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"BT has secured more live football rights ahead of the launch of its new channel, after poaching Italian, French, Brazilian and US club football from ESPN. The telecoms giant has secured multi-year rights deals to Serie A in Italy, Ligue 1 in France, Brasileiro in Brazil and Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA.  Live matches from these leagues will be shown on the new BT Sport channel. BT snapped up the rights from ESPN, after also snatching Premier League football and Premiership Rugby from the broadcaster.  Launching in summer 2013, BT Sport will air 380 live Serie A matches each season in standard and high definition, along with highlights packages from every match day, weekly preview show Total Italian Football and the Serie A Show review programme.  The Ligue 1 rights will include 380 live matches per season in SD and HD, a weekly preview show and highlights packages from each match day.  Around 100 live matches from the Brasileiro - the Brazilian top division - will be shown on BT Sport, backed by a weekly highlights programme and TV Globo Soccer Magazine show FootBrazil.   The Major League Soccer Championship rights include 99 matches per season in SD and HD.  BT said that it has bought the live games to bolster its new sports channel, joining the 38 live Premier Leagues games it will show each season starting from the 2012/13 season.  BT Sport will launch in summer 2013, with the BBC&amp;#039;s Jake Humphrey already announced as anchor for the Premier League coverage.  BoxNation founder and ex-Sky Sports veteran Simon Green will head up the BT Sport operation, backed by award-winning Sky match director Grant Best, as BT looks to put together a team of top production talent.  Discussing the new TV deals, BT Retail chief executive Marc Watson said: &amp;quot;As well as enjoying 38 games from the Barclays Premier League, football fans will be able to follow David Beckham and Thierry Henry in the MLS and witness whether the resurgent Juventus can withstand the challenge of the two Milan giants in Serie A.  &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;ll also be able to enjoy the talent on show in the French Ligue 1, where they will see the skills of stars such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva.&amp;quot; Watson said that securing the extra live matches will &amp;quot;help us in our aim to develop an absolutely cracking sports channel&amp;quot;, offering live action across football, rugby and &amp;quot;other sports to come&amp;quot;.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve hired the best talent behind the camera to bring to viewers the first rate production that they&amp;#039;ve come to expect from a sports channel in the UK,&amp;quot; he said.  BT has said that BT Sport will be available across a number of TV platforms as well as its own BT Vision, although it has not yet confirmed exact details on this.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a436090/bt-deals-further-blow-to-espn-with-new-rights-deals/>