Der NDR, herbal in der ARD für die Übertragung der Olympischen Spiele in London federführend, zieht eine Woche nach Beginn der Wettkämpfe in London eine positive Zwischenbilanz. NDR Intendant Lutz Marmor: “Schon vor Beginn der besonders attraktiven Leichtathletik-Wettbewerbe erweisen sich die Olympischen Spiele erneut als Publikumsmagnet. Unsere Programme transportieren sowohl das Wettkampf-Geschehen als auch die packenden Emotionen des weltgrößten Sportereignisses via Fernsehen, Radio und Internet unmittelbar zum Publikum”, so Marmor. Mehr als 3,22 Millionen Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauer verfolgten im Schnitt die Sendung “Olympia Live” im Ersten, der Marktanteil lag bei 21,8 Prozent.

Besonders hohe Quoten erzielten die Live-Übertragungen der Schwimm-Wettkämpfe aus dem Aquatics Center in London. Die meisten Zuschauer hatte am Dienstag, 31. Juli, das Staffelfinale der Männer über 4 x 200 m Freistil. In der Spitze verfolgten 8,15 Millionen den Wettkampf im Ersten. Das entspricht einem Marktanteil von 28,2 Prozent. Auch Sportarten, die sonst oft weniger im Fokus stehen, finden während der Olympischen Spiele großen Zuspruch. So verfolgten am Sonntag (29. Juli) 6,27 Millionen Zuschauer das Spiel der deutschen Tischtennis-Damen gegen die Tschechische Republik; das entspricht einem Marktanteil von 19,5 Prozent. 5,29 Millionen Zuschauer (22,0 Prozent Marktanteil) sahen im Ersten ebenfalls am Sonntag die Wettkämpfe im Kanuslalom.

Unerwartet hoch ist auch das Interesse der Userinnen und User an den Online- und Livestreaming-Angeboten der ARD. Die Seite sportschau.de/olympia verzeichnete bis Donnerstag bereits mehr als 70 Millionen Page Impressions (PIs). Am ersten Übertragungstag des Ersten am Sonntag wurden 15 Millionen Seiten abgerufen, das entspricht der Zahl der Zugriffe während der gesamten Zeit der Olympischen Spiele in Peking 2008. Die bis zu sechs parallelen Livestreams wurden in den ersten vier Wettkampftagen bereits mehr als 10 Millionen Mal genutzt. “Unsere Erwartungen wurden bei weitem übertroffen”, so ARD-Teamchef Walter Johannsen vom NDR. “Die Resonanz im Netz zeigt: Mit unserem Livestream-Angebot liegen wir goldrichtig.” 

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has warned that the London 2012 Olympic Games “will not be immune” to cyber attacks.

However, it may depend on the type of cyber attack, as the CIO for the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) said last year that cyber criminals would find it “very hard” to launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the Games’ website.

Maude, speaking on a visit to Estonia, pointed out that the Beijing Olympics in 2008 experienced 12 million cybersecurity attacks, and said that hackers would be looking to “disrupt” this year’s Games as well.

He said: “We have rightly been preparing for sometime. A dedicated unit will help guard the London Olympics against cyber attack.

“We are determined to have a safe and secure Games.”

Foreign intelligence agencies, or groups working on their behalf, also continue to target UK government networks, Maude said.

He added: “We know that the threat is accelerating.”

Olympics IT outsourcer Atos said last month that it had successfully completed its first live batch of tests for London 2012. This included the testing of technology security, as well as communications, media and sports systems.

Further technology testing updates are due from Atos on 16 May.

Last November, a number of UK banks underwent an exercise to demonstrate that they can cope with a cyber attack that prevents customers from accessing cash, and public transport disruptions during the Olympics

Some 87 financial firms and banks, including HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, took part in the exercise. The aim was to see how quickly the financial sector could restore services to ‘business as usual’ after major disruption.

The English Football Association (FA) chairman David Bernstein has put pressure on FIFA to postpone its presidential election to allow a new candidate to come forward.

The FA announced in recent weeks that it would abstain from voting at the elections tomorrow, prostate June 1, there saying: “There were two main reasons for this decision. First, a concern, that a series of allegations relating to FIFA ExCo Members made it difficult to support either candidate.

“Secondly, a concern about the lack of transparency and accountability within the organisation, contributing to the current unsatisfactory situation.”

After the chaotic weekend of corruption allegations recently passed, the body has stated, through chairman David Bernstein, that the Congress should be delayed and that an independent party should be appointed to overlook how FIFA is run.

The statement added: “Events of the last few days have reinforced our views, and we call on FIFA and ask other national associations to support us with two initiatives.

“First, to postpone the election and give credibility to this process, so any alternative reforming candidate could have the opportunity to stand for President.

“Secondly, to appoint a genuinely independent external party to make recommendations regarding improved governance and compliance procedures and structures throughout the FIFA decision making processes for consideration by the full membership.

“This has been a very damaging time for the reputation of FIFA and therefore the whole of football. To improve confidence in the way the game is governed at the very top, we believe these requests would be a positive step forward and the minimum that should take place.”

The Scottish FA have echoed the sentiments of their English counterparts, claiming that the elections should be put off for between 3 and 6 months.

English Premier League soccer club Manchester City has confirmed that it is looking to sell naming rights for its City of Manchester Stadium after chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak said the club’s FA Cup Final victory and Champions League success had made the club more attractive to sponsors.

Al-Mubarak added that the big spenders of the English game would be “exploring every single commercial avenue” after qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time and winning its first trophy for 35 years with the 1-0 FA Cup victory over Stoke.

The chairman said: “I believe we have a bigger commercial opportunity, including naming rights all for the benefit of maintaining the strength of the squad.

“And also for maintaining the financial strength of this company.”

The City of Manchester Stadium was originally designed as part of Manchester’s bid to host the 2000 Olympics and was the centrepiece of the city’s 2002 Commonwealth Games.

After the Games, it was converted for use by Manchester City who relocated from their long-time home at Maine Road

The ground is owned by Manchester City Council, not the club, though a Manchester Council spokesman declined to comment on whether the council would get a share of the naming rights deal.

The International Boxing Association (AIBA) is has announced that it has opened the bidding process for both the 2015 World Boxing Championships and 2015 Junior World Boxing Championships. 

With the 2015 AIBA World Boxing Championships set to serve as Qualifying Event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, anabolics which city will follow in the footsteps of Baku.

The prestigious Junior World Boxing Championships, cough formerly known as the Cadet World Championships, unites the cream of the crop of 15 to 16 year-olds from around the globe, giving the world a first glimpse of the boxing stars of tomorrow. After the extremely successful previous edition in Astana and the much anticipated ninth instalment in Kiev in August this year, the interest in the hosting of the 2015 tournament is expected to beat all previous records.

For the first time in history, the process is open to cities, and not only for National Member Federations.

Usian Bolt sprint to victory in the 100m was seen by a whopping 20 million viewers on BBC last night.

Usain Bolt retained his 100m Olympic title last night with a peak of 20 million people watching at home. The race attracted a five-minute high of 19.36m (64.51%) viewers on BBC One at 9:50pm, abortion reports Broadcast.

An additional 628k (2.09%) watched on one of the BBC’s 24-dedicated Olympic channels, BBC Olympics 3. Furthermore, 3D coverage managed to pull in a crowd of 66k (0.22%) at 9:50pm on BBC HD.

Those viewing figures have topped the previous ratings high for the Olympic Games, as yesterday iSportconnect reported that the BBC had scored its biggest Olympics audience outside the Opening Ceremony with 17.1 million viewers tuning in to see Team GB take away 3 Golds in the Athletics.

English rugby union team, Leicester Tigers, has partnered with Edge 10 and IBM to implement predictive analytics software that it hopes will help prevent player injuries.

The team will be using a wide range of data from training and games to assess the risk of injuries to its players. This could include physical information such as distance covered and movement on the pitch to information on how well the player slept the previous night.

This data is then used to spot trends that can precede an injury. For example this could be a player rating very highly in two or more ‘fatigue parameters’ that the club sets.

Players can then have individual training schedules devised that can reduce their injury proneness. The data will be pulled together from IBM’s predictive analytics product SPSS Modeler into Edge 10’s reporting portal.

Rugby is an incredibly physical sport with as many as one-quarter of all players picking up injuries during the season. On average a hamstring injury will cost a team an average of 14 playing days.

While this means teams will not be able to put out their strongest team as often as they would like, which impacts on-field performance, it can also impact a team off the pitch. An injured player will still be picking up his or her salary while out of action.

Andy Shelton, head of sports science for Leicester Tigers, explained what sort of impact injuries can have on a club’s fortunes. “We’re playing on an uneven playing field with our European rivals because of the salary cap we have to play under. They can replace one highly-paid international with another; we cannot.”

“So we have to spend our money more wisely to gain any competitive advantage we can. It’s common sense but we always do better when our key players are fit, so that means we have to avoid injuries,” he added.

The platform will be rolled out across the club, from the under-19 Academy players up to the first team. As well as preventing injuries throughout the club, the predictive analytics software will also be used to help spot the best young players coming through the ranks, improving the percentage that graduate to the first team.

“Sport is no longer just a game, it’s becoming more and more a scientific undertaking which is driven by data and numbers,” added Jeremy Shaw, director, IBM Business Analytics for Media and Entertainment. “Gone are the days of relying on raw talent and gut instinct alone to succeed.”

CBR has reported previously on how sports clubs are using predictive analytics to gain a competitive advantage.

Manchester City is also using IBM software to help it identify transfer targets that will improve the club’s on-field performance. For example the software revealed the team was very poor at retaining possession in and around their opponent’s penalty area. The club then studied players across the world that were very good at keeping possession in that part of their field and used that information to identify transfer targets.