Mazda’s admiration for the Playboy MX-5 Cup has led to the company inking a deal with the Discovery Velocity channel to broadcast the racing-car series..

Along with the Playboy Cup, the Mazda Motorsports Hour will feature the Star Mazda series and the U.S. F2000 Championship.

“Hardcore fans know that some of the most intense action can be found in the Playboy MX-5 Cup, Star Mazda and Cooper Tires U.S. F2000 Championship,” said Jim Jordan, alternative marketing manager, Mazda North America. “But if you weren’t at the race, you are left to take our word for it. Now, thanks to a partnership with Velocity, and Carolinas Production Group, fans can enjoy the action on a regular basis from their living room.”

Rick Benjamin, an award-winning motorsports broadcaster, will host the show, while the Carolinas Production Group will take care of the technical stuff. Benjamin will be joined in the booth by Randy Pobst for the MX-5 Cup and by James Hinchcliffe on Star Mazda and U.S. F2000. Todd Lewis will be the pit reporter.

The broadcast will be an hour-long program once per week. It will be shown on tape delay from April to November. Mazda says the three series are part of the MazdaSpeed Motorsports Ladder, while the Star and U.S. F2000 championships are also a part of the Mazda Road to Indy.

by Ismail Uddin

Football legend George Best’s European Cup winner’s medal has sold for £156,000 (US $250,000) at auction reports BBC Sport.

The 1968 medal was among 13 items belonging to the Manchester United and Northern Ireland star to be sold at Bonhams in Chester on Wednesday.

It was expected to fetch up to £120,000 and the auction house described the final price as “staggering”.

Proceeds of the sale, which totalled about £200,000, will go to the late footballer’s sister, Barbara McNally. George Best died in November 2005, aged 59. The Belfast-born forward made 470 appearances for United between 1963 and 1974, scoring 179 goals.

ARD and ZDF have secured the exclusive broadcastinhg rights in Germany for all UEFA EURO 2016 matches, following a tender process launched in 2011, UEFA have announced.

This is the first media rights agreement to have been concluded in Europe for the 2016 tournament, which will be held in France. UEFA EURO 2016 will have a renewed format with 24 participating teams and a total of 51 matches.

ARD and ZDF are UEFA’s established public-broadcast content partners for national team competitions in Germany and they will ensure extensive live free-to-air coverage of UEFA EURO 2016. Dedicated magazine and highlights programmes will complement both broadcasters’ offerings. In addition, coverage of the competition will also be made available on the internet, radio and mobile devices.

Guy-Laurent Epstein, marketing director of UEFA Events SA, said: “National team football is continuously enjoying massive popularity in Germany, also reflected by exceptional television ratings in recent years. In the run-up to UEFA EURO 2012, we are delighted to have extended our long-standing relationship with ARD and ZDF. Both broadcasters have an exceptional track record of broadcasting major international sporting events and they are the perfect home for the UEFA European Championship.”

by Ismail Uddin

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has congratulated Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, medic the first-ever woman elected to run the 2014 World Cup host country.

Rousseff, anesthetist a member of the ruling Worker’s Party, won the run-off election on Sunday to succeed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a four-year mandate that will see her through the end of the World Cup.

“I am sure that the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil will provide a trigger for long-term and sustained social, cultural and educational development and that the power of our game will have a positive impact on the Brazilian society,” said Blatter.

One of the new president’s priorities will be to speed up infrastructure works that will benefit the 2014 tournament and which were put on hiatus pending on the election results.

HBO have secured the pay-per-view (PPV) rights produce and distribute welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao’s defense against Timothy Bradley Jr. on June 9 from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The deal makes it 2-for-2 for the network gaining the first two major pay-per-view fights of the year.

The announcement coincided with the day that Pacquiao and Bradley kicked off a two-city media tour in Los Angeles to promote the fight. 

“Manny Pacquiao’s fights are always special events and we are very excited that his June 9 fight with Timothy Bradley will be presented by HBO Pay-Per-View,” HBO Sports president Ken Hershman said in a statement to ESPN.com. “We look forward to working with Manny, Timothy and Top Rank on this major PPV event.”

Last week, HBO PPV secured the rights to the May 5 fight at the MGM Grand between junior middleweight titlist Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather Jr., a welterweight champion who is moving up one weight class to challenge Cotto for his belt. 

Showtime was in the running to land Mayweather-Cotto, but it did not come as much of a surprise that Pacquiao-Bradley landed at HBO. 

Pacquiao had been a staple on HBO PPV in recent years until Top Rank chairman Bob Arum and president Todd duBoef took him to rival Showtime PPV for his May 2011 fight against Shane Mosley. They were dissatisfied with the way then-HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg was dealing with them. 

Pacquiao’s defection to Showtime ultimately was a major reason why Greenburg was forced out in July and replaced with Hershman, the former Showtime Sports general manager. 

After Greenburg was ousted, Arum brought Pacquiao back to HBO for his November pay-per-view fight against Juan Manuel Marquez and had said all along he felt like he owed it to HBO to remain there for Pacquiao’s next fight as long as the deal was similar. 

The fight with Bradley will be Pacquiao’s 13th as a main event fighter on HBO PPV.

by Ismail Uddin

Scottish soccer club, Dundee FC have been hit with a 25-point penalty after entering administration for the second time in seven years. The punishment leaves the former European Cup semi-finalists adrift at the bottom of Scotland’s First Division with minus 11 points.

The club were also given a transfer embargo and told that their future would be reconsidered on 31 March if they were still in administration.

In a statement the Scottish Football League said it regretted the situation Dundee are in but added it had acted to protect the “integrity” of the league. “We are of the opinion that lessons are not being learned,” the statement said. “For example, clubs have to realise that, going forward, they cannot treat their [tax] obligations as something akin to a credit card.”

Dundee, who last month laid off their manager Gordon Chisholm and nine players, have debts of around £3.21m (US $5.1m), according to the administrator, Bryan Jackson, who described the punishment as “outrageous” and said he would appeal the decision.

UK channel Motors TV has secured rights to show regular live television coverage of the NASCAR Nationwide Series  after been given comprehensive air time in the UK with all 33 rounds screened live or delayed-as-live in 2012.

“This latest announcement is fantastic news for both Motors TV and our loyal viewers, many of whom have expressed a renewed interest in stock car racing some five years after we last broadcast the NASCAR Nationwide Series,” said Motors TV Head of Programming and Acquisitions Frédéric Viger.

Coverage will start this Saturday with live coverage of the Drive4COPD 300 from Daytona International Speedway. The Motors TV race coverage in the UK is from 6pm GMT, following a half hour preview show.

The Nationwide Series is expected to have an increased profile in 2012 with the arrival of former IndyCar star Danica Patrick for her first full season in stock car racing. She’ll be competing with reigning Camping World Truck Series champion Austin Dillon for the Nationwide Rookie of the Year title this season.

“With so many established names committing to the 2012 championship it seemed like the perfect time to renew our coverage,” said Viger. “That, coupled with live primetime weekend programming, gives me every reason to believe that the NASCAR Nationwide Series will quickly establish itself as a firm favourite amongst our viewers.”

Motors TV already broadcasts GRAND-AM, the American Le Mans Series, Lucas Oil Off Road Racing, Formula Drift and AMA Supercross from across the Atlantic as part of its coverage of over 80 championships. 

The channel said that depending on scheduling of the various events, all Nationwide Series races will either be shown live or as-live shortly afterwards, and will also be supported by comprehensive highlight programmes broadcast throughout the following week.

Coverage of the senior NASCAR Sprint Cup championship – including this week’s Gatorade Duels and Sunday’s Daytona 500 – continues to be broadcast live and exclusive on satellite subscription channel Premier Sports TV, available only on the Sky platform on channel 433 for £7.99 per month. The channel does not currently have broadcast deals with other distributors such as Virgin Media or BT Vision.

by Ismail Uddin

Soccerex announced that Jose Hawilla, drugs President, drugs Traffic Sports Marketing and International footballing star, Deco, will both be speaking at the Soccerex Global Convention 2010.

Hawilla will be utilising his extensive experience as long standing President of Traffic Sports Marketing, who have been a major player in sports marketing for 30 years and are extremely influential in Brazilian football, specialising in academies, player investment, talent representation and club management.

He will be joined by Deco, the world famous Brazilian born star, who has played for the likes of Porto, Barcelona and Chelsea, and who is currently playing for Fluminese. In his hugely successful career he has won the UEFA Champions league with two different clubs as well as collecting 75 caps for Portugal.

They will be speaking on a panel focusing on the movement of South American talent which will bring together key figures from both South America and Europe to look at the career paths of players, and the commercial impact on the many different stakeholders.

The panel will be opened by Esteve Calzada, CEO, Prime Time Sport and former Chief Marketing Officer, FC Barcelona who will be announcing the launch of the Brazilian edition of the Prime Time Sport Football Transfer Review, the European editions of which have become the industry reference on European player movement analysis.

The first ever Brazilian edition will be presented as a world exclusive at the Global Convention. The review will analyse player transfers from Brazil into Europe and will compare Brazilian and European clubs squad composition among other insights addressed to football executives and other industry stakeholders.

Esteve Calzada, CEO Prime Time Sport and former Chief Marketing Officer FC Barcelona, commented “There is no better place to launch Football Transfer Review than Soccerex Global Convention, where all must-meet industry executives will be present. When you look at maximizing the impact of the news, Soccerex provides the best reach possible in football community”.

Esteve will then moderate the panel, which also includes other big names such as Raul Sanllehi, Director of Football, FC Barcelona, Juan Cobian, International Director of Football, Club Atlético Boca Juniors and Luis Correia, Director, Gestifute.

The Soccerex Global Convention (20-24 November 2010) will consist of an in-depth conference schedule, packed exhibition, a large range of networking and two-day Football Festival all taking place in the Forte de Copacabana, Copacabana beach and Sugar Loaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro.

ARD und ZDF werden alle wichtigen Spiele der UEFA Fußball EuropameisterschaftTM 2016 live im frei empfangbaren Fernsehen übertragen. Hierüber haben sich die UEFA und SportA, doctor die Sportrechteagentur von ARD und ZDF, jetzt verständigt.

An der UEFA EURO 2016TM, die im Juni/Juli 2016 in Frankreich stattfinden soll, werden erstmals 24 anstelle von 16 Mannschaften teilnehmen und insgesamt 51 statt bisher 31 Spiele austragen. Die deutsche Mannschaft kann durch die Einführung eines Achtelfinales statt bislang maximal sechs Spielen nun bis zu sieben Spiele bestreiten. Die Einigung steht unter dem Vorbehalt der Zustimmung zuständiger Gremien.

Der für die Verhandlungen federführende ARD-Sportrechteintendant Ulrich Wilhelm zeigte sich erfreut über den Verhandlungserfolg: “Exzellente EM-Berichterstattung für begeisterte Fußballfans, dafür steht die ARD auch 2016. Der Zuschlag ist eine Bestätigung unserer Sportkompetenz. Die ARD kommt ihrem öffentlich-rechtlichen Auftrag nach und sorgt wie schon bei der EURO 2008 in Österreich und in der Schweiz für ein Fußballfest mit enormer Integrationskraft.”

ZDF-Intendant Markus Schächter begrüßt das Verhandlungsergebnis: “Das ZDF ist damit im Bereich von Fußball-Europameisterschaften mittelfristig glänzend aufgestellt und wird auch 2016 seine Innovationskraft bei Sportübertragungen unter Beweis stellen. Die große Vorfreude auf die EURO 2012 in Polen und der Ukraine, die schon jetzt – vier Monate vor Turnierbeginn – spürbar ist, zeigt die enorme Strahlkraft von Fußball-Großereignissen.”

ARD und ZDF können alle Spiele der UEFA EURO 2016TM live übertragen sowie zur Vertiefung umfassend zeitversetzt berichten. Auch die Hörfunk-Programme der ARD können alle Spiele übertragen. Über den Lizenzpreis haben die Parteien Stillschweigen vereinbart, unbestätigten Berichten zufolge soll er jedoch bei 160 Millionen Euro liegen. Zudem können ARD und ZDF die Rechte sublizenzieren.