.5m per season), up 6.5% to 18% compared to the 2012-2015 cycle (between 5.6bn and 6.2bn rubles, or between €141m and €156m in July 2012), according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant on 15/07/2015.

NTV-Plus also holds the rights for the international distribution of the image rights to the SOGAZ Russian Football Championship for 2015-2018.

• During the 2012-2015 cycle, NTV-Plus only held the broadcasting rights for television to the SOGAZ Russian…