Sir Nick Faldo has announced that the inaugural Faldo Series Nepal Championship will take place on 18-19 October at Gokarna Forest Resort in Kathmandu. Young golfers from across the Himalayan region are set to benefit from the six-time Major winner’s global golf development programme.

“We have enjoyed a close relationship with golfers from the Himalayan region ever since Ziwang Gurung travelled from Bhutan to play in a Faldo Series tournament in 2008, capsule ” said Faldo. “Incredibly, for a golfer who only has access to nine holes and had never been outside his country before, let alone in an airplane, he qualified for the Grand Final at Mission Hills in China. I hope by bringing the Faldo Series to Nepal we can create more opportunity for players like Ziwang to achieve their dreams.”

“I thank the Himalayan Youth Golf Association, the Nepal Golf Association and Gokarna Forest Resort for sharing my vision and for bringing the Series toNepal,” added the former world number one. “I look forward to spending time with the winners at the Grand Final in China next March.”

“The Faldo Series will be a huge boost to golf development in the Himalayan region,” commented Tashi Ghale, General Secretary of the Nepal Golf Association. “We thank Sir Nick for his support and look forward to welcoming players from places like Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Northern India who will benefit significantly from this unique opportunity.”

Golfers aged 12 to 21 will play over two rounds in the Nepal Championship at Gokarna Forest Resort near the capital city of Kathmandu. There will also be pre-qualifying events for Nepalese golfers in Kathmandu, Pokhara and Dharan.

With the field for the Nepal Championship divided into four age-groups – two for boys and two for girls – the age-group winners will join Faldo for the seventh Faldo Series Asia Grand Final at Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, China next March.

Established in 1996, 38 Faldo Series tournaments now take place in 28 countries worldwide with more than 7,000 golfers participating each year. Past winners include Major Champions Rory McIlroy and Yani Tseng.

The 2012/2013 Faldo Series Asia schedule features a record 18 tournaments in 15 countries, including four in mainland China and others in The Philippines, Chinese Taipei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand.

National Football League’s reigning most valuable player, Aaron Rodgers is set to star in two new ads for national pizza brand, Pizza Hut.

The ads may air as soon as Wednesday night when the New York Giants meet the Dallas Cowboys in the kickoff game of the NFL season. Otherwise, they will begin running on Sunday and throughout the rest of the season.

Rodgers will help kick off Pizza Hut’s new Big Dinner Box, described as an “epic-sized box” filled with two medium rectangular one-topping pan pizzas, five breadsticks and the choice of four Stuffed Pizza Rollers, one pan of Tuscani Pasta or eight wings.

“This epic box has something for everyone to enjoy and who better to represent our MVP product than the league’s top quarterback,” said Kurt Kane, Pizza Hut’s chief marketing officer.

The deal with Pizza Hut, terms of which were not disclosed, gives Rodgers another top-line firm in his endorsement portfolio. In addition to Pizza Hut, Rodgers has deals with Ford Motor Co., State Farm Insurance, Nike and Associated Bank. Locally, Rodgers appears with attorney David Gruber in ads for the Gruber Law Firm.

Rodgers also did a series of promotional ads for the Milwaukee Brewers.

The new Pizza Hut ads aim to tap into Rodgers’ dry sense of humor. His comic style was displayed most effectively last year with a series of State Farm ads, which gave the nationally known insurer a catch-phrase (“Discount Double Check”).

 

The Williams Formula 1 team has seen profits surge in the first half of 2011 by 37% on the previous year.

Pre-tax profit was £1.7m ($2.7m) after the cost of investing £1.1m ($1.75m) in energy firm Williams Hybrid Power and the Williams Technology Centre in Qatar.

Team Principal Sir Frank Williams said the first six months to 30 June showed “momentum” and “diversified growth”.

Williams went on the Frankfurt stock exchange in March.

As well as the F1 team, treatment Williams Grand Prix Holdings includes other firms, among them engineering and power concerns, as well as outside partnerships.

The firm has a deal with Renault to provide engines for its F1 cars, and a partnership with Jaguar Land Rover to jointly develop the C-X75 supercar.

Adam Parr, Williams chairman said: “Our core business has performed in line with expectations, with greater costs incurred in the first half. We have made several senior new appointments in engineering and aerodynamics, bolstering both our team devoted to improving track-side performance, and supporting our Jaguar Land Rover partnership.”

During the half-year period Williams extended existing sponsor deals with Randstad and Oris, and added Interbrand as a new partner.

Following the stock market launch, Sir Frank Williams has remained majority shareholder and team principal.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has followed the path of the National Football League (NFL) before it by locking out its players at midnight on Thursday, June 30, after eleventh-hour talks over a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ended in stalemate.

A three-hour negotiating session between the league and its Players Association (NBAPA) concluded in both sides admitting that the discrepancy was too large to resolve before the deadline at midnight Eastern Time.

According to Reuters, although the current agreement calls for 57 per cent of basketball-related income to be distributed to the players under a US$58m per team cap system, the owners had asked for the revenue split to be 50-50 under the new CBA.

The union had agreed reduced its counter proposal to 54.3 per cent, the equivalent of $100m per year of additional revenue to the owners over a five-year term. However, with NBA commissioner David Stern having warned that the league will make a $300m loss in the 2010-11 season, the two sides were still $7bn apart in their demands over a 10-year CBA.

NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said: “The expiring collective bargaining agreement created a broken system that produced huge financial losses for our teams. We need a sustainable business model that allows all 30 teams to be able to compete for a championship, fairly compensates our players, and provides teams, if well-managed, with an opportunity to be profitable.

“We have made several proposals to the union, including a deal targeting $2bn annually as the players’ share – an average of approximately $5m per player that could increase along with league revenue growth. Elements of our proposal would also better align players’ pay with performance. We will continue to make every effort to reach a new agreement that is fair and in the best interests of our teams, our players, our fans, and our game.”

The lockout represents the NBA’s first work stoppage since the 1998-99 season, but the National Football League (NFL), North America’s richest major league, has also been in a lockout scenario since March. The Dallas Mavericks overcame Miami Heat in the finals of this year’s competition last month.

“We just haven’t been able to find that happy medium,” said union chief Billy Hunter. “We took a baby step (but) they didn’t take any at all. They started from what we considered an extreme number (initially) and trying to get to where we are or us get to get to them is mammoth.”

Ijaz Butt, chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), slammed the International Cricket Council for its reported decision to change the rotational policy in the appointment of presidents after 2015 yesterday, June 7.

The motion will be put to vote at the ICC’s board meeting later this month and the PCB will oppose the move in which reports claim that the ICC is planning to stop the rotation policy once the term of its president, Shawad Pawar’s, successor Alan Issac is over in 2015.

Butt stated: “We are very disappointed. It is just a few days left for the ICC Board meeting and why such a decision was taken now. What is the hurry, I don’t know.

“I can’t say much on this matter now but definitely we will take up the matter and oppose it at the ICC meeting (on June 28 in Hong Kong),” he told the Times Now television news channel.

Pakistan and Bangladesh would lose out if the current rotational policy is done away with as the two countries are to present their nominees for the post of ICC president and vice-president.

Pakistan’s former ICC president Ehsan Mani had hinted on Monday, June 6, that the change in rotational policy could be initiated by India so that somebody from India could “jump the queue” to the top post.

Mani said: “I don’t know why the ICC wants to change it (the rotational policy). If it is going to be changed, I want to ask who are the people behind this.”

Nine out of 10 Test playing nations have reportedly signed on the ICC’s proposal to change the rotational policy of ICC president, which was at the centre of a major controversy last year when Australia and New Zealand’s nominee John Howard, a former Prime Minister, was rejected by the other Boards.

When the post of ICC president was first created in 1996, it was a rotation amongst Full Members, who would each have a turn in appointing the President, commencing with India (Jagmohan Dalmiya), then Australia (Malcolm Gray), Pakistan (Ehsan Mani), South Africa (Percy Sonn).

In 2007, the post of vice-president was created and the system was tweaked to the current Vice President/President.

Though rotation stayed as a policy, nominations now came from pairs of countries: Australia-New Zealand, West Indies-England, India-Sri Lanka, Pakistan-Bangladesh and South Africa-Zimbabwe.

A new development, or lack there of, has occured with regards to the National Football League (NFL) and the league’s Player’s Association (NFLPA) collective bargaining agreement (CBA) discussions.

Progress toward getting a new labour deal completed before the current CBA expires on March 4 appear to have stalled, as a decision was made following talks on Febraury 9’s bargaining session, to cancel scheduled talks for yesterday, February 10.

One source said that today’s session between the NFL and NFLPA was canceled due to lack of progress though NFLPA officials did not respond to multiple phone calls and e-mails.

NFL Senior VP/PR Greg Aiello declined to answer questions about the negotiations, saying: “We are not confirming, denying or commenting on CBA meetings”

NFL Network’s Jason La Canfora reported both sides “thought that this week could maybe build some momentum and start hacking away at certain issues,” but added that the two parties are currently “at a loggerhead.”

He added: “It’s not as if they won’t talk in the future though. They do still have other meetings scheduled, they do still hope to make progress on a CBA and at some point establish the kind of momentum hour after hour, day after day that it will take to strike a deal.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) opened up the possibility of an individual country or joint bids being placed for Summer and Winter Olympics in the future.

In an IOC session in Sochi, President Thomas Bach opened the floor to a wide-ranging discussion on his “Olympic Agenda 2020,” his blueprint for the organisation and the running of the games.

The process is aimed at charting a new course for the IOC under Bach, who was elected in September to succeed Jacques Rogge, who served for 12 years.

Despite no formal decision being taken at the session in Sochi it still brought about a debate that captivated the 100-plus members who attended.

IOC vice-president John Coates said the members should consider whether countries – rather than cities – should bid for the Olympics and whether to allow joint bids from different countries or cities.

Under IOC rules, a single city bids to host the Olympics. Joint bids are not permitted.

The possibility of changing the system drew a mostly negative reaction, with members stressing that the Olympics enjoy a special status of taking place in one city.

“One of the unique aspects of the Olympic Games is the unity of time and place,” Canadian member Dick Pound said. “It’s not an event made in a television studio. It’s what happens on the ground. We should be very careful about destroying that.”

The view was echoed by Israeli member Alex Gilady.

“If we go to a country, we will lose the Olympic Village,” he said. “The Olympic Village is perhaps the most important uniqueness of the Olympic Games. Maybe it could be done in the Winter Games, but in the summer if we change the concept from city to country we may start the end of the games.”

Two athlete members, Australian rower James Tomkins and swimmer Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, also opposed any change. Coventry said athletes would lose the “level of competition” they are used to in a single host city.