Cricket Australia Launches New Advertising Campaign for Ashes Series

Cricket Australia has launched its new advertising campaign today ‘The Rivalry That Unites Aus’ to promote the 2013/14 Commonwealth Bank Ashes Series this summer.

The campaign highlights the intense rivalry between Australia and England and features former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Aussie rock icon Jimmy Barnes on the edge of their seats as they cheer on Australian captain Michael Clarke going into bat for our nation.

As a keen follower of Australian cricket Mr Barnes said he was honoured to be involved in promoting the 2013-14 Commonwealth Bank Ashes Series which will transfix the nation this summer.

“The Ashes is a battle that almost all Australians, including myself, are passionate about. I love what it brings out in every player and every fan,” Barnes said.

“It’s not just about the winning, it’s more about the courage and determination the players show and what that makes the country feel. It’s about giving everything you have to be a part of something that brings us all together.”

Developed by GPYR, the commercial brings to life the notion that The Ashes is more than a game of cricket, it’s the epitome of world’s greatest sporting rivalry with the unique ability to unite the nation.

Cricket Australia Senior Manager – Marketing, Julian Dunne said the advertising campaign highlights the rivalry and tension that exists amongst the players and fans in an Ashes year and was delighted with the result.

“Cricket is the number one sport in Australia for passion and we wanted the campaign to capture the intense passion, rivalry and anticipation that only an Ashes Series can deliver,” Dunne said.

GPYR Senior Copywriter, Evan Roberts said he hoped the ad would encourage more Australians to get behind the Australian Cricket team as they battle it out for the urn.

“This Ashes campaign is all about the rivalry that exists between Australia and England. The rivalry is bigger than just a game of cricket, wanting to beat the English is part of who we are as a nation. Our hope is that this ad will encourage more Aussies yelling support over the fence, at their TVs and radios this summer,” Roberts said.

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Kingsbarns Golf Links to Host Final Qualifying for 2013 Women’s British Open

Kingsbarns Golf Links has been selected to host the Final Qualifying for the 2013 Ricoh Women’s British Open on Monday, check 29th July 2013, ahead of the Championship proper which will be played for the second time over the Old Course, St Andrews, 1st – 4th August.

Kingsbarns Golf Links is ranked amongst the top 100 courses in the world and, located just seven miles from the Old Course, provides the perfect stage for the curtain raiser to the 2013 Championship where the world’s best women will seek to show their links skills in the most famous corner of the golfing world.

Alan Hogg, Chief Executive of Kingsbarns Golf Links explained: “We are delighted that the LGU and IMG have selected us to host Final Qualifying for one of the world’s leading professional tournaments. Not only are we excited to play such an important part in the 2013 Ricoh Women’s British Open we are delighted to be supporting the Ladies Golf Union and women’s golf. We hope this will showcase the magnificent facilities we have here at Kingsbarns and very much hope it is an association that we can develop in the coming years as we look to build our Championship portfolio.”

Shona Malcolm, Ladies’ Golf Union’s CEO, added: “The Championship Committee is very happy to be adding Kingsbarns Golf Links to the rotation of prestigious clubs who host Final Qualifying for the Ricoh Women’s British Open Championship. We know Kingsbarns will be a popular choice among the players and spectators and we very much look forward to seeing which players will conquer the challenges offered by this magnificent links course and claim the qualifying places available.”

The Ricoh Women’s British Open was founded by the LGU in 1976 and is staged in conjunction with IMG, the world’s largest sports marketing company. The event has been co-sanctioned by the LPGA and LET since 1994 and gained Major status in 2001.

Exclusive: Yas Marina Circuit Director Discusses Benefits of Social Media

Nick McElwee, the Sales and Marketing Director of the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, has outlined the importance of social media in the motorsport industry.

Speaking exclusively to iSportconnect, McElwee said: “Social media is critical for us. It allows you to stay top of mind cost effectively as well as form deeper more meaningful conversations with our audiences.

“Brands these days need to behave like publishers and we are in the privileged position of being able to generate great content.”

In recent years, many major brands and businesses have utilised social media as a way of extending their reach and engagement with customers, but it is acknowledged by McElwee that the content is as important as the frequency of output, saying: “For us it’s important there’s a story around the content and that we are not just spamming the online space.”

Referring to the Abu Dhabi races, for which one was held last weekend, McElwee said “Different segments prefer different platforms, for example UAE Nationals are particularly active on Twitter. The trick for us is to put great content in the right places at the right time and in the right amount!”

Read Nick McElwee full interview here: http://dev.isportconnect.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15375&catid=52&Itemid=430

Ecclestone Willing to Fund London F1 Grand Prix

F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone has offered to pay for a London Grand Prix according to reports.

According to The Times, billionaire Ecclestone, who has long harboured hopes of holding a race in the capital, is prepared to promote the event. It is reported that the route would pass some of London’s most famous landmarks, including Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square.

The newspaper, who put the cost of staging the grand prix at £35million, claims marketing experts predict that the race could generate at least £100million for the London economy from spectators and tourists.

Ecclestone told The Times: “With the way things are, maybe we would front it and put the money up for it. If we got the okay and everything was fine, I think we could do that…It would be fantastic, good for London, good for England – a lot better than the Olympics.”

“Think what it would do for tourism. It would be fantastic — good for London, good for England — a lot better than the Olympics.”

Ecclestone believes the race would be even more impressive than the Monaco Grand Prix, currently the most famous and glamorous of motor racing’s street circuits.

The event could become the richest race in the road with around 120,000 fans filling the grandstands around the capital’s most famous landmarks along a 3.2 mile route with a potential global TV audience of a billion.

 

Plans for a London Grand Prix are set to be unveiled at the Royal Automobile Club on Pall Mall on Thursday night.

Ecclestone is scheduled to attend, along with F1 stars Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

A four-minute video will highlight the proposed route.

Button and Hamilton are then scheduled to go head to head around the track in a 3D CGI simulator.

Golden State Warriors Heading Back to San Francisco

 

The NBA’s Golden State Warriors have agreed to return to San Francisco, where the franchise’s owners plan to build a privately financed arena on the city’s waterfront, team officials and Mayor Edwin Lee said on Tuesday.
Their joint announcement concluded months of talks about moving the team from aging Oracle Arena in nearby Oakland. The team is due to remain in Oakland until the new arena is completed in time for the 2017-2018 season, according to the club and the mayor’s office.
In San Francisco, where the Warriors played from 1962 to 1971 before moving to Oakland, the team will be in a much larger market and will take a major step toward its owners’ ambitions for raising the franchise’s profile.
Meanwhile, San Francisco will gain a $400 million to $500 million arena that will seat between 17,000 and 19,000 spectators and also serve as an entertainment venue and convention center, the team said.
“We are working with the Warriors to get a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arena built on the waterfront in San Francisco and completed in 2017,” Lee said in a statement.
The arena will be located on city property near AT&T Park, home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, that the Warriors will lease.
The Warriors, headed by co-executive chairmen Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, plan to use and raise their own funds for the arena.
Oakland also risks losing its baseball franchise, the Athletics, who share the city’s O.co Coliseum with the National Football League’s Oakland Raiders.
The owners of the Oakland Athletics have been lobbying Major League Baseball for several years for permission to move the team to San Jose, California’s third-largest city, where they would build a new baseball park.

The NBA’s Golden State Warriors have agreed to return to San Francisco in 2017, where the franchise’s owners plan to build a privately financed arena on the city’s waterfront, team officials and Mayor Edwin Lee said on Tuesday.

Their joint announcement concluded months of talks about moving the team from aging Oracle Arena in nearby Oakland. The team is due to remain in Oakland until the new arena is completed in time for the 2017-2018 season, according to the club and the mayor’s office.In San Francisco, where the Warriors played from 1962 to 1971 before moving to Oakland, the team will be in a much larger market and will take a major step toward its owners’ ambitions for raising the franchise’s profile.

Meanwhile, San Francisco will gain a $400 million to $500 million arena that will seat between 17,000 and 19,000 spectators and also serve as an entertainment venue and convention center, the team said.

“We are working with the Warriors to get a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arena built on the waterfront in San Francisco and completed in 2017,” Lee said in a statement.

The arena will be located on city property near AT&T Park, home of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants, that the Warriors will lease.The Warriors, headed by co-executive chairmen Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, plan to use and raise their own funds for the arena.

Oakland also risks losing its baseball franchise, the Athletics, who share the city’s O.co Coliseum with the National Football League’s Oakland Raiders.The owners of the Oakland Athletics have been lobbying Major League Baseball for several years for permission to move the team to San Jose, California’s third-largest city, where they would build a new baseball park.

 

ECB Lining Up Asia ESPN Deal

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is set to announce a £125m broadcast deal with ESPN to show county games in Asia.

It is reported to be a three- year deal that will commence next year, with the possibility of a further two years.

The previous contract, signed in 2008, was worth around £23m. The ESPN deal will run concurrently with the next Sky broadcasting contract worth approximately £260m.

The ECB is discussing new anti-corruption security measures at live broadcast county matches as part of the deal with ESPN. The measures will include more stringent restrictions on dressing room access and confiscation of players’ mobile phones during matches.

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Platini and Pescante Order Action Against Match-Fixing in Italy

UEFA president Michel Platini, along with International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Mario Pescante, have urged action to tackle the illegal betting scandal in Italian soccer. 

Platini said that “finally someone is doing something” with regards to the issue overhanging the sport in Italy, adding: “We had already forecasted it a few years ago, now national and international authorities have been aware.

“It’s good. Late is better than never. UEFA can help, but we are not the policemen,” Platini said in reference to the bribery allegations engulfing Italian football.

On Wednesday, the Italian football federation banned former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, involved in a criminal trial into the match-rigging, and ex-Juve director Antonio Giraudo from soccer for life. Moggi had already been banned for five years following the 2006 match-fixing scandal which saw the Italian soccer giants relegated and stripped of two Serie A titles.

The ban comes as a new Italian match-fixing scandal has generated more negative headlines for the country’s soccer chiefs. At least 16 people, including former player Beppe Signori, were last week arrested due to illegal betting on primarily Serie B matches. Prosecutors in Cremona are investigating 18 matches. Signori was questioned and later released.

But the scandal has widened to include Serie A matches. Austrian betting firm Skysport365 informed Italian prosecutors of unusually high bets of millions of dollars placed on some games in the top-flight last season.

Mario Pescante, Italy’s vice president of the International Olympic Committee, has expressed his concerns, stating: “In our football there is the hand of organised crime, which certainly makes us understand the system we are talking about: Mafia, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita, which constitute the rotten system in our country.”

Pescante, who is leading Rome’s bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, added: “It is not a small incident, it is a serious phenomenon, bigger in Italy than in other countries.”

The scandal has attracted criticism from Serie A TV rights holder Sky Italia, whose CEO Tom Mockridge said earlier in the week|: “This show outside the pitch is demeaning to say the least. We have invested millions of euros in the authenticity of football these years. 

“Only with a serious change of course we will ensure again these TV rights.”

Leaders Conference to be Staged at Stamford Bridge

It has been confirmed that Stamford Bridge, the home of English Premier League soccer club Chelsea, will host the Leaders 2011 conference for a fourth consecutive year.

Organisers of the Football, Sponsorship and Performance conferences confirmed yesterday, February 21, that this year’s main event will take place on October 5-6, with the event once again coinciding with ‘international football week’.

The event is expected to be another sell out, with attendance capped at 1,000 senior level executives from a range of different sports, linked to clubs, leagues, associations, federations and brands.

With Leaders in Football, Leaders in Sponsorship and Leaders in Performance running concurrently over the two days, there will be an expanded programme of events and numerous networking opportunities.

Arsenal tickets top £100 for non-corporate seats

Soccer’s first £100 (US $150) non-corporate ticket will go on sale next year, with prices to watch England soccer club, Arsenal reaching the threshold due to UK VAT rises.

It will come as the VAT levy on tickets goes up by 2.5 per cent, to 20 per cent, making the most expensive ticket at the Emirates stadium £100.60, including postage and booking fee costs.

Furthermore, the cheapest season ticket to watch Arsenal comes in at £893 (US $1,421), a sum which could buy four home passes at Blackburn Rovers, while fans would be left with more than £300 (US $478) spare if they opted for a year-long pass at reigning English Premier League champions Chelsea.

‘A £100 ticket in the present climate is ridiculous. It is proof that football is not living in the same world as the rest of us,’ said chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation Malcolm Clarke.

‘The game has more money going into it than ever before and it is not helping fans.

‘Football is no longer a game that is readily accessible to all sections of the community.’ He said.

World Rowing Federation and Samsung Sign Partnership

FISA, the World Rowing Federation has signed an agreement with Samsung Electronics to become an Official Sponsor and Technology Partner of FISA and its major World Rowing regattas.

This sponsorship commences with the 2010 World Rowing Championships which will take place from October 30 to November 7 on Lake Karapiro, New Zealand. It continues for the following two years during which Samsung will be the Title Sponsor of the Rowing World Cup annual series, currently comprising three international regattas and, an Official Sponsor of the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia.

Samsung has acquired a substantial package of rights which includes televised advertising boards and graphic data-inserts in the international television signal of all World Rowing regattas for transmission around the world on many prominent television networks.

Denis Oswald, President of FISA, said: “A valued Olympic TOP sponsor since 1997, Samsung has come to appreciate Rowing’s unique values and targeted reach. In our many discussions over the last few months, it has become clear that our sport has a very important part to play in Samsung’s global communications strategy. I am genuinely proud that one of the world’s most successful companies has chosen to partner rowing.”

“As a global leader when it comes to supporting sport and athletics, Samsung is very proud to sponsor the 2010 World Rowing Championships and the Rowing World Cup,” said Gyehyun Kwon, Vice President and Head of Worldwide Sports Marketing at Samsung.

“Sports sponsorship allows us to connect with global markets and communicate our corporate mission and values and is a key conduit in building brand equity in the minds of consumers.”

Samsung is an established leader in innovative digital technologies sponsors many sports events and teams around the world including the Olympic Games as a Worldwide Partner, the Chelsea football club of the English Premier League, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), and the Asian Games.