Sir Philip Craven is expecting the London Paralympic Games to be a ‘tremendous success’.

In an exclusive interview with iSportconnect, clinic Sir Philip was looking for continued success for the Paralympics following the country reeling from a tremendous London Olympics.

“It can often prove frustrating being the little brother to the Olympic Games, canada order ” said Sir Philip.

Nevertheless, according to Sir Philip Craven MBE, President, International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the Paralympic Games are now positioned for sustained growth and are “seeing the fruit coming now off the tree.”

The Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games has proved to be a major catalyst for the increased popularity of the Paralympic Games. The daunting task both the IPC and LOCOG face is how to build on the momentum generated from what Sir Philip Craven described four years ago as ‘the greatest Paralympic Games ever”, but preparations have gone smoothly and all the small glitches have been stamped out.

“The way we have been able to partner LOCOG for the past six and a half years has really ensured that the Paralympic Games in London are going to be a tremendous success,” said Sir Philip.

“There have not been too many problems and six and a half years is a good period of time to iron any out and that is what has happened.”

Despite the colossal task put in front of LOCOG, the London 2012 Olympic Games seemed to overwhelm expectations and were undoubtedly a huge success. Sir Philip hopes for more of the same quintessential British enthusiasm during the Paralympics.

“I am looking for the British public and people from abroad to continue to fill up the Olympic and Paralympic Park and the venues. I want the same wonderful experiences that were present in the first part of August to continue into the middle of September.”

Despite his international responsibilities, the Brit swayed from the traditional diplomatic answers and offered a more patriotic prediction. He smiled: “Britain’s got an excellent record and were second in the medal table in Beijing so hopefully there will be gold medal winning performances for the fans to see.”

The London Paralympic Games begin tonight and end on September 9.

To read the entire interview, which covers a range of topics from broadcasting to partnerships to strategies, click on the link. http://bit.ly/SMfJ2b

Also check out Tim Reddish, Chairman British Paralympic Association video interview:

Part 1 – http://bit.ly/OJ5wks

Part 2 – http://bit.ly/MZgMeh

Why not also join our London 2012 Networking tool here>> and our Olympic E-Mag here>>

The Sun Belt Conference and XOS Digital, story Inc. today announced an exclusive agreement for XOS to provide technology enabled sponsor activation and digital network services.

The seven-year partnership was announced today by Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson and XOS Digital’s CEO Chris McCleary.

XOS will launch and manage the Sun Belt Digital Network, enlist and manage the official corporate sponsors of the conference, and implement the XOS Integrated Sponsor Activation PlatformTM on Aug. 1, 2012, marking a first in collegiate sports marketing. The Sun Belt Digital Network will provide the Sun Belt community with video-centric offerings including an officially branded website, applications for mobile, tablet and Smart TV, an OnDemand Game Store, affiliate digital video players and live streaming of Sun Belt games and events.

The XOS Integrated Sponsor Activation Platform will provide Sun Belt corporate sponsors with the ability to enhance their investment by fully integrating their sponsorships across all elements of the Sun Belt Digital Network as well as the Sun Belt Television and Radio Broadcast Networks. The Integrated Sponsor Activation Platform will provide enhanced interaction with fans as well as comprehensive analytics on fan reach and demographics.

“This is an important step for the Sun Belt Conference as our partnership with XOS will result in a significant increase to our digital footprint,” said Karl Benson, Sun Belt Conference Commissioner. “This agreement provides all the necessary resources to connect our brand to our audience and it will help entice sponsors.”

The partnership between XOS and the Sun Belt Conference will enable the conference’s corporate sponsors to invest in a variety of multifaceted technologies for a broad reach among the Sun Belt fan base. And, for the first time within the collegiate sports industry, corporate brands will now have the ability to work through a single source to activate sponsorships across both digital and traditional marketing assets.

“Commissioner Benson and the Sun Belt are incredibly forward thinking,” McCleary said. “Sponsors are demanding integrated digital and conventional activation of their investment coupled with superior reporting on effectiveness – and the Sun Belt will deliver both.”

Last month, XOS also announced the Sun Belt Conference as the first in collegiate sports to use a multi-channel HD replay system for football. XOS Digital developed the system using the core multi-channel technology found within its Hurricane slow-motion instant replay system, which college teams use for in-venue live production.

Queensland, Australia will be host to the 2012 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup, Cricket Australia and Queensland government announced today.

The partnership between the International Cricket Council (ICC), CA, Queensland Cricket and Events Queensland will see Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Townsville hosting teams from around the globe in August next year.

Australia the defending champions will hope for a succession of wins on home soil.

It will be the second time the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup has been held in Australia, after the inaugural event in 1988, and will showcase the world’s best emerging players, broadcasting their talents around the globe to millions of  viewers in the Sub-continent, England, New Zealand, South Africa and many others via ESPN STAR Sports.

“The ICC U19 Cricket World Cup is the showcase event for best young cricketers in the world and is where the next Cameron White or Yuvraj Singh gets their first real taste of top-level international cricket,” Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said.

Sutherland is very much looking forward to the event and is pleased with Events Queensland continued support.

“It was only a couple of years ago we saw Mitch Marsh captain the Australia Under-19 team to victory in New Zealand with talents such as Josh Hazlewood, Alister McDermott and Alex Keath alongside him.

“We are building towards hosting the senior ICC Cricket World Cup in 2015 and this tournament will play a big part in getting ready for that event,” he said.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said: “This event will deliver an economic shot in the arm to the host communities and showcase Queensland to the world – attracting 400 players and officials from 16 countries and generating an expected 7000 bed nights for the local tourism industry.

“In addition, it will be televised into the homes of cricket fans in more than 100 countries including in Asia, the UK and South Africa via ESPN STAR Sports.”

The 2012 tournament will be the ninth ICC U19 Cricket World Cup after the inaugural event was held in Australia in 1988.

 

The International Boxing Association (AIBA) have announced that the governing body for amateur boxing will make a major move into professional boxing.

A new programme, entitled AIBA Professional Boxing (APB), is to be launched in early 2013 and will feature both individual and national team bouts at national, continental and world levels.

It follows the AIBA run World Series of Boxing (WSB) competition which started last year and sees boxers compete without head guards, while being scored by three judges.

Like the WSB, the new APB will allow competitors to retain their Olympic eligibility despite boxing professionally.

C K Wu, the President of AIBA, said at a press conference: “Today, the AIBA Executive Committee has unanimously approved the creation of another revolutionary programme which is the AIBA Professional Boxing programme called APB.

“The main reasons to develop AIBA’s own professional boxing programme are as follows.

“First of all, I would like to change AIBA as the ultimate responsible body for the boxer’s entire boxing career including amateur and professional and would like to give more opportunities to all our boxers to compete and live in a better boxing world with a stable financial status and as respected role models for young generations.

“I would like to make of AIBA the true governing body to support all National Federations and grassroots including clubs by generating more revenues from the APB programme.

“I am also deeply determined to change the image and reputation of our sport with transparency, popularity and social contribution by taking the responsibility of managing the destinies of the sport of boxing in all forms.

“I am determined to launch professional boxing under the umbrella of AIBA so that we will be the true and respected leader of our sport, and not any other organisation.”

Wu is hoping to turn back decades of tradition where boxers turn professional after competing successfully at the Olympics.

The new professional competitions are due to start in 2013.

Sports communications consultancy Pitch has been appointed by Channel 4 to maximise media opportunities around its successful bid to broadcast the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Among their responsibilities, see Pitch will provide PR support across the broadcaster’s coverage of the Paralympic Games and other Paralympic sport events, ed including the delivery of a communications campaign around the BT Paralympic World Cup in May and the ‘One Year to Go’ milestone.

Additionally, cialis Pitch will be tasked with raising awareness of Channel 4’s dedicated programming schedule focusing on disabled sport, including its regular series ‘That Paralympic Show’ and upcoming feature documentaries.

Jane Fletcher, controller of Press and Publicity at Channel 4, said: “Following the success of our bid to broadcast the London 2012 Paralympic Games, it was important for us to bring on board an agency with extensive sporting expertise to raise the profile of our commitment to Paralympic sport.

“With their knowledge of our brand and the sports media, Pitch is best placed to assist us in our aim to build a fan base for disabled sport and drive viewers to our coverage.”

Henry Chappell, CEO of Pitch, added: “The challenge for Channel 4 is to change perceptions of Paralympic sport among the sports media and the public and we are well placed to provide expert guidance and a creative strategy to achieve this.  

“Our experience in the sports arena makes us an ideal partner for Channel 4 to maximise opportunities around their broadcast rights and programming over the next 18 months.”

The Gator bowl have announced Alan Verlander has been named Chief Operating Officer of the Events Division of Gator Bowl Sports effective January 2, 2014.

His duties will include establishing the structure of the new entity that is charged with bringing new sporting and entertainment events to Jacksonville.

In November, the Gator Bowl Association announced that it was expanding its mission that would enable the organization to work in conjunction with the City of Jacksonville in a public/private partnership to aggressively pursue new sporting and entertainment events to the First Coast area. The Gator Bowl Association, now known as Gator Bowl Sports, will be the umbrella organization that will encompass the annual Gator Bowl game, its Charities Division and the Events Division. Alan will be reporting to its President, Rick Catlett and its Board of Trustees. 

Verlander most recently served as the Executive Director of Sports and Entertainment for the City of Jacksonville where his role was to oversee all sporting operations and events in the City. Prior to that, he served as the Director of Athletics at Jacksonville University from 2005 to 2012.  

“We are very excited to welcome Alan Verlander back to the Gator Bowl as the Chief Operating Officer of the Events Division of Gator Bowl Sports. He was born and raised here and comes from a prominent business family in the Jacksonville area….He has worked through the ranks on multiple levels of the sports industry and is uniquely qualified to hold this position,” said Gator Bowl Sports President, Rick Catlett. 

“I want to thank Mayor Brown and the administration for the opportunity given to me the last 18 months….I am looking forward to a new challenge with Gator Bowl Sports that will provide a unique chance to create a new sports and event organization that embodies a true private-public partnership with our great city and allows us to continue the Mayor’s vision to make Jacksonville a premiere sports destination,” Verlander said.

London Paralympics TV covergae in Britain and America has received a backflash after disability groups criticised US broadcaster NBC for failing to show any of the action live and Channel 4 fell foul of critics in the UK.

NBC, which was also attacked for its Olympic coverage, denied its viewers the chance to watch an opening ceremony for the second time this summer and will show only four hour-long highlight programmes on its TV network. A week after the Paralympics finish, it will air a 90-minute special on the event.

Although there are highlights packages on the NBC YouTube channel there is anger in some quarters and several online petitions have been started.

One has been launched by Damon Herota of Florida. He told the Daily Mail: “It’s a sign of disrespect, especially to those military veterans who are competing. Attitudes are supposed to have changed since the days of Vietnam, when veterans were ignored. What message does this send?”

The story has also been picked up in America, where Sports Illustrated noted: “This year’s Paralympics are expected to draw their largest ever live television audience – except in the United States, where events will receive only minimal coverage and won’t be screened as they happen.”

The US broadcaster’s approach is in “sharp contrast” to that of other nations, said The Daily Telegraph.

Philip Craven, President of the International Paralympic Committee, told the paper: “Some people think that North America always lead on everything, and on this they don’t. It’s about time they caught up.”

Channel 4 came under fire for running too many ad breaks during the opening ceremony. Although it recorded its best viewing figures for 11 years, the Daily Mail reported that the channel was “hit with a tide of criticism about its coverage of the Games”.

“Viewers are furious that the broadcaster kept cutting away from the action to go to commercial breaks during Wednesday night’s ceremony and as the sporting events kicked off yesterday,” it explained.

Elemental Technologies, pilule the leading supplier of video solutions for multiscreen content delivery, today announced that the breadth of its deployment for multiscreen delivery of the Summer Games has expanded to include the BBC in the United Kingdom, Terra in Latin America, Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium in Canada, and Eurosport throughout Europe.

The company is also supporting customers delivering multiscreen content of the events in the US and Japan. These deployments, when combined with Elemental’s support for transnational feeds of the Games, will make video streams from Elemental available in 70 countries and to more than a billion potential viewers. 

“When we began the intense evaluation process for streaming of the Olympic Games more than a year ago, Elemental had little idea of just how broadly we’d be adopted on a global scale”

The BBC plans to stream 2,500 hours of the Olympic Games using Elemental Live and to provide its audience with up to 24 alternative live HD streams from which to choose. The BBC will also use Elemental Live to encode and archive events that can be easily transitioned into video on-demand (VOD) assets for streaming catch-up TV to viewers in the UK.

Eurosport will deliver live coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games via PC in 50 countries through the Eurosport Player service. Live streaming coverage will also be available via smartphone and tablets in 33 countries and for Panasonic Smart TV users in 38 countries. From a technical point of view, Eurosport will use Elemental’s encoding farm, consisting of 13 Elemental Live systems, to handle 42 Eurosport live video streams available in more than 5 bit rate profiles each, representing a global bandwidth of 400 Mb/s.

In Latin America, Terra plans to stream more than 2000 hours of the Olympics Games using Elemental gear to audiences in more than 17 countries. To deliver online and connected device coverage of the games, Terra directs incoming HD and SD fiber optics and satellite feeds into Elemental Live for video processing. The density available with Elemental Live allows Terra to output six HD and 12 SD adaptive bit rate streams simultaneously for streaming to web and tablet devices as well as smartphones.

“Elemental’s solution provides a level of quality that is unmatched in the market without sacrificing the traditional tradeoff of density and cost,” noted Werner Michels, engineering director at Terra. “We chose to partner with Elemental because compared to the vendor we used for the Vancouver Olympics, with Elemental we were able to increase our coverage of the games and throughput by more than 50% in less than half the rack space while improving quality.”

“When we began the intense evaluation process for streaming of the Olympic Games more than a year ago, Elemental had little idea of just how broadly we’d be adopted on a global scale,” said Sam Blackman, CEO and Co-founder at Elemental Technologies. “To play such an integral role in the ‘first truly digital Olympics’ is a privilege that every Elemental employee accepts with great pride.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has shown their analysis to be a record year for attendances at sporting events.

Data was taken at four high profile events. They were the Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, capsule The British Formula one Grand Prix and two horse racing meeting which were Royal Ascot and The Cheltenham Festival. The four events enjoyed their best ever attendances.

Julie Clark, UK head of sport at PwC, said: “Despite uncertainties around the strength of the UK’s economic recovery, these figures demonstrate the sustained appetite for live sport in the UK. The public continue to be attracted to the live experience and sense of occasion offered by the highest profile sporting events; a trend confirmed by the huge demand for tickets to the London 2012 Olympic Games.”

There was a 1% growth at Wimbledon where 494,761 fans attended. It is however a 13 day event which explains the huge number.

Over three days Grand Prix at Silverstone attracted 315,000.

Attractive prices have helped with more than 28,500 fans at  Lord’s for the fifth and final day of the first Test against India at the end of July this year – the highest attendance for the fifth day of a Test match in the history of the ground and 4,500 more than the final day of the Ashes Test match at the same venue two years ago.