Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield has been announced as the host of the qualifying rounds of snooker’s biggest tournament, the World Championship, from April 8 to 16, 2014.

It will be the first time Ponds Forge will host the event which has hosted a number of national and international sporting events.

Ponds Forge stages a range of national and international sporting events every year and will host snooker for the first time with the World Championship qualifiers from April 8 to 16, 2014. 

All players seeded outside the top 16 will be battling for places in the final stages at the Crucible Theatre. 

Steve Davis, Jimmy White, Ken Doherty and rising stars like Jack Lisowksi and Michael White are likely to be among those striving for a coveted spot at the Crucible. The 16 qualifiers will then be drawn at random against the top 16 seeds. 

A spokesman for World Snooker said: “We’re thrilled to be staging the qualifying rounds of our biggest event at Ponds Forge for the first time. It’s a fantastic venue and it’s just a stone’s throw from the Crucible so the players and fans will have a keen sense of what is at stake. 

“Sheffield has proved an outstanding location for staging our qualifiers in recent years. It’s a very popular city among the players, as well as the hundreds of fans who come to see so many famous names in action. 

“Our calendar is so packed this season that we have moved the qualifiers closer to the main event, so a player could win his final round match on April 16th and be playing at the Crucible on the 19th! This will only add to the drama and intensity. 

“Tickets details will be announced in due course and hopefully fans will take the chance to see the qualifying rounds unfold.”  

Lorenzo Clark, director of operations for Sheffield International Venues (SIV), which operates Ponds Forge, said: “We are extremely proud to be playing host to the qualifying rounds of snooker’s biggest tournament. 

“Ponds Forge regularly stages high profile sporting events from the FINA World Diving Series to the ETTA National Table Tennis Championships but this will the first time a major snooker event is contested at the venue. 

“We are looking forward to welcoming the world’s top players to our world-class facility for nine days of exciting action ahead of the World Championship at the Crucible.”

At a Federation International de Ski (FIS) Council meeting Infront Sports and Media was awarded the television and marketing rights for the FIS World Ski Championships in the Alpine and Nordic Events for 2019 and 2021.

The Switzerland-based sports marketing company represents six Winter Olympic sport federations, ailment several summer sport organisations and manages the media rights for the FIS World Cup events.

The agreement between the federation and the international sports marketing company includes the distribution of worldwide media rights across all platforms and territories. It also covers the complete spectrum of marketing rights, story including title sponsorship, presenting sponsorship and hospitality packages. Furthermore, Infront will handle media production of the four events, transmitting an HD signal to broadcasters around the world. 

Gian Franco Kasper, FIS President, stated: “The FIS World Championships in the Alpine and Nordic Events have demonstrated their status amongst the most important winter sports events. We are confident that the new partnership between FIS and Infront to market and produce the Championships in 2019 and 2021 can develop them even further and especially on a global basis.” 

Bruno Marty, Executive Director Winter Sports at Infront, commented: “Covering two global event highlights, the agreement marks a milestone in the continuous enhancement of Infront’s top-level winter sports portfolio. We thank the FIS for its trust in our expertise and are proud to provide it with the full spectrum of commercial support out of one hand. We will greatly contribute our experience from marketing a majority of FIS World Cup events to further strengthen the FIS Alpine and Nordic World Championships.” 

The hosts for the 2019 and 2021 FIS Alpine and Nordic World Ski Championships are not yet determined. Bids for the 2019 Alpine event have been submitted by Are (Sweden) and Cortina d’Ampezzo (ITA). Candidates for the 2019 Nordic event include Almaty (Kazakhstan), Oberstdorf (Germany), Planica (Slovenia) and Seefeld (Austria).

Australian Rugby League (ARL) Commission chariman John Grant believes rugby league clubs can look forward to a promising future, following the annual meeting with CEOs.

The Commission and club chiefs met for their annual conference in Sydney on Thursday where details of the 2012 financial report were tabled and details of the annual grant for 2013 and beyond outlined.

Figures showed the ARLC made $176 million in revenue for 2012 and have projected a rise of 13 per cent to $284m this year, increasing to $323m by 2017.

Clubs will receive $7.1m this year – a million dollars more than the salary cap signed off by the Rugby League Players Association last week.

But Grant explained the structure of the grant will be changed over the next five years, with a means-tested style of funding to clubs.

The structure will be put in place by June 30 and Grant said while it was important clubs are able stand on their own two feet, those who are not as financially successful as others shouldn’t be punished.

“The game has been used to a fixed grant where all clubs get the same,” Grant said.

“But all clubs are not the same. Some need more help than others.

“We will start to give variable grants and that will depend on a number of factors.

‘If you look at the 16 clubs, it’s fair to say some have better access to revenue generation.

“We would look at it and say ‘why would we fund a club that can do this the same as one that can’t?’

“We’re moving away from grants and subsidies but we will not cut funding to clubs that need it.”

The ARLC has a bank balance of $43m, due to the $40m paid up front by the Nine Network as part of the new broadcast deal agreed late last year.

Grant said this will increase dramatically over the next five years and said the appointment of new chief executive Dave Smith is key to driving revenue streams.

The PGA of Australia has announced their partnership in the ‘Grow the Game of Golf’ project.

The project managed by the European Golf Course Owners Association has engaged the support of a range of prominent golf organizations such as the PGAs of Europe, clinic European Tour, medstore European Golf Industry Association, Federation of European Golf Greenkeepers Associations, Club Managers Association of Europe, Golf Environment Organization & the European Institute of Golf Course Architects.

The Grow the Game of Golf website has been developed over the last couple of years into an invaluable online resource for golf course owners, managers and golfers alike. The website contains an in depth catalog of various initiatives to encourage golf participation and up to date statistic on the development of the game.

PGA’s of Europe Chief Executive Ian Randell believes the PGA of Australia can add significant value to the project by providing an international perspective in one of the World’s fastest growing industries.

He said “The PGA of Australia, with over 100 years of experience, are an influential and respected body within golf not only in their own country but also across Australia and within the PGA World Alliance. They have been party to many significant grow the game activities and as such we look forward to hearing further of the initiatives which are working in their region and sharing those in Europe with them.”

The PGA of Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Brian Thorburn said: “The PGA of Australia is delighted to become an official partner of the Grow the Game project. The EGCOA has done a fantastic job of establishing a website which focuses specifically on growth initiatives and we certainly hope, with the assistance of our members, that we can contribute to the wide range of strategies which have global relevance in terms of their application.”

The ‘Grow the Game of Golf’ website provides participation data from a range of European countries and is focused on encouraging and inspiring golf clubs and other golf organisations to develop the game, particularly at grass roots level.  The PGA of Australia’s contribution is initially expected to be related to the provision of best practices within the industry, with feedback from some of its leading experts in golf and game development.

“Ideally, we would like to contribute to the sustainability of the sport in terms of interest, participation and overall growth,” Thorburn said.

The International World Games Association (IWGA) and UFA Sports have signed an extensive international marketing cooperation.

UFA Sports will act as consultant and the exclusive international marketer of the IWGA, with focus on The World Games 2013 in Cali, Colombia and 2017 in Wrocław, Poland.

The IWGA and UFA Sports have agreed on a marketing cooperation containing all international media and commercial rights for a term including The World Games 2013 and 2017. The IWGA thereby wants to benefit from UFA Sports’ expertise in the field of international media rights distribution, sale of corporate sponsorships and strengthening brand identities in sport, to maximize the visibility of The World Games’ broadcast coverage. UFA Sports and the IWGA as entity of its Member Federations intend to further develop the popularity of the participating sports by providing the widest possible exposure to public and media with an international top class event organized and produced in high quality.

The World Games are a quadrennial global multi-sport event that offers competitions at the highest level in spectacular mix of traditional and modern sports, practiced on earth, in the air and on the water.

The next edition of The World Games will be celebrated in Cali, Columbia from 25 July until 4 August 2013. Under the slogan “Fair Play To The Planet”, The World Games will be held for the first time in South America. The World Games 2017 will be hosted by Wrocław, Poland.

The participating athletes of The World Games represent the absolute elite of their sport. To measure up to the performance of these world-class athletes, 15 hours of daily coverage will be produced in wide-screen high-definition format. In addition, two highlight formats of 30 minutes each will show the essence of the spectacular competitions.

Ron Froehlich, President of the International World Games Association: “Safeguarding the diversity in sport is vital to the international culture of the 21st century. Just imagine: a combined 1.2 billion people around the globe practice sports like e.g. inline-skating, karate, rugby or squash. Our goal is to further increase this number by improving the prominence of these spectacular sports through excellent sporting achievements under the umbrella of The World Games. With UFA Sports we are happy to have found a competent and experienced partner who will help us achieving this goal.”

Stefan Felsing, Managing Director of UFA Sports: “We are looking forward to becoming part of The World Games with its diverse and popular sports. The exciting pictures of world-class performances of the athletes at The World Games will inspire many people around the world.”

IndyCar, sickness the sanctioning body for the IZOD IndyCar Series, has announced today its scheduled Aug. 19 race in Qingdao, China, has been cancelled.

Bernard had been working with promoters in Qingdao the last several months to salvage the race, which was announced last November to run at the same time as the International Beer Festival. The inaugural race would have been held on a temporary 3.87-mile street circuit in the city that hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics sailing competition.

“We wanted to give the China race every opportunity to move forward and be successful, but IndyCar has been notified by the promoter that the event is cancelled for 2012,” said Randy Bernard, CEO, IndyCar. “We were informed that the promoter was trying to move the event to a different date and location. After ongoing discussions regarding alternative dates, as well as doing our due diligence in exploring alternate venues in China, the promoter cancelled the event. A decision had to be made to allow INDYCAR and its participants to plan accordingly for the second half of the season.”

IndyCar announced plans for its inaugural race in China on Nov. 10, 2011. Bernard said IndyCar is “not closing the door” on opportunities for a future race in China.

Bernard added that IndyCar is investigating a possible replacement event that will keep the IZOD IndyCar Series schedule at 16 races.

“We are working with our promoters that host events in the second half of our calendar to keep them apprised of how the date of a potential new race could impact our current schedule,” he said.

British team McLaren F1 has announced it has become the first carbon-neutral Formula 1 team.

Last year, the group became the first Formula 1 team to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard, following a three-year audit in which the team measured improved its carbon efficiency.

Thanks to a series of efficiency-driven measures within the McLaren Technology Centre, McLaren was able to achieve annual savings of more than 1,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

More recently, McLaren was recognised by the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, which publishes a performance league table of more than 2000 participating British businesses. The team ranked 92nd overall.

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh, said: “I’m both delighted and proud that McLaren has become the world’s first carbon-neutral Formula 1 team.”

“It’s a considerable achievement: the result of a lot of hard work by a number of extremely dedicated individuals within our organisation, and a testament to our philosophy of continuous improvement within the workplace.

“McLaren was also the first Formula 1 team to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard for our efforts in improving carbon efficiency.

“Today’s announcement is the strongest possible proof that we’ve gone farther than any other Formula 1 team in becoming more environmentally sympathetic and efficient – an achievement that’s of great importance not only to our entire organisation but also to all our partners too.”

The National Basketball Association (NBA) have cancelled the rest of its preseason schedule and will vacate the first two weeks of the regular season if the league doesn’t reach a new labor agreement with its players by Oct. 10.

Yesterday’s four-hour negotiations at a Manhattan hotel collapsed when the players rejected the idea of a 50/50 split of basketball-related income (BRI), NBA Commissioner David Stern said at a news conference.

“We weren’t able to make the progress that we’d hoped we’d be able to make and we weren’t able to continue the negotiations,” Stern said.

The league told the players that if an agreement in principle isn’t reached by Oct. 10 it would have “no choice but to cancel the first two weeks of the season,” Stern said.

“There’s no meetings scheduled,” he said. “We were told that it’s not to be.”

As things stand, an agreement by that date is unlikely, National Basketball Players Association President Derek Fisher said at a news conference, standing in front of players including All-Stars Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.

Union Executive Director Billy Hunter said it could be “maybe a month, two months” before the sides talk again. The regular season is scheduled to begin Nov. 1.