The Pokémon Company International has entered a three-year partnership with The Football Association (The FA) to support The FA’s National Futsal Strategy.

The partnership begins immediately with Pokémon and The FA aiming to make Futsal a natural part of children’s football development. The focus in year one of the partnership will be on increasing participation of school and club teams from across England in The FA’s National Youth Futsal programme.

Throughout the partnership, The FA and Pokémon will use their shared values of evolution and progression through training to help appeal to children—raising Futsal’s profile, creating a clear identity for the game and developing a twin tracking pathway that will mean boys and girls can play Futsal as a part of their overall experience of the game.

Dan Kiddle, The FA’s Head of Commercial Partnerships, commented: “We are delighted to welcome the Pokémon Company International as a partner of The FA to support our National Futsal strategy and help grow participation in England. Pokémon is an instantly recognisable brand across the world and we are excited to work together to encourage young players, of all abilities, to play the game of Futsal.”

The FA views Futsal as integral to the progression of football standards across the country, with the current England men’s national team featuring a number of players who were brought up playing Futsal.

Because Futsal places emphasis on the technical ability, decision making and reaction time of players, it can result in more technically confident players, who can make good decisions under pressure.

The Pokémon Company International and The FA will work closely together to create and deliver an exciting range of initiatives at participating schools and clubs, culminating in The FA’s National Youth Futsal Festival in May 2020, as well as supporting the England men’s national Futsal team.

Michael Skubala, Head Coach of the England Futsal team, added: “It’s great to have such an iconic brand as Pokémon to sit alongside Futsal development in England. We will work hard together to engage with young players so that they can experience Futsal as part of their football development. It’s an exciting, fast-paced, technical game and I know they will love it.”

Oracle has announced the creation of the Oracle Pro Series, a schedule of more than 25 new ATP, WTA and ITF World Tennis Tour professional tournaments to be held across the United States over the course of 2019 and 2020. The Oracle Pro Series will create more than 40 percent new playing opportunities in the United States for tennis professionals.

Nearly all the tournaments will be combined men’s and women’s events with equal prize money ranging from $25,000 to $108,000 per tournament. The six combined tournaments scheduled for the fall of 2019 offer equal prize money of $25,000 and will be played in California, Texas and Florida (see dates below).

The final schedule for 2020 will include more than 20 tournaments, most of which will be combined events. Locations will be announced later this year.

“At Oracle, we’re looking at this holistically,” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “We want more exposure for tennis at all levels in the United States. All of our efforts, from awards to tournament series to collegiate sponsorships and strategic partnerships, are pieces of an overall plan to raise the quality of American tennis.”

In addition to more playing opportunities in the U.S., the Oracle Pro Series will expand the pathway for the next generation of aspiring champions from college tennis up to the ATP Tour and the WTA Tour. The Oracle Pro Series will reward success with immediate access to higher level tournaments by connecting all Oracle events into one merit-based path to the highest levels of international professional tennis.

Oracle is partnering with InsideOut Sports & Entertainment, led by former World No. 1 and Hall of Famer Jim Courier and his business partner Jon Venison, to manage the Oracle Pro Series. InsideOut brings more than 15 years of experience producing live and televised events.

“The Oracle Pro Series is an unprecedented expansion in the number of U.S. professional tournaments and reinforces Oracle’s commitment to advancing the sport,” said Courier. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Oracle to give up-and-coming players more opportunities to compete for prize money, improve their rankings and launch their careers. Together, we will play a big part influencing the future of tennis in the U.S.”

Oracle also supports collegiate tennis through sponsorship of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). This includes hosting several marquee ITA championship events throughout the year such as the Oracle ITA Masters and the Oracle ITA Fall Championships. At the grassroots level, Oracle supports tennis through its strategic partnership with Universal Tennis Rating (UTR). UTR leverages Oracle’s industry leading cloud technology to power its algorithm-based, big-data rating system and digital platform.

Leading tennis bodies have welcomed Oracle’s initiative.

Steve Simon, WTA Chairman and CEO, said: “This series of events has been created to provide an unprecedented level of opportunities for aspiring young players to compete and earn the valuable WTA ranking points needed to earn a ranking that will provide them the ability to realize their dreams of playing at the highest levels of the sport.”

Stacey Allaster, USTA Chief Executive, Professional Tennis, said: “We are incredibly excited that Oracle is providing even more opportunities for American players to compete throughout the year, as well as more opportunities for fans to attend professional tennis events throughout the country. These events help develop American talent and serve as a stepping stone for players to reach the highest levels of the game, while at the same time inspire kids across the nation to pick up a racket and play this sport.”

Ross Hutchins, ATP Chief Player Officer, said: “The ATP continues to focus on enhancing and strengthening the ATP Challenger Tour, and we welcome Oracle’s growing involvement at this level of the sport. The Oracle Pro Series will provide increased opportunities for players competing on the pathway to the ATP Tour, and we look forward to seeing the series come to life.”

The 2019 Oracle Pro Series schedule is as follows:

October 6-13 – The Claremont Club – Los Angeles, Calif.
October 13-20 – Baylor University – Waco, Texas
October 20-27 – Texas Christian University – Fort Worth, Texas (ATP)
October 20 – 27 – Southern Methodist University – Dallas, Texas (WTA)
November 4-10 – Pepperdine University – Malibu, Calif.
November 11-17 – USTA National Campus – Orlando, Fla.
November 17-24 – Sanchez-Casal Academy – Naples, Fla.

Russian technology company Yandex has entered into an agreement with the National Hockey League to broadcast all NHL games in Russia via its streaming platform. The multiyear deal begins with the 2019-20 season, which opens on October 2.

“By partnering with the NHL, one of the world’s leading sports leagues, we can better connect some of hockey’s biggest fans with their favourite teams and players,” said Leonid Savkov, Chief Commercial Officer of Yandex.

“We are delighted to work with the NHL to offer viewers in Russia a more accessible and innovative way to watch games for free. We are also excited to provide new opportunities for advertisers to reach millions of hockey fans viewing the games.”

Yandex operates one of Russia’s leading online streaming platforms, offering millions of viewers live streaming of Russia’s top television channels, sports programming, and cultural events. Viewers can also use Yandex to stream on-demand TV series, movies, and blogger content.

Beginning with the 2019-20 NHL season, Yandex will broadcast regular season games, as well as the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for free. Viewers can watch NHL games with Russian commentary through the Yandex homepage and via Yandex apps for mobile devices and Smart TVs.

Russian hockey fans will soon have convenient options to watch games featuring 2019 Stanley Cup champions Vladimir Tarasenko and Ivan Barbashev (in photo above) of the St. Louis Blues, as well as other Russian NHL stars such as Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Yandex is an industry leader in Russia and a uniquely compelling platform to deliver NHL games and our star players to hockey fans across the country,” said David Proper, NHL Executive Vice President of International and Media Strategy. “This partnership is the result of Yandex and the NHL’s shared commitment to provide content that will engage passionate fans and offer the potential to reach an even broader audience.”

Yandex provides fans with an interactive streaming experience while watching the games. Viewers will be able to react to everything that happens on the ice by live chatting and using the reaction emojis. NHL games and highlights will also be available to watch on-demand after the live broadcast, plus viewers can subscribe to receive notifications about the games.

Advertisers can sponsor broadcasts of the games to promote their products and services to a large Russian audience. As Russia’s largest search company and digital advertiser, Yandex is well-positioned to connect brands with the country’s millions of hockey fans online.

Last year Yandex users performed over 93 million hockey-related queries on Yandex’s search engine, and Russian NHL players rank among the most searched athletes on Yandex.

A study commissioned by UEFA to aid in the debate over the future of the Champions League shows the financial and talent gap between the top five European leagues and the other 50 leagues on the continent is growing.

Rob Harris of The Associated Press reports:

The destabilizing effect of the power of the “Big Five” leagues — England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France — is set out across a 50-page study by accounting firm Deloitte marked “private and confidential” and obtained by the AP after being presented to UEFA’s Professional Football Strategy Council in Monaco.

The data shared with key European soccer officials is certain to fuel the heated debate over the future of the Champions and Europa Leagues heading into key meetings of clubs next week in Switzerland. The divisiveness of the discussions led to UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, to call off a meeting that was also scheduled for next week involving clubs and leagues. UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin believes they are not “ready for a meaningful discussion.”

The “Polarization in European Football” report was commissioned by UEFA in June during the increasingly fraught talks involving leagues and clubs over attempts to overhaul the format of European competitions from 2024. UEFA initially presented the idea of reserving 24 places for clubs in the Champions League to return the following season, but it has since backed off the proposal because it has left some of the biggest leagues at odds with their best teams.

Changes to the format are being pursued by the top clubs to ensure them more games against each other and guarantee inclusion in lucrative annual tournaments without qualifying. One of the most powerful figures in the fight is Juventus Chairman Andrea Agnelli, who has wielded his power as Chairman of the European Club Association.

The biggest leagues have pushed back, saying changes that would limit the opportunities for teams to earn a place in the European competitions such as the Champions League devalue their leagues.

The European Leagues group has worked to divide the elite, perennial trophy winning clubs from their less prosperous counterparts.

One of the most recent leagues to publicly denounce the ECA was the Czech Republic, which said their clubs agreed it was “inappropriate for European football bodies to create plans that would alter the structures, calendar and competitiveness of the domestic game.”

The wealthy Premier League clubs offered support with a rare joint statement in June that highlighted the “obligation to maintain the health and sustainability of domestic league football.”

Caught in the middle is UEFA, who is using the study to help support its claim that it is the only European soccer body that distributes funds across the continent. The report shows how the top leagues are monopolizing the best players and the cash of broadcasters.

Some key findings:

— The Big Five accounts for 74 percent of the 19.7 billion euros ($21.7 billion) generated by leagues across the continent, up from the 68 percent 10 seasons earlier.

— Forty-Seven teams account for 60 percent of the revenue generated by all 720 clubs in the 55 nations assessed by Deloitte.

— The attractiveness of the Big Five league matches on television could at least partially account for a drop in stadium attendances this decade across the 45 lowest-ranked leagues by revenue.

“To meet broadcast demand, the Big Five match calendar has increasingly been spread to collectively cover the weekend from Friday through to Monday nights to ensure live Big Five games are always available to watch in non-Big Five markets,” the report said. “Meanwhile, most leagues in Europe have seen a decline or little or no growth in matchday attendances.”

— The Big Five leagues banked 97 percent of the €2.4 billion generated in non-domestic broadcast revenue by all European leagues in the 2017-18 season.

Rights holders in the other 50 European nations paid €430 million to show matches from the Big Five, accounting for 18 percent of the Big Five’s international broadcast revenue.

“Nothing is coming back in my country,” Romanian Federation President Razvan Burleanu recently told the AP, referring to money Romanian broadcasters pay to screen league games from abroad. “This can be an idea to contribute to decreasing the gap between top-five leagues and the rest.”

UEFA argues it is doing just that, sharing the revenue from European competitions.

While generating €373 million from broadcasters in countries beyond the Big Five, UEFA distributed more than double that to clubs in the 50 bottom-ranked countries.

The Big Five also profited but to a lesser degree: UEFA gave them around €150 million euros on top of the fees those markets paid for Champions League and Europa League games, taking the total to around €1.3 billion.

The Big Five redistributes some of their revenue domestically to lower divisions, but Deloitte highlights how they “do not make direct solidarity payments to other European leagues.”

— The report also shows how the Big Five has increasingly been a magnet for foreign talent, with more than a fifth of the players in those leagues coming from the rest of the continent last season.

No country was impacted more than the Netherlands, which lost 50 players to the Big Five — a rise of 61 percent since the 2007-08 campaign. European champion Portugal is next on the list, with 49 players lost.

The struggle keeping players at home is particularly acute for Belgium and Austria. They have experienced around a three-fold increase in the number of players going to the Big Five in a decade.

The report does not touch on the players who benefit from Big Five salaries and the chance to win the biggest trophies.

— Transfers fees are not significantly filtering across the European game, with 67 percent of transfer spending — or €3.5 billion euros — circulating within the Big Five last season compared to 56 percent — or €1.4 billion euros — in 2007-08.

Non-Big Five leagues only receive 18 percent of the transfer spend, down from 23 percent in 2007-08.

“Only the Big Five leagues in aggregate are profitable,” Deloitte concluded to UEFA. “Operating losses have increased across all other tiers, in aggregate, since 2007-08.”

The Olympic Channel has signed a media rights agreement with the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) to show daily live streaming coverage of the inaugural World Urban Games Budapest 2019 next week.

The inaugural edition of the World Urban Games, powered by GAISF, will take place from 13-15 September 2019 and features six competition and two showcase sports, including 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle, breaking, flying disc, parkour, roller freestyle, indoor rowing and laser run.

GAISF President Raffaele Chiulli said: “Our agreement with the Olympic Channel is an indication of the global excitement for this new event and I am delighted that the World Urban Games will be available to watch all over the world.”

“Our role at GAISF is to create a platform for sports and I believe that the World Urban Games will be an incredible showcase. The sports selected provide a broad range of urban disciplines with the presence of the best athletes in the world that will excite and entertain spectators and TV viewers, as well as inspire new fans to participate.”

Mark Parkman, General Manager of the IOC’s global Olympic Channel said: “We are thrilled to work with GAISF to provide coverage of the inaugural World Urban Games to viewers around the world. As we continue to tell the stories on the road to Tokyo 2020, live streaming action on our global platform will enrich the viewer’s experience and provide additional exposure to these popular sports and to the athletes.”

The venue for the Games is the site of the historical Nagyvásártelep in the south of Budapest. Having been regenerated specifically for the Games, the graffiti-covered market hall has an authentic urban feel and will provide the ultimate urban sports arena experience for the three-day event.

Local Organising Committee Chairman Balázs Fürjes said: “The Games has gained global interest from the moment we announced that Budapest would host the first event. It is a wonderful opportunity for this city to host another major event in 2019 and I believe that as our broadcast partner, the Olympic Channel will ensure the Games is a major success all over the world.”

“The Games has gained global interest from the moment we announced that Budapest would host the first event. It is a wonderful opportunity for this city to host another major event in 2019 and I believe that as our broadcast partner, the Olympic Channel will ensure the Games is a major success all over the world.”

As well as the competition and showcase sports, a number of demonstration and initiation events will provide opportunities for spectators of all ages and abilities to try urban sports. The Festival programme of the World Urban Games will also incorporate live concerts, street art and dance, with the aim of inspiring a new generation of urban athletes around the world.