Marketing agency Kentaro Group has signed marketing deals with the Russian Football Union (RFU), the Albanian Football Association and the Football Federation of Ukraine.

Kentaro will exclusively market the second and third-party television rights of all the RFU’s home qualification matches for the 2012 European Championships.

As well as this, Kentaro will also market the third-party broadcast and related media rights of all the 2012 European Championship qualifying and friendly matches of the Albanian national team.

Kentaro CEO Philipp Grothe said: “We are delighted to welcome the RFU and the FSHF to the ever-growing Kentaro family. Kentaro prides itself on having the most powerful and most successful global sales network and we are proud to have convinced two more federations of our capabilities.”

Kentaro Group has also extended its deal with the Ukraine Football Federation, and will distribute the international media rights of all the country’s friendly matches in the build up to the 2012 Championships.

Kentaro’s head of federation, Marc Rautenberg, added: “We have established a great co-operation with the FFU and look to further boost Ukrainian football in the coming years.”

GBI Racing has announced a record turnover and reach for its international distribution and coverage of last month’s Royal Ascot meeting.

GBI, a worldwide provider of racing broadcasts and media services to betting shops, saw the five-day meeting generate a turnover of just over US$26 million from Tote markets – including the major territories of Hong Kong, Italy, Australia, France, Singapore and South Africa – while it was also shown in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for the first time.

GBI Racing chairman, Richard Brooke, said: “It is important that the industry can see the benefits of showcasing and selling UK and Irish horseracing as a unified product overseas and these figures are very pleasing.

“GBI Racing has performed strongly since its launch in March of this year, and we will be constantly looking at ways to enhance the service and build on this promising start.”

In addition, more than 2,000 betting shops took GBI Racing’s fixed-odds service around the world, including the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, Austria and Germany, while in the United States, races were streamed across all major online account wagering platforms for the first time.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced Cossette as their new creative agency of record to lead all marketing communication up until the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Cossette, therapy | one of Canada’s leading marketing agencies, stomach brings a bilingual, national reach, tremendous creative bench strength and executive-level Olympic experience to the COC account.  For years, Cossette has worked on numerous Olympic campaigns for clients such as Procter and Gamble, McDonald’s, and General Mills.

“Nothing rallies this nation together like the power of sport and the stories of our amazing athletes,” said Derek Kent, Chief Marketing Officer, Canadian Olympic Committee. “It’s a perfect fit for our team. With their creative horsepower, we’re confident the Cossette team will ignite the Olympic spirit in our country with breakthrough campaigns that will connect our fans, athletes and partners.”

Cossette President, English Canada, Dave Lafond believes the COC account is a match made in heaven for the agency.

“The Cossette team has been immersed in the Olympic Movement for years,” said Lafond. “The ability to work with the COC is a tremendous opportunity for us to design a campaign that touches all Canadians and also promotes our athletes on the global stage. Our team is excited to get started on the 2015 Pan Am and Rio 2016 campaigns.”

The scope of work will focus on strategy, creative and production with Cossette leading strategy, campaign development and production across various initiatives. Cossette will also work with the COC’s Foundation to support various initiatives.

The COC had previously worked with Proximity for the last two Olympic Games, delivering the award-winning Give Your Everything campaign for London 2012, and the #WEAREWINTERcampaign for Sochi 2014.  After a successful three-year partnership, Proximity and the COC mutually agreed to part ways before creative preparations for the 2015 Pan Am Games and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games begin.

The COC will continue to work with its other agency partners, OMD (media), Zync (Digital), and North Strategic (PR).

StubHub, search the world’s largest ticket marketplace, viagra announced its partnership with University of Oregon Athletics to be the program’s official fan-to-fan secondary ticket marketplace.

The partnership is facilitated through StubHub’s existing relationship with Paciolan, order the leading provider of ticketing, marketing, fundraising and sales automation solutions in college athletics and IMG, the university’s multi-media rights partner.

“We are excited to partner with StubHub for secondary ticketing,” said Craig Pintens, Senior Associate Athletic Director at University of Oregon. “The experience of our fans is paramount at the University of Oregon and partnering with StubHub will provide our fans unprecedented ability to sell games they are unable to attend. We thank Paciolan and IMG for their hard work in making this investment in our fans.”

With the partnership, StubHub will be the official secondary ticket marketplace for the Ducks, providing a safe, guaranteed platform for fans to buy and sell tickets, backed by StubHub’s 100% money-back FanProtect Guarantee, in which each ticket transaction will be between fans on StubHub.com. This new partnership extends StubHub’s collegiate partnership roster to 33.

“StubHub is rooted in providing the best possible experience for fans, so we’re proud to be working with University of Oregon Athletics which has one of the most passionate collegiate fan bases in the nation,” said Greg Ivry, Business Development Director at StubHub. “From our new All-In Pricing model and Fan Rewards program to the safety and security of our fan-to-fan marketplace, we firmly believe in StubHub’s world class end-to-end experience, and we’re thrilled to introduce our offerings as we build a relationship with the University of Oregon community.”

Along with ticketing software leader Paciolan, the partnership enables barcode integration for University of Oregon Athletics ticket holders, so that they may seamlessly resell their tickets on StubHub. The ground-breaking technology also provides tickets that can be digitally delivered straight to the buyer to be printed at home. In addition, fans have access to streamlined listings to sell unused tickets.

“We are incredibly excited to extend our partnership with StubHub and the University of Oregon to provide Duck fans the ability to buy and sell fantastic seats at Oregon athletics games,” said David Butler, CEO of Paciolan. “The excitement around Oregon athletics combined with the StubHub and Paciolan partnership makes for a powerful combination for Duck fans.”

StubHub marketing assets will be highly visible across football and basketball properties for the University, including field level and courtside signage, in game promotions, radio elements and online placements on the Ducks’ official website and throughout social media.

The largest commercial organisation in British horseracing, The Jockey Club, have announced record turnover, operating profits and contribution to prize-money in their annual review for 2013.

Last year marked the fifth consecutive year of record group turnover, which increased 11% to £166.9 million while operating profits grew by the same amount to £22 million.

The group also contributed £18.24 million towards prize-money in 2013 with the total on offer at Jockey Club Racecourses totalling £41.6 million.

Group chief executive Simon Bazalgette said in the report: “I am delighted to report we grew our turnover as a Group in 2013. We also increased operating profits year on-year by 11 percent to a record £22 million.

“This performance not only exceeded UK economic growth of 1.9 percent in 2013, but also bettered the 8% turnover and 3% operating profit growth we were able to deliver in 2012.

“This was the fifth consecutive year of business growth for the Group with our racing festivals, media incomes and ‘racing plus music’ events continuing to be particularly important.”

The Jockey Club are investing heavily in a £45 million redevelopment of Cheltenham Racecourse, which is being partly funded by a retail bond which raised nearly £25 million last year.

Rugby World Cup 2015 have partnered with the UK Publisher Sport Media who are part of the Trinity Mirror Group. 

The partnership will see Sport Media become the Official Match Day programme as well as the Pre-Tournament Magazine Licensee for Rugby World Cup 2015 in England. 

The terms of the deal will mean that Sport Media will print and distribute all 48 Match Day Programmes and Official Pre-Tournament Magazine in print and electronic format. It will also promote and market the tournament using its leading media news titles. 

Sport Media have partnered with some of UK’s biggest sporting brands including English Premier League football clubs Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal amongst many others. 

Trinity Mirror Chief Executive Simon Fox said: “Trinity Mirror is delighted to have won this important digital and print publishing contract and we look forward to playing our part in delivering a successful Rugby World Cup in 2015.” 

RWCL Chairman Bernard Lapasset commented: “The appointment of a publisher with significant digital and print reach is great news for the tournament and for Rugby fans in the UK and beyond.”