Revenues at Eurosport International increased by 14 per cent in 2008, according to its owners TF1.

According to Broadband TV News, revenues reached €312 million. TF1 attributed the increase to the broadcaster’s multi-platform strategy that includes satellite, ADSL, DTT and the web. In France the Eurosport.fr website is the second most popular site in the sports genre.

Separately, the European Commission has approved the formation of Eurosportbet.com, a joint venture with the French SPS Betting. The venture is expected to launch in the UK in the first half of 2009 with plans to expand into France and Italy.

Eurosport also achieved two online landmarks in early February, recording record website hits in China and Russia.

Eurosport’s Russian language site scored a record total of 144,220 daily visitors on Sunday, 15 February, during the Biathlon World Championships, representing a significant 11% rise on the previous best achieved in January.

One of Eurosport’s two co-branded Chinese language websites had days earlier achieved its highest audience of 560,000 daily visitors on Thursday 12 February with over 1.8 million pages viewed.