Mount Panorama motor racing circuit, located in the Australian city of Bathurst, will receive a $(Au) 3million boost from the federal government.
Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean has announced that the $(Au)3 million has been granted to the Bathurst Regional Council for the $(Au)6.07 million Mount Panorama Infrastructure Project.
Mount Panorama will celebrate the 50 years of the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, also known as ‘The Great Race’, in October.
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Force India’s principal owner Vijay Mallya has denied a media report that speculated he is planning to sell his stake in the Formula One team to Sahara India.
The report quoted sources as saying that multi-business conglomerate Sahara India was in talks to take over from Mallya, who co-owns Force India with Dutch businessman Michiel Mol. It further said a “deal is on the verge of being finalised and that an announcement to the effect is expected in a couple of days”.
The sucessful businessman issued a statement in response to the report, “I take great pride in having been able to put an Indian team on the Formula One World Championship grid and have worked very hard to greatly improve the performance of the team. Now that India is finally on the Formula One World Championship calendar, my commitment to Force India only gets even stronger. As Team Principal, I will continue to run the team and I have no plans whatsoever to exit.”
Force India was formed in October 2007 when a consortium (Orange India Holdings) led by Mallya and Mol picked up the struggling Spyker F1 team for Euro 88 million ($118m).
The National Basketball Association (NBA) have made no new progress in their first meeting on a new labour contract since the lockout which began one month ago.
David Stern, NBA Commissioner, said after yesterday’s three-hour meeting that the union isn’t negotiating in good faith. This was reciprocated by the players against the league in a filing with the National Labour Relations Board in May.
Stern said: “I don’t feel optimistic about the players’ willingness to engage in a serious way, “We’re at the same place as we were 30 days ago.”
The main issue is how to split money from a league that generated about $4.3 billion in revenue last season. Yesterday’s talks didn’t focus on how much revenue each side should receive, union President Derek Fisher of the Los Angeles Lakers said:
“You can only go so long discussing non-economic or system issues,” Fisher told reporters. “It eventually all brings you back to, ‘What’s the split?’”
National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), Executive Director, Billy Hunter has said that a proposal given to the players prior to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement leaves the sides more than $7 billion apart over the 10-year life of the contract.
The parties have agreed to meet once more in the next two weeks and perhaps twice before the end of August, Fisher said.
New Jersey Nets All-Star guard Deron Williams is among the players who intends to compete in Europe during the work stoppage.
The NBA is trying to follow in the footsteps the National Football League (NFL). On July 25 they announced the end of its own lockout after agreeing with the NFL Players Association on a 10-year contract.
“We’re looking at a league that was the most profitable in sports that became more profitable by virtue of concessions from their players, and with an average salary of $2 million,” Stern said about the NFL settlement. “Our average salary is $5 million and we’re not profitable. And we just can’t seem to get over the gap that separates us.”
According to a report in Gulf News, the owners of the Kochi Franchise have been in talks with a number of potential buyers to offload some of their stakes. The franchise was bought at a whopping sum of US$333m.
Anchor Group chairman Mehul Shah and the majority shareholder in the franchise told the UAE daily. “We are still taking stock of the entire scenario and cannot comment on it. If something happens, it will be a business decision.”
Kochi is not the only franchise that is looking at a strategic stake offload. The Pune franchise, which was bought by Sahara Group for $370m, is looking at diltuing some stake.
At the time the purchases of the two franchises were ground-breaking however reality has dawned on both franchise owners that to break-even on investment within 10 years will be herculean task. The 20% drop in ratings of the IPL this season and increasing costs of running the franchise is a major factor in the offload of stakes.
“As per the economics of IPL, each franchise should be ready to take into their stride losses of around Rs 1-1.3 billion annually for the first four to five years. This can be quite taxing for the present shareholders,” revealed one of the highly placed sources in the team.
In what has been claimed as a big step forward with regards to the discussions regarding a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the National Football League (NFL) and the players’ union (NFLPA), a U.S. government mediator will help progress talks aimed at reaching a new labor deal.
The U.S.’s most-watched television sport and its players agreed to have the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) run negotiations starting tomorrow in Washington, according to a news release yesterday, February 17.
Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, stated in an interview: “This is a very positive sign. If the parties don’t want to reach a settlement, they won’t. But the mediator will help them along.”
The sides are arguing about how to share almost US$9 billion in league revenue. Owners want to double the $1 billion they take out to cover expenses before dividing the remainder with players, according to the NFLPA.
Other areas of dispute include rookie salary scales, the addition of two regular-season games and health care for players.
In “highly confrontational situations” mediation can help parties back away from original positions and demands, or retreat from bellicose rhetoric, improving the chances of compromise, Chaison said.
Director George H. Cohen said in the FMCS release: “Negotiations will now be conducted under my auspices in Washington, D.C.”
According to reports from the Daily Telegraph, pill the brother of UK Prime Minister David Cameron will represent shamed Pakistani cricketer Mohammed Asif, buy cialis who faces corruption charges from the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The hearing will commence in Qatar on January 6 where Asif will be joined by compatriots Muhammed Amir and ex-Pakistan captain, Salman Butt. If found guilty, the men could face bans of between five years and life from the game after allegations were made of the trio during a Test match tour of England last year.
Sports business portal iSportconnect.com has agreed a social media partnership with Future Sponsorship 2010 organised by the Informa Group in partnership with the European Sponsorship Association.
This year’s Global Convention will take place on 24 and 25 November at the Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
iSportconnect.com combines social networking, the latest sports business news as well as events and jobs listings. Bringing together sports professionals, iSportconnect.com provides a community where all the essential components of the industry can be found and utilised.
The platform will act as a virtual meeting room, so that Convention participants can interact before, during and after the event in a secured way, thanks to the site’s Strict Door Policy.
Future Sponsorship’s own community group will feature event-related news updates, interviews and multimedia enabled features.
The Future Sponsorship event page will facilitate a great level of communication for both Event participants and enthusiasts.
Now in it’s fifth year, Future Sponsorship 2010 will focus on the most pressing challenges around the dynamic sponsorship industry, the importance of experiential marketing and the rise of the term brand partnerships – all now vital to consider in the future of sponsorship.
There will also be two in-depth one-day workshops pre and post-conference, as well as an evening dinner and ESA awards night taking place on 24 November.
Speakers at this year’s convention include: Jim Wright (Marketing Director, Virgin Racing), Charles Wijeratna (Commercial Director, London 2012), Tom Broom (VP, Digital Strategy, IMG Media), Philippe Margraff (Commercial Director, Uefa Euro 2012) and Ruth How (Head of Sports Marketing, Puma UK).
More information about Future Sponsorship 2010 is available at its iSportconnect.com event page.
ISportconnect ‘Editor at Large’ Jay Stuart has resigned his role as head of press and media relations of SportAccord Convention.
His new venture Northern Creative Studio, medstore in partnership with Hollywood veteran Mark Solomon, will produce animated video content for promotion, marketing and entertainment.
Solomon was nominated for a 2012 ACE Award as the editor of Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, and was also editor of global box-office hit Chicken Run, with other notable studio credits including important roles on the hits Space Jam, Shrek and Shark Tale.
In a bid to increase their engagement with fans, Arsenal have launched their official channel on video sharing platform, YouTube.
The channel will give the club’s supporters around the world the opportunity to view new and engaging content and will compliment the Gunners’ other sites and outlets which include Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Soundcloud, WeChat, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.
As a prelude to the launch of the official YouTube launch, Arsenal’s YouTube channel was active for just over two weeks last summer and in that time streamed almost 20 years of footage to supporters all over the world.
A video of Arsenal fan Vu Xuan Tien chasing after the team coach in Vietnam went viral, with more than three million views through the official page.
Richard Clarke, managing editor for the Arsenal Media Group said: “An official Arsenal channel on YouTube will allow us to reach a new audience and tell the story of the club in a different way.
“We hope YouTube will help us show the character of our special club and grow our global fanbase.”
Stephen Nuttall, senior director for sport at YouTube said: “Three hundred of the top football clubs in the world run official channels on YouTube.
“The success of the Arsenal channel last summer demonstrates the club’s potential to build a great presence on YouTube”.
The Players Darts Corporation (PDC) have announced their plans for the next few years with chairman Barry Hearn announcing a rise in prize money next year to £7 million.
Over 100 PDC stars and representatives of the PDPA met with Hearn ahead of Sunday’s Players Championship at Dublin’s Citywest Hotel, where Hearn confirmed that prize money will continue to rise in 2014, as he expects £7 million to be on offer across the PDC circuit.
With the introduction of a separate PDC Unicorn Youth Tour, for players aged 16-21, and Challenge Tour for players who compete at Qualifying School but do not win a full PDC Tour Card, a route through to the full PDC ProTour has been established for players looking to break through.
“In the last ten years, darts has enjoyed a growth that I’ve never experienced in any other sport throughout my career,” said Hearn.
“Prize money ten years ago was somewhere around £500,000 per year. In 2012 it was £5.1 million, in 2013 it’s £6.4 million and in 2014 it will be something in excess of £7 million – and we’re well on our way to my main target, which is to have £10 million prize money, and we will achieve that.
“We’re now building a structure, from the Youth Tour to Qualifying School, and if you get your Tour Card you’ve got every opportunity to change your life. If you don’t, you go back on the Challenge Tour.
“I’m very proud of the structure we’ve created, and it is a business built on opportunity. We are creating an opportunity for players to change their lives through the success they achieve.
“Because of the entertainment that our players provide, which is so well captured on TV, we’re opening new markets worldwide. As soon as people see darts on television, the want to go and see it live, and we’ve already sold over 40,000 tickets for the World Championship and will sell 100,000 tickets for the 2014 Premier League Darts.
“This is a phenomenon and I want the players to enjoy the moment and appreciate the memories. It’s not easy because the rewards are fantastic, and the potential is amazing – we have no limit to where we can go.
“We are a major international, global sport and we should be proud of what we’ve achieved. I couldn’t be prouder to be the PDC Chairman and I look forward to being around for as long as I can enjoying the amazing entertainment our players are delivering.”