MLB Team, Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein has an agreement in place to become head of the Chicago Cubs baseball operations.

Sources indicate Epstein’s move from the Red Sox should be completed within a couple of days. Sources say the two teams were still discussing Boston’s compensation for allowing the move, but this is not expected to derail a deal. It will either be cash or minor-league players going to Boston, but according to people familiar with the deal, the the Red Sox will be content with cash.

Epstein has led the Cubs’ wish list for a new GM since they began the process after parting ways with Jim Hendry this season. People who speak to Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts say he has long praised the “Red Sox model.”

Epstein will make about $15 million over five years with the Cubs. He is also to receive a “conclusion bonus” or “buyout transfer,” money that was part of his Red Sox deal but will now be paid by the Cubs, bringing his total take to about $18.5 million over the five years.

The deal with the Cubs was first reported by WEEI after The Boston Herald reported Tuesday he was close to going to Chicago.

After helping the Red Sox break an 86-year championship drought with World Series titles in 2004 and ’07, Epstein will be entrusted to try to do the same with the Cubs, who haven’t won a World Series since 1908.

Epstein sought and received permission to interview with Chicago last week, and sources indicate that once Red Sox owner John Henry perceived Epstein was entertaining thoughts about leaving, he wasn’t prepared to “chase” him. Though Epstein has long had a close relationship with Henry, his relationship with club president Larry Lucchino had its share of tension even as Lucchino let Epstein largely handle the baseball work over the past few years.

Ben Cherington, an Epstein assistant, appears to be the likely new GM in Boston. Among his first tasks will be taking up a managerial search for Terry Francona’s replacement.

Similarly, Epstein first task will be a managerial search of his own. It seems all but assured Mike Quade will not be retained.

V8 Supercar racing will be seen live in New Zealand after SKY Television was awarded the media rights to the Championship for the next five years, starting with six and a half hours coverage of this weekend’s blockbuster Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.

SKY Television secured the five-year broadcast rights to televise all V8 Supercar Championship events in New Zealand. The agreement spans to the end of 2017.

“We welcome SKY Television to the V8 Supercar family and look forward to a fantastic and enduring partnership,” V8 Supercar CEO David Malone said.

“We are delighted our approach to SKY has led to this new partnership as our ever-growing New Zealand fan base is incredibly important to us. We are certain partnering with SKY ensures the ultimate package for the fans, the sport, our teams and our invaluable partners.”

All V8 Supercar races will be broadcast live on SKY Television on Saturdays and Sunday. Signature events, including this weekend’s Clipsal 500, will also feature Friday coverage.

SKY will broadcast both 250 km races live from Adelaide this Saturday and Sunday; as well as ARMOR ALL Qualifying and the ARMOR ALL Top Ten Shootout on Friday.

“In more recent times the time difference between New Zealand and many of our events has been problematic for our New Zealand viewers on free to air television,” Mr Malone said.

“The agreement with SKY Television delivers full coverage of all races across the season. This was particularly imperative for us when we began the negotiations.

“For these reasons SKY Television is a fantastic broadcast partner for our sport in New Zealand.”

Richard Last, Director of Sport at SKY was enthusiastic about welcoming V8 Supercars to SKY Sport: “V8’s are a fantastic addition to SKY Sport, I know there will be a lot of very happy SKY customers with this news. The SKY Sport team are passionate about all sport and are looking forward to delivering V8 Supercar races to motorsport fans.”

ITV received the highest audience figures this year for their coverage of England’s 1-1 draw with France.

The press might be playing down England’s chances at Euro 2012, but that didn’t stop the punters knocking off work early to tune in to the team’s first game of the tournament.An average audience of 12.3 million viewers watched 90 minutes of England’s 1-1 draw with France on ITV, with the full broadcast drawing an impressive 8.9 million viewers (47% share) between 4pm and 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITV1 HD.

Viewing peaked in the final five minutes of the game as 15.3 million Englishmen, women and children collectively teetered on the edge of their seats as their team clung on for a point in Donetsk.

It was ITV’s highest peak audience of the year so far, with more than three million of that number watching in high definition on ITV1 HD.

Unsurprisingly, both the peak and average audiences for the game were higher than any ITV coverage of Euro 2008 – a tournament that England did not take part in.

And the fans weren’t just watching on television. ITV have reported almost 250,000 simultaneous live streams of the England game via its website, with more than 425,000 unique visitors to its sport website throughout yesterday.

BBC1 also enjoyed good sporting numbers last night: an average audience of 5.3 million (22% share) kept an eye on England’s group D opponents as Ukraine took on Sweden between 7pm and 10pm.

Great Britain’s Davis Cup captain Leon Smith has been given additional roles by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), now becoming head of men’s and women’s tennis, and also retains his Davis Cup post.

He was already in charge of men’s tennis since 2010. Smith takes over as head of women’s tennis at the LTA following Nigel Sears’ recent departure to become coach of Serbian former world number one, Ana Ivanovic.

Smith told BBC Sport that he would not be setting any bold targets for his tenure.

The LTA has been criticised in the past for setting targets such as how many players it expected to have in the top 100 on a certain date. 

However, Smith did reiterate: “What I’ve learned is not to give targets. We’ve done that before – it’s not the way to go. If we focus on the process, these could be exciting times.”

Currently, Andy Murray is the only men’s British player in the ATP top 100, while Elena Baltacha, Heather Watson and Anne Keothavong are in the WTA top 100.

The shake-up of the look of the LTA’s Performance team now means that Smith will be working alongside a number of coaches – not necessarily known outside of tennis, ending LTA CEO Roger Draper’s experiment with big-name coaches on large contracts.

But the new head of men’s and women’s tennis denied that the experiment was a failure.

Smith added: “I don’t know if it’s a U-turn but it’s certainly good to see young British coaches given opportunities to work at the top end of the game. A lot of people say it was a waste of money but I totally disagree, absolutely not. The results might not have been there but those ‘big names’ contributed to what we’re seeing today.”

Former British number one Greg Rusedski has also agreed a new four-year deal, after guiding Great Britain to their first Junior Davis Cup title.

Neo Sports Broadcast has acquired the broadcast rights to showcase all domestic and international cricket played in New Zealand until 2020.

The seven-year deal includes 261 days of live cricket including 18 T20s, 63 ODIs and 36 Tests and includes rights for all of Asia excluding Middle East.

The broadcast rights for New Zealand were earlier held by Multi Screen Media (formerly Sony Entertainment Television). However, the broadcaster was only willing to renew the property at a favourable price.

Pitch International, New Zealand Cricket’s exclusive international broadcast and sponsorship agents, managed the sales process.

Neo had recently secured the broadcast rights for the Asia Cup. This deal ensures a consistent presence of cricket on the Neo network for the rest of the decade.

The seven year rights cycle will involve two India tours in 2014 and 2019. It also includes a Trans-Tasman rivalry double header with Australia in 2016 and 2018 and England being hosted thrice in 2013, 2018 and 2020.

New Zealand Cricket CEO David White said: “Neo are market leaders in cricket broadcasting in the Indian sub-continent and we are delighted to have established a direct relationship with them for the next seven years.”

Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasana Krishnan added: “We are thrilled to partner with New Zealand Cricket and to have the opportunity to showcase New Zealand Cricket on our channels for the next 7 years. New Zealand has been the venue for some stellar cricket and memorable performances and we look forward to showcasing more of these in the years to come.”

The hiring of Walter De Gregorio as the new Director of Communications & Public Affairs has led FIFA to make more personnel changes to their Communications Division.

Nicolas Maingot, 41, has been appointed Deputy Director. Pekka Odriozola, 36, has been promoted to Head of Media. Both have worked in various positions and on various projects within the FIFA Communications Division in the past.

In addition to that, Bernd Fisa, 40, joined FIFA on 1 October. Fisa was press officer of Michael Schumacher at Ferrari and headed the Austro-Swiss bid for EURO 2008. He will mainly look after the FIFA President’s communications.

Furthermore, Brian Alexander, 54, has come on board as media adviser for the UK. Alexander has plenty of experience in various media outlets and is a former BBC presenter. Over the last twenty years he has also worked for various British newspapers.

To see Gregorio’s appointment news click here

Sportsnet, a Rogers Media company, has announced a five-year agreement with IndyCar for exclusive Canadian multiplatform rights to IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights events, beginning with the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 24.

Sportsnet will deliver more than 100 hours of racing coverage in 2013 across TV, online and mobile.

Additionally, through Sportsnet’s agreement with TVA Sports, the deal also includes expanded French-language race coverage across the same platforms.

“The IZOD IndyCar Series is the ultimate series in auto racing,” said Navaid Mansuri, vice president of Finance & Sports Programming for Rogers Media. “We are thrilled to partner with INDYCAR for the exclusive Canadian rights for this series and to deliver coverage of these events to Canadian auto racing fans like they’ve never seen. This agreement bolsters Sportsnet’s diverse portfolio of premium sports assets, content and championship events, as well as furthers Rogers’ and Sportsnet’s commitment to investing in sports to drive future growth.”

Sportsnet, launched in 1998, is comprised of the nationally distributed Sportsnet ONE and four regional channels. All are available in high definition.

Football fans buying shirts of their favourite Euro 2012 team could be risking their health, Europe’s consumer watchdog has warned.

The shirts of tournament co-host Poland are so bad they should be banned, said BEUC, the umbrella group representing the EU’s national consumer organisations.

Research into the chemicals used in official team strips in Poland, Spain, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Portugal, showed all nine national shirts contained “worrying” levels of chemicals.

Lead, a heavy metal, was found in the team strip of six of the countries – Spain, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, France and Italy.

In kits from Spain and Germany, lead exceeded the legal level for children’s products and Portuguese and Dutch shirts also contained nickel.

A BEUC statement said: “Host country Poland’s shirt should be banned outright from shops as it contains an organotin compound, used to prevent sweat odour, in higher doses than the legal limit. Organotin can be toxic to the nervous system.”

Another chemical, nonylphenol, which is banned from waste water because of its harmful effect on the environment, was found in Spain and Italy shirts.

BEUC director-general Monique Goyens said: “Football fans pay up to 90 euros (£73) for the shirt of their favourite team. The least they should expect is to have a quality and safe product.

“It is inexplicable that heavy metals are used in mass consumer products. It is clearly foul play by manufacturers to use substances harmful to both people and the environment.

“Our members’ test results are a sad reminder that Europe’s chemicals legislation is unfit for the purpose of banning dangerous substances from consumer products.”

BEUC is now calling for a forthcoming review of current EU chemicals legislation to be used to tighten controls against potentially harmful and toxic “chemical cocktails” in retail goods.

Ms Goyens said a plan to deal with “endocrine-disrupting chemicals” would be an opportunity for the EU to be on the offensive against harmful chemicals.”