Eurosport extend deal

The new agreement nearly doubles Eurosport's snooker offering, which increases from 10 to 19 tournaments per season. The sport’s biggest tournaments, including the World Championship, will be shown to over 125 million homes in Europe.

Eurosport has acquired all exclusive TV and digital rights to broadcast LIVE the 19 tournaments on Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels as well as on the Eurosport Player web TV service and mobile application. The deal covers all Eurosport's 59 countries.

Eurosport has broadcast snooker since 2003 and contributed to its growing popularity in Europe thanks to unrivalled exposure. Last season over 500 hours of snooker were broadcast on Eurosport, reaching 96 million different viewers, and these figures are set to increase.

During the coming 2011/12 season, Eurosport and Eurosport 2 will broadcast all world ranking events plus the Wuxi Classic, World Cup and Brazilian Masters and, for the first time, six of the Players Tour Championship events held in Europe.

World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn said: “We have established new events in the continent including the German Masters ranking event and the European PTC tournaments, and we’re delighted that all of these will be screened by Eurosport. The spread of snooker in the region has been phenomenal in recent years and this is a key part of our continued efforts to make it a global sport."

Coverage in the UK of the Masters, Welsh Open, UK Championship and World Championship is subject to specific discussions with individual rights holders on a local basis.

6-10 July 2011, Wuxi Classic, China

11-17 July 2011, World Cup, Thailand

18-24 July 2011, Australian Goldfields Open, Australia

25-28 August 2011, PTC Europe / Paul Hunter Classic, Germany

5-11 September 2011, Shanghai Masters, China

15-18 September 2011, Brazilian Masters, Brazil

30 September - 2 October 2011, PTC Europe, Poland TBC

21-23 October 2011, PTC Europe, TBA

27-30 October 2011 or 26 March - 1 April 2012, World Open, TBA

11-13 November 2011, PTC Europe, Belgium TBC

3-11 December 2011, UK Championship, York

16-18 December, PTC Europe, TBA

6-8 January 2012, PTC Europe, Germany TBC

15-22 January 2012, The Masters, London

1-5 February 2012, German Masters, TBA

13-19 February 2012, Welsh Open, TBA

14-18 March 2012, PTC Final, TBA

26 March - 1 April or 2-8 April 2012 , China Open, China

21 April - 7 May 2012, World Championship, Sheffield