Murdoch buys Dutch league rights

The Hague, Aug 8 (IANS) Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has bought the live broadcasting rights of the Dutch football league for around 1 billion euros.

Murdoch's US television network Fox will broadcast the Eredivisie matches for 12 years, starting in the 2013-14 season, reports Xinhua.

The Eredivisie CV, the organization of clubs in the Dutch league, will keep 49 percent of their shares and the remaining 51 percent will be owned by Fox.

In the 2012-13 season, the live rights are still held by Eredivisie Live, owned by the clubs, and the rights to broadcast the summaries of the matches are owned by the national channel NOS.

Murdoch takes over football channel Eredivisie Live, but will probably develop the channel into a sports channel under the name of Sky Murdoch's company.

His company also owns the rights of the major leagues in Italy, Germany and England.