Athletics Australia has appointed the Essentially Group, click a global sports marketing agency who are a fully owned subsidiary of the highly respected Chime Sports Marketing (CSM), ailment to undertake the crucial sponsorship consultancy role for Australian athletics.

Athletics Australia went throught a process to identify a company with significant experience and a proven track record in the area of sponsorship acquisition to assist in finding and matching corporate partners with its diverse range of sponsorship properties.  Essentially stood out from the crowd amongst the respondents and have subsequently been signed to act as Athletics Australia’s exclusive sponsorship consultants.

“Essentially has vast experience across the commercial side of sport, and they presented a compelling case through our Expression of Interest process,” said Athletics Australia Chief Executive Officer Dallas O’Brien. 

“They will also be able to draw upon the experience of their sister company from the CSM group, Fast Track, and apply to our sponsorship assets their model which has successfully netted UK Athletics significant commercial partnerships over the past few years.

“We’re delighted to welcome Essentially on board and we’re looking forward to working with them to identify partners for some of our great properties, like the Australian Athletics Tour and the Australian Flame athletics team, with whom we can establish long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

“Our sport is poised to enjoy an ever brighter share of the spotlight, starting in 2014 with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and then leading into the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and of course our home Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018. We will work with Essentially to identify the right partners to share that spotlight with, who can grow with us.

“This appointment is also aligned with the Australian Sports Commission’s new ‘Winning Edge’ strategic direction, which requires Olympic sports to become more commercially viable and self-sufficient,” O’Brien added.

Charles Mountifield, CEO at Essentially, added “Essentially, one of the four pillars of CSM, is part of one the world’s leading sports marketing and management firms.  To align ourselves with Athletics Australia is important to our expansion in the Australian market place and we are thrilled to be associated with such a reputable and well established organisation.”

Putnam Investments has launched a multi-platform marketing campaign, building on its association with the U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding, as they compete in a demanding World Cup Series leading up to the start of the Olympic Games in Sochi in February, 2014.

Appearing on network television and in print, digital and social media, the firm’s newest “Performance in Motion” campaign will kick off in earnest through broadcast advertising beginning November 29 with the World Cup alpine races at Beaver Creek, Colorado. The ads feature Olympic gold medalist and four-time world champion skier Ted Ligety, whom Putnam has sponsored individually since late 2009.

Putnam Investments President and Chief Executive Officer Robert L. Reynolds explained, “Ted and his teammates on the U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding represent values that transcend their sport: tireless dedication to excellence, unyielding commitment to preparation and ongoing improvement, and a relentless drive to succeed at the highest level — competing against the best in the world. These are traits to which we all aspire and that we are actively seeking to communicate in our new brand campaign.”

Mark McKenna, Head of Global Marketing at Putnam Investments, indicated that the new campaign is part of the firm’s broader “Performance in Motion” sports marketing strategy to align its brand with teams and athletes that resonate with the firm’s advisor, institutional and investor audiences, and who best personify Putnam’s results-oriented philosophy and values.

McKenna explained that the campaign, which includes network television ads, print and digital media and use of social media, will run up to the cusp of the Sochi competition — when United States Olympic Committee guidelines require a “quiet period” — and resume at its conclusion.

Building upon its marketing partnership with Ligety, in October 2010, Putnam announced it had become the exclusive mutual fund sponsor of the U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding, supporting U.S. athletes in the sports of alpine, freestyle, and cross-country skiing, ski jumping, snowboarding and Nordic combined.

The Cleveland Browns have completed a $5 million, ed four-month renovation project to vastly improve the team’s training facility and administrative complex.

The club headquarters now efficiently hosts approximately 160 staff members on two floors.

“We envisioned and created a vibrant, illness high-energy space that maximizes our employees’ ability to perform at the highest level in a collaborative environment,” said Browns CEO Joe Banner. “We have further established an environment that allows our team to attract and keep the top people in sports.”

By revamping 37,000 square feet of the 90,000-square-foot building, the complex now accommodates an additional 68 employees who were previously stationed at FirstEnergy Stadium, allowing executives, coaches, players and staff to unify the club’s football and business operations in one building. 

In addition to top-caliber football-operations amenities, the remodeled space houses 60 offices, 90 work stations and in-house radio and video broadcast studios for digital-content creation. 

Front-office staff, coaches, players, business partners and club guests now have immediate access to the Browns outdoor practice fields and indoor field house, as well as convenient views of both in various locations throughout the facility.

The Cleveland Browns training facility is located in Berea, Ohio, where it sits on 13 acres of land. The building originally opened in August of 1991 and has undergone three renovations. The building has two floors, both of which have been renovated during the past few years. In 2009, the first floor was completely remodeled, and improvements were made to all player meeting rooms, the player locker room and the cafeteria.  In addition, the team auditorium was expanded to 2,300 square feet and features 120 theater seats. 

Matthew Kreuzer, search player for the Melbourne-based Carlton Football Club, has become the first ever Australian Football League (AFL) player to be named Ambassador for the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix.

A self-confessed MotoGP fan, Kreuzer will preview each round of the 2013 MotoGP World Championship exclusively for Triple M’s ‘Hot Breakfast’ program in the lead up to the Phillip Island event this October.

“MotoGP and AFL have always been two of the biggest passions in my life,” he says. “As a youngster, I was always begging my Dad to take me to the Australian MotoGP and, as a family, we would have easily been to ten of the World Championship races at the Island.

“I was pumped to be asked to be the Australian MotoGP Ambassador. I look forward to sharing my race previews across the MotoGP World Championship season this year with Triple M Hot Breakfast listeners.”

Last year’s race was won by national hero Casey Stoner shortly before the double title winner retired from the sport. This year’s race takes place on 20^th October.

Sir Nick Faldo has announced that his global golf development programme, viagra pills The Faldo Series will visit Italy for the first time in 2013.

The Faldo Series Italy Championship will take place at the Golf Club Toscana in the Province of Grosseto for the next three years, starting with the inaugural event on July 18-20.

“With the Faldo Series providing opportunity for more than 7,000 young people in 30 countries worldwide, I am delighted that golfers in Italy will benefit from our programme in 2013,” commented Faldo, a six-time Major Champion. “I thank Golf Club Toscana for sharing our vision and we look forward to working with them to grow golf in Italy over the next three years. The support of the Italian Golf Association is also very important.”

“We are very excited about hosting the first ever Faldo Series Championship in Italy,” said Christian Pulz, Manager of Golf and Marketing at the Golf Club Toscana. “We look forward to welcoming talented young golfers from across Italy to the Golf Club Toscana in July.”

Supported by The R&A, ISPS and the European Tour, talented young golfers aged 12 to 21 will compete over 54 holes for the first Italy Championship at the Golf Club Toscana in Tuscany on July 18-20.

A new study has revealed brand exposure for sponsored jerseys will reach $160 million if the NBA moves ahead with it’s plans to allow corporate sponsor logos on the front of its jerseys for the 2013-14 season.

That could bring a new demand for the proposed 2.5-inch jersey sponsorship logos that could land on teams such as the Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls or Dallas Mavericks.

“The large number of broadcast hours devoted to the NBA each year coupled with the projected visibility of the jersey logos during those telecasts obviously makes this a very desirable piece of sponsorship real estate from a brand recognition standpoint,” said Eric Wright, president and executive director of research for Michigan-based Joyce Julius & Associates, in a written statement.

There would be added exposure opportunity through photos appearing in print articles and the Internet, along with video highlights, he said.

The NBA tested the idea with a league-branded patch during the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder five-game series in June. The patch garnered an average of five minutes, 41 seconds of close-up camera time per team, per game.

That television exposure equates into nearly 16 hours of on-screen time for the patch during a regular season. For highly-desired NBA teams, this could push the exposure value to $6 million to $8 million for a season.

Several leading Bangladeshi players have expressed their support for The Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) to give contracts to 120 cricketers from January 2013

The development was a huge boost to the morale of many cricketers who have endured financial uncertainty. Domestic player Enamul Haque jr said:

“It is a positive move for Bangladesh cricket. For the next generation of cricketers, it will be a massive encouragement. There is always the motivation to play cricket and to play for the country, but to have a salary is a massive boost. When we used to play in the Under-19s or Academy, there wasn’t much money so this will help the youngsters.”

Enamul, a 27-year-old left-arm spinner, was the leading wicket-taker in the 2011-12 National Cricket League and is also the only Bangladesh bowler to take more than 300 first-class wickets. Enamul, however, hasn’t played for Bangladesh since 2009 and had to play club cricket in England

“When I saw the news last night I was really happy. I can see that everyone here in the Bangladesh A camp is equally delighted,” Enamul said. “It should have happened a few years ago, but finally the board has taken this decision. In Sri Lanka I think 70-odd cricketers are contracted with the board.”{jcomments on}

 

 

The Pro Bowl game is dangerously close to being suspending for this season and beyond, according to league sources.

The Pro Bowl currently is on the NFL’s calendar the week before the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Feb. 3 but no game site has been listed because of its precarious status, sources added.

iSportconnect reported in February, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s disdain for the current format of the game and considered axing it then. He voiced his displeasure with the lack of competitiveness of recent Pro Bowl games. The issue has been raised again according to sources.

Beyond 2013, another league source believes the Pro Bowl is “DOA (dead on arrival).”

If the game is suspended, the league still would have a Pro Bowl balloting process to identify the season’s top players and would direct teams to negotiate Pro Bowl clauses into player contracts and to honor Pro Bowl incentive clauses to avoid any serious conflict with the NFL Players Association. Those players also likely would be honored in some fashion during Super Bowl week.

Goodell has asked NFL players recently for suggestions to make the game more attractive but has yet to embrace a solution, sources said.

Even those within who league support continuance of the game have been unable to persuade Goodell that the game has merit alone on reasonably strong television ratings.

However, the diminishing quality of the game has weighed more heavily on the commissioner who believes it reflects poorly on the league and its players. Sources say Goodell does not hold any ill-will toward the players’ lackluster effort because of player safety issues.

In an appearance on ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning” on Super Bowl Sunday, Goodell said the league must address the quality of the game and even said he would consider eliminating the all-star game if it can’t be improved upon.

The AFC routed the NFC 59-41 in last season’s Pro Bowl game that drew boos at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu for its lack of early intensity.

by Ismail Uddin

Multi-sports team acquirer Randy Lerner, owner of the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns, has won a court order for the return of the remainder of his $40 million investment in a hedge fund that had refused to say where the money was invested.

Lerner’s funds were improperly refused to be returned by Paige Capital Management, a corporation known for buying faltering companies amd was kept for selfish reasons for generating management fees, Delaware Chancery Court, Judge Leo Strine concluded.

“I order a remedy requiring the immediate return” of all Lerner’s capital invested in the fund along with interest tied to the delay in handing over the funds, Strine said in 100-page ruling. The fund is run by Michele Paige, a former investment manager for billionaire Carl Icahn along with her husband, Christopher Paige.

Lerner is a former chairman of financial services company MBNA Corp. who also owns the English Premier League soccer club Aston Villa, rebuffed a March offer by the Paiges to settle the case for about $3 million, according to court filings.

Lerner, with a fortune estimated at more than $1 billion by Forbes magazine last year, has been forced to inject $326 million into the Birmingham-based Aston Villa team since he bought it in 2006, according to filings with English regulators.