Greenway Golf Associates (Greenway), a boutique golf course management and maintenance operator, has been selected by the City of Alameda, CA. from a national RFP to operate the city’s 45-hole golf complex.

The Alameda City Council unanimously approved a 25-year lease agreement with Greenway to operate and manage the golf operations of the Chuck Corica Golf Complex, which consists of two 18-hole courses, a nine-hole, par-3 course and a lighted practice range.

Greenway will operate and manage all golf related operations including staffing, sales, marketing, course maintenance, project management plus entertainment and community relations for the property.

“The City Council selected Greenway for their creative design and environmentally sound course management, which reflect the values of the Alameda community,” said Mayor Marie Gilmore.

Greenway’s agreement with the City includes restoration improvement plans for the historic public golf complex valued at over 6 million dollars, which will feature a signature redesign of the South course by international acclaimed architect, Rees Jones. Included in Greenway’s plans is the company’s proprietary “Greenway Method” for establishing environmental sustainable turf practices, which are further reaching than the industry standard Audubon program.

“We are truly honored and flattered that our company was selected,” stated Greenway principal founder George Kelley. “During the selection process I was impressed to learn more about the great history and tradition with golf in Alameda. Our company’s mission to love, serve and deliver fun for all combined with our track record in providing superior playing surfaces will serve us well as we continue to enhance and celebrate this tradition with the residents of Alameda.”

In transitioning the property, Greenway will immediately go to work on changing the culture of the club. “We are not in the golf business, we are in the entertainment business,” says Greenway principal Ken Campbell. “As such, we don’t have “employees”, we have “Ambassadors of Fun” lead by Greenway’s full-time Director of Fun who promote the company’s proprietary “Constitution of Fun”, which encourages guests to play often and laugh more.”

The FIA GT1 promoter Stephane Ratel’s SRO Motorsport Group has stepped down from it’s role putting the Championship in doubt.

Ratel informed the FIA of his decision not to continue as the promoter of the world championship and the FIA GT3 European Championship at this week’s meeting of the GT Commission. He stressed that his organization would bid to bring this year’s series to a “successful finish” and will announce a revised calendar next week. 

The decision was made against the backdrop of falling car counts and the cancellation of two races on this year’s schedule. Just 15 cars have been present at each of the past two FIA GT1 events and both events in China, Beijing Goldenport and Ordos, have been canceled. 

Ratel blamed his decision on the worsening economic situation in Europe. 

“When we started the FIA GT1 World Championship in 2010, the economic situation was difficult,” he said. “Now it is impossible. Even if we are a world championship, the majority of the money is coming from Europe, and that money is not there any more.” 

He explained that the costs associated with running a world championship, including the fee demanded by the FIA from promoters, had been a factor in the decision. 

Ratel said that he would announce his plans for the future at next week’s traditional SRO press conference ahead of the 24 Hours of Spa, a round of his Blancpain Endurance Series. He stressed that he was not ending his relationship with the FIA. 

The plan is that there will be three or four races yet this season in the GT1 series. 

Ratel is in Russia this week finalizing details for the event at Moscow Raceway, which is likely to move from its end-of-September date. There is likely to be an event at the Nürburgring in September, and the series is scheduled to conclude at the Buddh International Circuit in India in December. 

It is highly unlikely that any other organization would step in to take over the running of the world championship for next season. 

Ratel’s world championship grew out of the FIA GT Championship in 2010, with a new rulebook and a new format of two one-hour, pit-stop sprint races without refueling. A lack of cars built to the new regulations resulted in the adoption of the GT3 rules for the 2012 season.

The long standing relationship that has seen Qantas as the Formula One’s Australian Grand Prix race’s title sponsor will continue after a one-year extension was agreed. The grand prix has enjoyed the support of the Australian airline group ever since its first event in 1985. Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman,

Ronald J Walker said: “Qantas has been associated with the Australian Grand Prix for over 25 years and we are pleased that this important partnership is continuing “Formula One is the world’s most popular annual sporting series, with each season attracting a television audience of 520 million fans around the world. Last year in Australia, 4.23 million watched the 2011 Formula One Qantas Australian Grand Prix on television – you just cannot put a value to that level of branding. We look forward to building on the success of the 2011 Albert Park race that beamed images of Melbourne to 187 countries around the world.”

The Australian Grand Prix will kick off the upcoming Formula One season on March 15-28, where Sebestain Vettel is largely expected to repeat his triumph at Albert Park last season. 

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce added: “Qantas has been associated with the grand prix since its inception in Australia and we are pleased to continue our support for this year’s event. We wish Qantas ambassador Mark Webber the best of luck for the race next month.”

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has given the go ahead for president Mustafa Kamal to be nominated for ICC presidency.

The issue now moves to the ICC, which is expected to formally accept the nomination that will see Kamal assume office as vice-president at the end of the ICC annual conference in 2012 and ascend to the presidency in 2014.

The BCB announced the nomination following an emergency board meeting after the PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf had said that the Pakistan board had backed Kamal for the ICC presidency. Under the ICC’s rotation policy, it was the turn of the PCB and the BCB turn to nominate a joint candidate.

At the time of Ashraf’s comments, however, Kamal’s nomination was not certain. He had not yet been approved by a majority of BCB directors.

The National Basketball Association is about to cancel two more weeks of its regular season, anesthetist according to the New York Daily News.

A source told the Daily News that an official announcement will be made on Tuesday; the cancellations are expected be through Nov. 28 and total at least 102 more games. The first cancellations were made on Oct. 10 and ran from Nov. 1 to Nov. 14, pills totaling 100 games.

Last week, buy NBA Commissioner David Stern said that he thought the league’s Christmas Day games would be cancelled if a deal had not been reached by last Tuesday.

No more negotiations between the owners and players are scheduled, but there is a feeling that the league can get a deal before the Christmas Day games are canceled. The two sides are far apart on major issues.

Owners and players have not talked since their last round of negotiations. During the last session, the owners rejected the players’ offer to take less of the split of $4 billion and lower their demands for 52.5% of the revenue if more favorable features could be added to the system.

“What we told the players is that we could not trade one for the other,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said.

The National Football League (NFL) have filed court papers opposing a bid by players to unseal arbitration records in a dispute over some US$4bn in television money.

U.S. District Judge David Doty ordered the release of redacted portions of the record, asthma earlier this month. The League argues that the files contain commercially sensitive information after the players’ union and two news organizations asked for the release of more files.

NFL Chief Operating Officer Brian Rolapp said in a filing today, cheap cialis March 17: “This material reflects the league’s internal negotiating strategy and assessment of media rights, as well as the terms of contracts the NFL has with various business partners. If unredacted versions of these documents were disclosed, it would cause commercial harm to the NFL.”

The union believe that the documents will show that the television deals in question would provide owners with money from the networks, despite the possibility of games being canceled during the current lockout. The league maintains that the television deals, which earned hundreds of millions of dollars in new broadcast money by redistributing some digital rights, were negotiated in good faith.

English League One soccer outfit Plymouth Argyle have secured their survival, for the short-term at least, after a winding-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs was dismissed in the High Court.

Cash flow is still a major issue at the club, who still owe their playing staff wages for the month of January, with their next tax bill due on 22 February.

Peter Ridsdale was appointed as a consultant to Plymouth’s board last month and told BBC Spotlight: “It was good news in the sense that we’ve paid the petition debt and are up to date with the revenue, but that’s just the first hurdle we’ve got over.

“Today isn’t a day of celebration, today is just a sober reminder of the fact that we’ve still got a lot of people to pay money to.”

The sale of four players during the January transfer window, including top scorer Bradley Wright-Phillips, enabled the tax debt relating to the winding-up petition to be paid off.

Peter Ridsdale, who has been working as an advisor to Plymouth’s board since December last year, claimed that a further £2m (US$3.2m) is needed to ensure the club survives until the end of the season.

Ridsdale, the former Leeds and Cardiff City chairman added: “This is an attractive football club and if we can get it right by paying off the creditors and putting enough cash in to see it through to the end of the season, there’s a massive upside opportunity.”

Premier League team West Bromwich Albion have announced the appointment of award-winning Midlands journalist Martin Swain as the club’s new Director of Communications.

Swain will take up his duties on September 1.

The appointment of the Express & Star’s chief sports writer, treat who was recently named Midlands Sports Journalist of the Year, continues the club’s extensive review of its internal structures this summer.

Chairman Jeremy Peace said: “We took a long, hard look at all aspects of the club’s operations at the end of last season and decided this was another appointment which we needed to make with some urgency.

“I fully recognise that the season ended with everyone relieved to have maintained Premier League status and our supporters registered their discontent on a range of other issues.

“I believe that as Director of Communications, Martin can begin and lead the task of healing some of those tensions and build a new way forward to ensure this perceived gap between club and supporters is closed.

“I know the fans want that, as do I and the rest of the board. We have to go forward together.

“Beyond that lies the wider task of the club’s media operation. Martin is an experienced and well-regarded figure within the football media industry with an advanced knowledge of this club’s community and heritage. I am delighted he accepted the post.”

Martin, 59, will leave his post at the Express & Star at the end of this week after 25 years during which he has covered major sporting events across the globe as well as much closer to home.

He said: “This is an exciting challenge and opportunity, one I could not resist.

“I think the very fact that the board at Albion have identified the need for such an appointment underlines their determination to resolve some well-documented difficulties which last season caused the club and the fans much anguish.

“Neither wants to be in conflict with the other and one of my priorities will be to try to ease those problems. A most important element in this is the genuine motivation from the chairman Jeremy Peace and all the board to get a much healthier ‘connect’ to supporters. With that, I’m sure much can be achieved.

“I’m also sure I am about to discover it is a lot easier looking in and commenting from the outside than being on the inside trying to solve problems and go forward!

“But I’m on record as saying that, pound for pound, few if any clubs across the country have performed better than the Baggies since the turn of the Millennium – it is a club with so much going for it and that should be celebrated and promoted.

“For the last 25 years, it’s been an amazing privilege to report on our region’s sport on behalf of the Express & Star. It will clearly be a big wrench to leave the newspaper but this job gives me a chance to make a positive contribution to one of our great institutions and that is what I shall endeavour to do.”

The San Francisco Marathon has agreed a partnership with Gameface Media, cheap the largest provider of free sporting event photos in the United States, pills to provide race participants with free photos of themselves running in the road race.

Gameface Media will deploy a skilled team of professional photographers to shoot memorable images that runners can easily download and share through all major social media platforms within days of crossing the finish line. The San Francisco Marathon is the first major city marathon to offer free photos to all of its participants.

“San Francisco is the tech epicenter of the world so it is only fitting that our race reflect the same values of our community,” said Peter Nantell, executive producer, San Francisco Marathon. “We sought innovative partners that could offer cutting-edge technologies that truly enhance every runner’s experience during Marathon weekend so working with Gameface Media seemed like a no-brainer. The company’s innovative offering will help runners relive the stunning views and historic landmarks of their race with beautiful photos. We think this is something that San Francisco marathon runners will love and want to share with all of their friends and family.”

“We are proud to create a groundbreaking partnership with the San Francisco Marathon,” said Gameface Media CEO David Lavallee. “The event organizers understand the power of social media in creating buzz and brand loyalty for their race. As marathoners ourselves, we know that finishing this race is an emotional milestone that most runners will want to share with friends and family. The San Francisco Marathon will create significant goodwill by creating hundreds of thousands of professionally-shot photos that their participants will gladly share online.”