Sydney – The Nine Network/Foxtel coup in securing all rights in Australia to the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games signals Nine’s determination to do–and spend– whatever it takes to regain market leadership from the Seven Network. And the deal underscores the clout of Foxtel in increasing its dominance in the pay TV market and as a 25% stakeholder in Nine. Nine/Foxtel reportedly offered $US100 million in the blind auction, eclipsing the $75 million bid from Seven, the Olympics broadcaster since 1992. Seven paid $64 million for the rights to the Beijing Games. Foxtel has the rights to provide multi-channel coverage of the 2010 and 2012 Games and will create a special Olympic tier, similar to its 2006 Commonwealth Games package. It gets live simultaneous rights to all Olympic events except the Opening and Closing ceremonies, for which it has replay rights. It will offer up to eight dedicated channels for the 2012 London Olympics, showing more than 2,000 hours of coverage—much of it in HD.