The Korea Baseball Organization is reportedly enjoying the height of its popularity with record ticket sales.

Korea’s professional baseball league reached the million attendance mark in just 65 games on April 29, fourteen games fewer than it took to reach that level in 1995.

The KBO aims to reach 4 million at the fastest pace ever. With 3,952,118 spectators so far, the original goal of getting 7 million to the ballparks this season seems very plausible and 8 million may even be achievable, as just 251 games of the 532 have been played.

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The Mayor of London Boris Johnson will be joined by local schoolchildren on a specially designed and installed, see travelling basketball court to tip off National Basketball Association (NBA)  Basketball Week.

The initiative, which was announced earlier this year, is a week of free youth-oriented basketball events, which starts in London before travelling to five UK cities and returning to London next week in order to promote the sport in the nation.

The week’s events lead up to the NBA Games – London 2011 presented by Thomson Sport on March 4 and 5 at The O2 Arena, when the New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors will play in the NBA’s first-ever regular-season games in Europe.

Basketball Week is being organised by the National Basketball Association (NBA), British Basketball (representing Team GB), the British Basketball League and England Basketball and aims to increase participation in the sport, giving young people up and down the country the opportunity to try their hand at basketball.

English Premier League soccer giants Manchester United have announced an agreemnet with express and logistics company DHL to become the club’s official logistics partner.

The contract will run for a duration of three years in which DHL will undertake a range of logistics services on behalf of Manchester United and also work with the Manchester United Foundation to improve the lives of vulnerable young people in the local community. 

DHL Express (UK & Ireland) chief executive officer, Phil Couchman stated: “By partnering with Manchester United we have teamed up with a brand whose international footprint mirrors our own. A major part of our business is to help businesses grow by offering them an efficient and effective international offer.

“The way that Manchester United has grown from humble beginnings formed by a group of railway workers into a worldwide brand with 333 million followers shows how small businesses can emerge into world leaders.”

A long-term partnership between window blind manufacturer, Louvolite and the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) has been extended for another year.

Louvolite will lend its support to the national ABAE championships, as well as grassroots boxing with an option for an additional 12 month extension taking Louvolite’s association with the ABAE to 14 years.

David Robinson, Louvolite director of sales and marketing, spoke of the company’s pride in its relationship with the ABAE: “It is extremely encouraging to see the professionalism with which the ABAE has promoted the significant expansion of amateur boxing in recent years, especially the proliferation of boxing clubs within schools and throughout many areas of our local community.”

ABAE chief executive Paul King added: “Louvolite’s decision to build on their investment in amateur boxing is an endorsement of the fantastic health of the sport which continues to deliver rising participation and is recognised as a valuable tool in helping to combat a range of social problems covering, health, education and crime. We are very grateful to Louvolite for its continued support and look forward to working with them for many more years and extending this mutually beneficial partnership.”

Sepp Blatter was forced to retract comments he made regarding the issue raised over the decision to host the World Cup 2022 in a country where homosexuality is illegal. In a supposedly jovial retort the FIFA President suggested that the gay fans travelling to the event should ‘refrain from any sexual activity’.

Blatter was forced to apologise in a statement to journalists in Abu Dhabi after the comments received an angry reaction from many gay rights groups.

Juris Lavrikovs, the communications director for the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, said the comments were “very unfortunate and have left people deeply offended” and said “we are talking about a very basic human right that is being violated.”

Blatter attempted to diffuse the tension stating: “It was not my intention and never will be my intention to go into any discrimination. This is exactly what we are against. If somebody feels that they have been hurt, then I regret it and present apologies.”

 

Munich’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics will not be affected by a surprise rejection by the Greens, the country’s third biggest political force, Germany’s top sports official said Monday.

The Greens, in opposition but rising in opinion polls, narrowly voted at the weekend for a motion that called the Munich plans “anything but ecologically exemplary.”

Munich’s candidacy, which is up against South Korea’s Pyeongchang and France’s Annecy, has already received the official backing of the German government ahead of the International Olympic Committee vote in July next year.

“The chances of Munich 2018 victory will not suffer from this negative attitude shown by a narrow majority of an opposition party,” German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) chief Thomas Bach said in a statement.

“Internationally it is recognized that this concept is ‘the best, and ecologically most sustainable concept, that has ever existed’, as Winfried Hermann, sports spokesperson of the Green Party put it in his speech at the convention,” said Bach, who is also an IOC Vice President.

The DOSB is the country’s umbrella sports organization.

“The time and process of the debate on this comprehensive and complex project, which was scheduled for only a few minutes, clearly show that this was not a democratic debate or consideration of factual issues; instead it appears to be a rejection based on political motives,” said Bach.

The Greens reacted strongly to Bach’s statement, saying his comments were outrageous.

“These comments for a decision of the party against the 2018 bid are more than outrageous and show a lack of understanding for democratic procedures,” said Dieter Janecek, the chairman of the Greens in Bavaria.

“And it is the head of an opaque organization (DOSB) that bristles with commercial interweaving who questions the decisions of a democratically organized party,” he said.

Munich’s bid to become the first city to host summer and winter Olympics has stumbled repeatedly in the past few months following the resignation of bid leader Willy Bogner, a land row with residents of Garmisch-Partenkirchen — site of the skiing events — and an Interior Ministry report questioning the candidacy’s financial numbers.

The other two bids have faced their own problems recently with Pyeongchang receiving an IOC warning over two sponsorship deals involving South Korean companies and France’s Annecy forced to rework their project after getting low marks in an IOC technical report in June.

(Source: Reuters)

The southern hemisphere rugby group SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand and Australian Rugby) has rejected proposals for a new Twenty20-style competition planned for South Africa.

The concept was conceived by former Springbok Rassie Erasmus, and is an attempt to mirror the success of the hugely popular Twenty20 cricket format. It would have seen shorter matches with amended rules to increase excitement.

SANZAR chief executive Steve Tew said: “SANZAR’s representatives met with promoters of the competition so as to better understand what was envisaged and because we are always open to any ideas that might help promote rugby in our three countries.

“We were told we would then receive a formal proposal and this has not happened. However, having considered the concept and the way in which it has been developed, SANZAR has decided it has no interest in any further discussion of the proposed competition.

“We do not see any benefits for SANZAR and we have also expressed our strong disappointment to those involved that approaches were made to players in the SANZAR countries without the courtesy of informing the SANZAR member unions in advance.”

 

The Rio 2016 Olympic Golf Course in Barra da Tijuca is 59% complete, organisers have revealed today.

“After this stage comes the ‘bedding-in’ period, during which we monitor the growth of this ‘live’ process. As soon as it is planted, the grass needs to be watered, then we have to manually control weeds and regularly cut the grass to make sure that it grows evenly over the whole course,” said Gustavo Nascimento, General Manager of the Brazilian Olympic Committee’s Venue Management Planning department.

The grass is expected to take around eleven months to grow, and, as Nascimento explains, the species that was selected had to be very region-specific, based on a number of variables.

“The grass we chose needed to meet the demands of the sport and the specific intricacies of the location. The course sits on top of sandy earth and the soil is highly permeable, so we had to choose a species that was well-adapted to this type of soil. The coastal vegetation is highly sensitive and, since the course is situated inside a nature reserve, we needed to choose a turf that requires little fertilizer but that is also highly resistant,” he said.

The irrigation system covers 400,000 square metres of sandy ground and is one of the most modern in the world, with all of the pumps, pipes and 3,000 sprinklers imported from the United States.

Construction of the course, expected to be among the biggest legacies from the Rio 2016 Games, began in April 2013. Following the competition it will become the first public golf course in the city, helping to popularise a sport that returns to the Olympic Programme after a 112-year absence.

“Over the next two months we will finish the maintenance facilities and begin building the clubhouse to ensure the finished course will be ready for handover at the end of September 2015,” said Alexandre Techima, the Rio 2016 Olympic Committee’s Director of Infrastructure Integration.