beIN SPORT has announced a partnership today with MP & Silva, see a leading international media company, to launch the global sports broadcaster in Indonesia.

beIN SPORT will launch three high-definition channels featuring a world class line-up of football content, led by the most extensive and complete coverage of the Barclays Premier League (BPL), as well as other compelling top sports events such as the 17th Asian Games INCHEON 2014. The channels will be known as beIN SPORT 1 HD, beIN SPORT 2 HD and beIN SPORT 3 Premier League HD.

The beIN SPORT channels will be available on some of Indonesia’s leading pay-TV systems from 1 July 2013. All three channels will be available on Orange TV and NexMedia, while beIN SPORT 1 HD and 2 HD will be available on First Media.

Commenting on the news Nasser Al Khelaifi, Chairman of beIN SPORT, said: “Expansion into the Asia market has been a priority objective for beIN SPORT and in particular we have been keen to be involved in the growth potential of pay TV in Indonesia.” He added, “We are delighted to be partnering with MP & Silva who bring to our joint venture exceptional expertise in the Asia market.”

“We are delighted to partner with beIN SPORT to launch three television sports channels featuring the best football in Indonesia as it is the market where we foresee will have the highest pay-TV growth in terms of subscription in the next five years.  beIN SPORT is a consolidated and successful international broadcaster with an excellent track record of delivering high quality sports programmes. Most importantly, we believe that sports fans across Indonesia will appreciate and welcome the introduction of the fastest growing sports channel brand today, with their expertise in sports television production”, said Andrea Radrizzani, MP & Silva Group CEO.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has suggested Manchester City sponsorship deals have made a ‘mockery of financial fair play’. 

City, owned by Sheikh Mansour, and Paris St Germain have been criticised for massive sponsorship deals with companies enjoying close links to their billionaire backers.

Etihad Airways have a 10-year agreement with City bringing in close to £400million with many believing they have deliberately paid above the market price to pump money into the club.

Arsenal boss Wenger, whose side drew with City 1-1, said: “If the sponsorship deals are just a way of getting round financial fair play then it’s not financial fair play.

“It makes the system worse for me, as that would mean it makes a mockery of financial fair play.

“Originally, for financial fair play, sponsorship deals had to be at the level of the market price and I don’t know whether they will work or not.

“But what City do off the pitch, we’ve spoken about many times.

“On the pitch, they are an advert for football that’s always good to see.”

Daniel Geey, a sports law specialist from Field Fisher Waterhouse suggested how Manchester City’s sponsorship will be assessed by UEFA.

He said: “First, UEFA will need to establish whether the sponsorship deal is a Related Party Transactions. The Abu Dhabi government own Etihad Airways whose ruler Sheikh Khalifa is the half-brother of Man City owner Sheikh Mansour. In order for the deal to be caught under the UEFA RPT provisions, it would probably need to be demonstrated that Sheikh Khalifa had some type of influence or control over Man City (see Annex X(E) paragraphs 3-4). If the agreement is not a RPT, UEFA will not look at the value of the deal in any more detail.

“Second, if the Etihad deal is deemed to be a RPT, UEFA will be faced with an interesting issue of how to divide the deal revenues between the shirt sponsorship, the stadium naming rights deal and the Etihad Campus development. A type of benchmarking exercise will need to be carried out to assess what UEFA considers will be “fair value.” If UEFA considers the deal has been at a fair value, that will be the end of the matter. Therefore UEFA will need to assess the counter-factual position should question marks be raised over a particular transaction. The devil is obviously in the detail but issues over how revenue can be correctly valued may become a particularly thorny issue. In order to investigate a shirt sponsorship deal to assess fair value it would be necessary for UEFA to use comparators to identify whether a particular deal is extraordinary in any particular way.

“In using a rather blunt example, should an entity with a relationship to Premier League club X who has Champions League aspirations enter into £70m per season in shirt sponsorship deal with Club X, UEFA may study the top shirt deals in the Premier League and throughout Europe to see the current market rates. Remember also that ‘market value’ will be different to UEFA’s ‘fair value’ test.

“Lastly, if UEFA concludes a deal has not been at a fair value, the revenue for the benefit of calculating a club’s FFP licence application would be reducedto the level UEFA believe is appropriate.”

Ben Wells, the former head of marketing at Chelsea, added: “It’s a tough call for Platini. FFP is founded on good ethical principles – even though there are those that point to the fact that leading clubs will use it to maintain the status quo – as I can’t see football clubs ever getting their own houses in order without an initiative like this.

“The City deal with Etihad is not the only one that UEFA need to look at. There are several out there which are in my view grossly overinflated in terms of return. The response from UEFA to this is crucial. If UEFA don’t display a decisive response then FFP runs the risk of being stillborn.”

NIKE, Inc. has announced that its subsidiary company, Hurley International, has appointed founder and Chairman Bob Hurley the interim CEO role at Hurley, replacing Michael Egeck who has decided to leave the company.

Hurley will work closely with Roger Wyett, President of NIKE, Inc. Affiliates, and a former CEO of Hurley, during the transition.

“I’d like to thank Michael for his work during his time with the brand. Hurley continues to be an important part of the NIKE, Inc. portfolio as a deeply authentic and innovative surf brand, and serves as a key component of our integrated action sports strategy alongside the NIKE Brand and Converse,” said Wyett.

BT Sport has revealed they will televise the inaugural World Club 7s tournament live from Twickenham on August 17-18.

The ground-breaking event brings together some of the biggest names in club and provincial rugby for the first time in the history of sevens rugby.

Teams from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, ambulance together with some of the emerging names in the sevens game, will compete for the new trophy in mid-August.

BT Sport will act as host broadcaster for the tournament, which is then set to expand further in 2014 and 2015 as sevens rugby heads towards its debut at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Plans are underway to have the strongest club and provincial teams in the world qualifying through domestic 7s championships.

“We are delighted that BT Sport are showing the World Club 7s live”, said Dominic Hayes, Premiership Rugby’s commercial director.

“It’s an indication of the pace the tournament is gathering pace on a daily basis!

“BT Sport will broadcast three hours live on Saturday followed by five and a half hours on Sunday starting with ACT Brumbies against Auckland, as the competition reaches a crescendo.”

Head of BT Sport, Simon Green, said: “BT Sport is the new home of rugby union and we are delighted to be showing world class 7s to kick off our rugby coverage.

“Rugby union is entering a thrilling phase and we will be bringing the very best of the action to our viewers.”

The new BT Sport channels launch on August 1 with coverage of the first round of the Premiership 7s competitions, while the first live Aviva Premiership matches on the network will be broadcast in September.

Swansea manager Michael Laudrup has revealed he sees no problem with offering rival teams a cash bonus to win, and it it is not a form of match-fixing.

Former Denmark international Laudrup has spent time in a wide range of countries throughout his career as a player and manager, and played for Italian sides Juventus and Lazio during the 1980s, a period associated with match-fixing investigations in the country.

He believes that match-fixers should be hit with lifetime bans, but believes the ‘suitcase’ culture prevalent in Spanish football, where one team will pay another team to take points off their immediate rivals in the league table, is not an issue.

“To say I’m against that [match-fixing] is obvious,” Laudrup said. “The worst match fixing I’ve heard was what happened in Italy before I came there in the beginning of the ’80s, where somebody bought three or four of the players in a team to lose a game.

“That means that seven or eight players in a team were playing to win, like normal, and three or four of them just to lose.”

However, he added: “If Swansea play the last game against a team and a third team pays Swansea to win the game, I really don’t see anything bad about that. It’s just a bonus. For me, match-fixing is when somebody pays someone to lose a game.”

Fenway Sports Management (FSM) today announced that Joe Hockenjos has joined the organization as Senior Vice President, bronchi Sales.

FSM is the global sponsorship sales arm of Fenway Sports Group.

A 25-year veteran of sponsorship sales, pills Hockenjos will be responsible for selling integrated sponsorship and marketing partnerships across FSM/Fenway Sports Group’s portfolio of properties with a focus on the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool Football Club, New England Sports Network (NESN), Roush Fenway Racing and LeBron James/LRMR Marketing & Branding. Hockenjos will report to FSM Executive Vice President, Sales Frank Huckabone.

“Joe brings a wealth of sales experience, a proven track record of delivering value for some of the most respected brands in professional and college sports, and a keen understanding of broadcast and new media sponsorships,” said FSM President Sam Kennedy. “I had the opportunity to work with him when he was with Yankee Global Enterprises and have always been impressed by his approach to and passion for the business. We look forward to having Joe join the FSM family and helping us drive revenue for our blue chip properties and clients.”

Prior to joining FSM, Hockenjos led the Business Development and Sports Sales divisions for NCC Media, a company jointly owned by Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications that represents the cable ad sales industry. He was responsible for generating new revenue through property acquisition and incremental sales. While there, he helped secure national representation for several regional sports networks including SportsNet NY and Sportstime Ohio, as well as agreements with DirecTV and the Dish Network.

“It’s truly a privilege to join one of the world’s preeminent sports sponsorship sales organizations,” said Hockenjos. “I look forward to working alongside Frank and the rest of the team to help generate sales for FSM’s impressive client roster of elite international brands.”

Hockenjos’ previous experience included several roles with Yankee Global Enterprises (formerly YankeeNets) where he implemented sponsorship sales at Yankee Stadium, consulted on the launch of the YES Network and sold integrated marketing programs for the New Jersey Nets and Devils. Responsibilities at the end of his tenure were focused on developing an integrated sponsorship plan for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In the late 90s, Hockenjos joined Total Sports Inc. where he built an advertising sales team for the company’s various on-line assets including golf.com, all NCAA athletic championship web sites and a network of college and university sites dedicated to scholastic athletics. His responsibilities included implementing joint sales efforts with NBC Sports for Ryder Cup digital elements and staffing eight offices in the Eastern half of the U.S. and Toronto.

Prior to that, Hockenjos gained sales experience through positions with FOX Television (FTS) and TeleRep Inc. At FTS, he jumpstarted efforts against “un-wired network” sales for the group’s sports and entertainment properties including the NFL, NHL on FOX and Major League Baseball. At TeleRep, Joe cut his teeth in television advertising sales representing the Tribune stations in New York, later promoted to Sales Manager for the firms’ Philadelphia office where he managed a group of eight sales and support staffers generating over $75 million in annual billings.

Hockenjos developed additional team and property sales experience at Madison Square Garden in the mid-90s where he sold integrated packages for the New York Knicks, Rangers, Liberty, college basketball, MSG Network and Productions. Hockenjos also has agency experience having been a media planner/ buyer for Foote, Cone & Belding in the mid-80’s. He began his career in college at the successful brokerage firm Salomon Brothers, before switching fields after graduation.

Hockenjos graduated from St. John’s University with a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing and continued on with post-grad studies in International Marketing. A resident of New Jersey for more than 20 years, Hockenjos currently lives in Freehold with his wife Kathleen, and their two children, Matthew and Jaclyn.

Just a few months after the end of Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand, drugs it’s already time to think about 2015 and next competition!

Paul Vaughan, cheap CEO of England Rugby 2015 Ltd., will be speaking during the 4^th edition of the Global Sports Forum Barcelona. He will take part to a panel dedicated to “Event bidding: what it takes to win, what it means to lose”. This debate will be the opportunity to focus on the cost and benefit of bidding for sports premier events such as the Rugby World Cup.

Career

Appointed in January 2011, Paul Vaughan became the CEO of England Rugby 2015 Ltd., the delivery body for the Rugby World Cup in England in 2015.

Paul joined the Rugby Football Union in 2001 to become its first Commercial Director where his responsibilities encompassed both the generation of revenue for the game in England and for the marketing of the sport and it was in 2009 that he was part of the team that successfully bid to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Formerly a senior Vice President at Octagon Marketing, Paul was involved in a wide range of sports and clients, including a number of rugby campaigns.  These included the Lloyds TSB Six Nations, the Zurich Premiership and Scottish Providents Sponsorship of the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in 1997.  He also played a key part in the successful commercial programme for the 2001 Lions tour to Australia.
Paul has also had client experience through a long career at Whitbread Plc, latterly as Marketing Operations Director, working on a range of projects such as The Whitbread Round the World Race, The Stella Artois Grass Court Championships, The Rugby World Cup 1995 (Heineken) and The Heineken European Cup.

The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) have announced a new, three-year contract with ITV which will see them broadcast the PartyPoker.net European Championship and Cash Converters Players Championship finals as well as the UK Open and a new event, The Masters. 

The deal, covering tournaments in 2013, 2014 and 2015, will see the four major PDC tournaments broadcast live on ITV4 as part of the channel’s portfolio of sporting events.

The first event to be broadcast under the new deal will be next month’s PartyPoker.net European Championship, which will be held from July 4-7 in Muelheim, Germany.

ITV will then broadcast a brand new tournament, The Masters, from November 1-3, as the top 16 players from the PDC Order of Merit do battle at the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh in a three-day event.

The Cash Converters Players Championship Finals, to be held from November 29-December 1, will again be broadcast live from the Butlins Minehead Resort in Somerset.

Finally, the UK Open – which was won by Phil Taylor last weekend in Bolton – will also be broadcast live on ITV in 2014 and 2015, with dates and full information to be confirmed later this year.

“We’re delighted that ITV have made such a significant commitment to the PDC, and to the sport of darts, with this three-year, four-event deal,” said PDC Chairman Barry Hearn.

“They have a great enthusiasm for top-level sport, and in these four tournaments they see the best players in darts competing in major championships.

“As part of that, we are extremely excited about the introduction of The Masters, an event which will see the leading 16 players in world darts doing battle to see who really is the best of the best!”

ITV Director of Sport Niall Sloane said: “We are always delighted to work with the PDC, and the new darts tournaments are testimony to their ability to produce first class sporting events.”