The XFL has announced multi-year agreements with ESPN and FOX Sports to televise XFL games starting with its inaugural 2020 season.

XFL games will air weekly on broadcast TV (ABC and FOX) complemented by games on cable (ESPN, ESPN2, FS1 and FS2). The XFL TV schedule allows for consistent appointment viewing each week with back-to-back games starting Saturday afternoons at 2 pm ET as well as two additional games on Sunday afternoons.

“We look forward to showcasing the XFL on ESPN and ABC, including the kickoff game and championship during the league’s inaugural season,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN Executive Vice President, Programming and Scheduling.

“Vince McMahon and Oliver Luck are two of the sports industry’s most creative and experienced leaders, and they have exciting plans for this league. We believe in their vision for the XFL, which will be a great addition to our year-round commitment to football.”

“We welcome the XFL to the FOX Sports Family and are pleased to expand our relationship with Vince McMahon,” said Eric Shanks, FOX Sports CEO & Executive Producer. “Football is in FOX Sports’ DNA and a key component of our programming strategy. Alongside Oliver Luck and his incredible team, we’re excited for the debut of the XFL on FOX Sports.”

“We are thrilled to partner with ESPN and FOX Sports, two innovative media companies with extensive experience in world-class football production that will undoubtedly help us reimagine football,” said Vince McMahon, XFL Founder & Chairman. “The XFL broadcast schedule provides us with incredible reach and makes it easy for fans to watch our games consistently every weekend.”

The agreements were negotiated by CAA Sports and Evolution Media Capital (EMC) on behalf of the XFL.

The XFL will kick off on Saturday, February 8, 2020 with teams in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Washington D.C. Additional XFL-themed programming and on-air talent will be announced in the future.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has praised Southeast Queensland’s early planning for a potential bid for the 2032 Summer Games after meeting with the Mayor of Brisbane on Monday.

Reuters reports:

Queensland state capital Brisbane and nearby cities commissioned a feasibility study into hosting the Games but have yet to secure state and federal government support for a formal bid.

“I must say that we have been impressed to see how detailed the feasibility studies are already at this early stage and how well founded these studies are,” Bach, who is attending SportAccord in Gold Coast.

“Now it is up to the Australians to make their minds up, and to say whether they want to follow up on this project to host the Olympic Games.”

With Paris hosting the 2024 Games and Los Angeles winning 2028, the 2032 Games is expected to go to an Asia-Pacific bid.

The IOC has suggested North and South Korea, who are still technically at war, could stage a joint bid in 2032.

Bach met with Brisbane Mayor Adrian Schrinner, the Chairman of the Council of Mayors South East Queensland, which commissioned the feasibility study.

The study found the Southeast Queensland (SEQ) bid could host a successful Games but would require extensive transport upgrades.

Bach said the IOC would at least match its 2028 funding contribution of $1.8 billion to the winner of the 2032 Games, which was more than the feasibility study had accounted for.

“At least so far we have no indication that this will be less for 2032,” he said.

“I think this figure was new to the mayors and I could see them starting calculating in their heads and what this means for their feasibility study and for their budget.”

Schrinner said he did not believe a decision on a formal bid would need to be made until 2020.

“The next step is getting the state and federal governments involved, we have been working closely with them already,” he said.

The SEQ bid includes venue hubs in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, which successfully hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said his city would be happy to make its facilities available for the SEQ bid but was reluctant to contribute funding.

“I said that we won’t be adding any dollars towards the funding part because we did a lot of our heavy lifting during the Commonwealth Games as far as our funding and budget’s concerned,” he said.

“It’s time that Gold Coast takes a break and let Brisbane write the checks.”

Bach was expected to meet Queensland State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday.

Australia last hosted an Olympics in Sydney in 2000.

European Tour Commissioner Keith Pelley says the tour will play again in Saudi Arabia in 2020 and is “perplexed” at the criticism received for staging a tournament there for the first time in January.

Following the murder of American-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey in October, and the country’s human rights record in general, some thought it inappropriate the European Tour staged a new tournament in the Middle East nation four months later.

“It was the right decision for our tour,” Pelley said in an interview with Reuters, whose report continues:

“We will be back in Saudi and we’ll continue to grow that event. We believe our role will help the evolution of the country.”

Pelley’s comments came as the European Tour seeks to find its footing in the brave new world of golf, in which the U.S.-based PGA Tour is playing a new schedule this year that has reverberated across the professional game.

Though the European Tour visits pretty much every corner of the globe apart from the Americas, it remains very much in the shadow of its behemoth U.S. counterpart, where most of the top Europeans play the majority of their golf from February through June, and in August.

While deep-pocketed corporations almost line up to sponsor PGA Tour events, the European Tour has to work harder to provide lucrative playing opportunities for its members.

Former PGA Tour winner Brandel Chamblee, now a Golf Channel analyst, was among the most outspoken critics of playing in Saudi Arabia.

“By participating, the players, they are a ventriloquist for this abhorrent regime,” he said.

That criticism notwithstanding, the tournament went ahead with a $3.5 million purse as well as large appearance fees that lured the likes of top Americans Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, Englishman Justin Rose and Spaniard Sergio Garcia.

It was won by Johnson, the current world number one, in front of sparse crowds.

Pelley, the European Tour chief since 2015, says he has no qualms in stating that the Saudi International will be on the schedule again next year.

He cited Cristiano Ronaldo and Mariah Carey as examples of celebrities who have visited the country since Khashoggi’s murder.

“After the incident (murder), many blue-chip businesses and many governments continued to do business in Saudi, (and the) entertainment business is still flourishing,” said Pelley.

“There was Italian Super Cup with AC Milan and Juventus (in January) and Ronaldo scored the winning goal and celebrated, and we tried to find any kind of criticism for Ronaldo, yet our players were criticized. Why was golf singled out? I was perplexed why we were.

“I went over there first and listened to his Excellency (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) at a sports conference, talk about how … the country wanted to change, needed to change, wanted to use sports as a catalyst, was committed to golf.”

Pelley also pointed out that American singer Carey staged a concert in Saudi Arabia the week of the golf tournament.

Asked whether any country’s human rights record would preclude a visit from the European Tour, Pelley did not directly answer the question, saying the safety of players and tour staff was the first factor considered.

“We would look at where they would be playing. After that you would evaluate and go through a bunch of different things,” he said.

USA Basketball has announced a multiyear partnership with Red Bull North America to build an elite pathway for men’s and women’s players who have a goal of competing at the highest levels of 3×3 basketball.

3×3 basketball will be featured at the Olympics for the first time in event history at the 2020 Olympics in Japan.

Red Bull will host 23 qualifying tournaments across the country under the newly created Red Bull 3X series to identify the eight athletes who could potentially represent USA Basketball at the 2020 Olympics.

The winning teams at these qualifiers will compete to accumulate enough individual FIBA points with the goal of moving on to the Red Bull USA Basketball 3X Regionals in the Fall of 2019, and then to the Red Bull USA Basketball 3X Nationals in March 2020, which will be used to select the USA men’s and women’s 3×3 national teams.

“I think there’s a lot of excitement because it creates an opportunity for an athlete that may not have been thinking that this is a pathway for them,” said Jim Tooley, CEO of USA Basketball. “It opens up a door to a whole new generation of players that have an opportunity to wear U.S.A. across their chest and be a part of the Olympic games.”

Red Bull Media House, an award-winning media company, will create original storytelling with USA Basketball to shine a light on the 3×3 game, qualifiers and players, and celebrate the journey as the sport makes its debut at the Olympics.

“Storytelling is a big part of this process,” Tooley said. “I think it’s important to make the public aware of this, more importantly the players, so that we can have a larger pool in helping us qualify for the Olympics. The qualifiers and the platform that Red Bull is providing here just amplifies the opportunity for each of these players and I think there’ll be some amazing stories that come out of this whole journey.”

The first-ever Red Bull 3X qualifier will take place in Detroit, Michigan on June 22, 2019.

Thinkport has announced four influential Award Partners who will be closely involved in the heat of the start-up battle at THE SPOT. Asics Tenkan-Ten Growth Catalyst, Eurovision Sport, Swiss Timing and UEFA will all oversee different rounds of the start-up battle and potentially help some of the competing young entrepreneurs to develop and grow further.

THE SPOT, an international sport and innovation event, will be back in Lausanne on 28 and 29 May and bring together hundreds of visionaries, tech gurus, curious minds, solution seekers, providers and investors.

Anna Hellman, Director of ThinkSport, said: “We are thrilled to have such prestigious partners for the start-up battle, which is a key element of THE SPOT experience. All of these four Award Partners perfectly embody the spirit of the event, embracing progress and innovation within their organisations, for the good of sport and society.”

The start-up battle, operated by Venturelab, will feature 40 pre-selected young companies which will go toe-to-toe during four different rounds on the first day. Each session will spawn one winner who will then move on to the final, to be held on the second day. The jury will be made up of experts from the academic, business and sports world. The incentives for the competing young entrepreneurs include prestige, prize money and potential collaboration opportunities with the Award Partners.

A separate discovery battle will offer a platform for early stage start-ups to pitch their innovative ideas in front of experts.

In addition to the start-up battle, THE SPOT will feature a Marketplace and Demo Zone, where participants will be able to present and discover brand new products and solutions with changing stands every day; a conference programme in untraditional format; and numerous networking opportunities.

Not signed up yet for THE SPOT? Click here to get up to speed and join THE SPOT.

Premier League club AFC Bournemouth has re-signed a deal with Mansion to continue as our principal partners for a fourth successive season.

The newly-extended sleeve sponsorship allows the gaming operator and club to continue their long-standing relationship, and will see the two brands working closely on a range of commercial projects and mutually beneficial marketing activities to reach and reward both club fans and Mansion’s members.

With the launch of their new sportsbook product, MansionBet, the Mansion Group have signed a number of tactical partnerships across the sporting world in recent months, covering boxing, pool, horseracing and even comedy, via the sponsorship of football’s funny man, Darren Farley.

After years of working together, Mansion commented that they felt loyal towards Bournemouth, and considered the club and their fans to be extended family.

Rob Mitchell, Commercial Director at AFC Bournemouth, said: “I’m delighted that we have extended our partnership with Mansion Group.

“Mansion Group have been a great supporter of the club throughout our time in the Premier League, helping raise the club’s global profile, and I look forward to continuing to work with them.”