Rebecca Adlington will help launch the Glasgow 2014 mascot on Thursday — her first duty as an official ambassador for the next Commonwealth Games.

Adlington will reveal the highly-anticipated mascot, whose identity is being kept a secret, when it makes its first public appearance at BBC Scotland’s studios in Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

Glasgow 2014 launched a UK-wide design competition with CBBC’s Blue Peter and BBC Radio Scotland’s MacAulay and Co for a child aged between five and 16 to create the mascot.

At the launch event, the young winner of the competition will be joined Adlington and 150 Glasgow schoolchildren to meet the mascot.{jcomments on}

A decision allowing mobile communications company Optus to broadcast almost-live broadcasts of National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Fooball League (AFL) matches on its mobile platform has been overturned.

Today the Federal Court ruled the Telco’s showing of free-to-air coverage on its TV Now service breached copyright, viagra overturning a previous judgement in February.

The Australian Football League, the most popular spectator sport in the country, and the NRL sought to protect broadcasting rights valued at more than $2 billion. The main point of dispute was who creates the electronic files that are sent to the customer for viewing. The AFL, NRL and Telstra Corp., Australia’s biggest phone company, said Optus’s service infringed their copyrights because it makes the recordings, stores them on its servers, and passes them on to customers.

In a statement it said: “This judgement is a great result for everyone who cares about the financial health of Australian sport. It ensures that sports bodies, and Australian content owners more generally, are able to receive a fair return from their property.

“Protecting intellectual property allows rights holders to invest in improving the quality of their content.

“The investments Telstra has made under its agreement with the AFL have produced a great product for AFL fans.

“The Telstra AFL live app has everything an AFL fan could want including live games, live score updates, radio broadcasts of the games, team lists and player profiles, match previews and post game reviews all unmetered for Telstra Customers.”

British bike brand, viagra sale Raleigh, maker of the Chopper and Vektar brands, has been bought by fellow bike maker Accell for £62m.

The acquisition is currently in the hands of the competition authorities, as the deal will see Accell owning not just the Raleigh brand but also the Diamondback range. But, unless this proves a spoke in the wheel, the deal should go through by the end of May.

Raleigh has been making bikes for 125 years. Founded in Nottingham, it was the biggest bicycle maker in the world in its post-war heyday, employing 8,000 people and producing a million cycles a year. These days, however, it’s more of a design house than a manufacturer. The last bike to be made by Raleigh in Britain was sold more than a decade ago and the firm now manufactures its 850,000 or so cycles a year in Vietnam, Korea and Bangladesh. 

Its survival through tough times has been credited to current chairman and former chief exec Alan Finden-Crofts, who led a $20m management buy-out of Raleigh back in 2001 after the parent company Derby Cycle went bankrupt. Still one of Raleigh’s largest shareholders, Finden-Croft is set to make a multi-million pound windfall from the sale.   

Accell is hoping that the Raleigh acquisition will bring some instant heritage to its portfolio, as well as helping it to break new ground in the UK and US.

The Detroit Lions improvements on the field in 2011, medicine have led to the team raising their ticket prices in 2012.

The ticket increase, which will see ticket prices increase 7.9% on average for the 2012 season, is the team’s first ticket price increase since after the 2007 season. While suite-seats will be unaffected by the price increase, the Lions season tickets will range somewhere in between $35 and $99 for the 2012 season, with an average ticket price of $72.04.

The Lions had the 28th lowest average ticket price last season.

“It’s a decision we don’t take lightly,” president Tom Lewand said. “But after a lot of consideration and hopefully intelligent thought, for us the focus was on the value proposition and the desire we have to provide a top tier product in the NFL for a mid-level or below investment.”

“It’s been since after the 2007 season that we’ve raised prices and we weren’t going to do that until we had a product we felt merited this kind of increased investment,” Lewand said. “But it becomes a cycle. In order to stay competitive, we have to be able to invest back into the product. And that’s exactly where these dollars go, right back into re-signing our players and keeping the team together.

“Thankfully we have an ownership (the Ford family) that allows us to charge below average prices that provide, hopefully, a well above average product. They give us the resources we need to spend up to and over the (salary) cap every year.”

While Lions fans will pay more to see their team in 2012, they will still remain one of the better deals in the NFL, 22 other teams charged more in 2011 than the Lions average ticket price for the 2012 season.

American Football side Dallas Cowboys have teamed up with Marvel Comics to produce a new clothing range.

The Cowboys play in the National Football League (NFL). Under terms of the agreement, no rx Marvel Comics characters such as Captain America, anesthetist Spider-Man, look Iron Man, Thor, and many other super heroes will feature in a range of officially licensed apparel. The unisex range will feature clothes for all ages.

Paul Gitter, president of consumer products for North America, Marvel Entertainment, said: “We continue to expand our consumer products into new distribution channels through this exciting partnership with the NFL’s most popular franchise. The co-branded programme with the Dallas Cowboys, ‘America’s team’, helps further establish Marvel’s presence within the sports industry.”

Mike Jerchower, Marvel’s director of licensing added, “Captain America and the Marvel super heroes are excited to join the Cowboys on their quest for the Super Bowl.”

Jerry Jones Jr, chief sales and marketing officer for the Dallas Cowboys said: “We are excited to team up with Marvel Entertainment to create such a unique line of apparel for our fans. We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to energise our fans, and what better way than to combine our brand with some of the all-time great super heroes that everyone has grown up with.”

The Cowboys are the only major sporting franchise in America to entirely produce their own merchandise. They consistently have the highest sales in the NFL.

Former president of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Texas Rangers, J. Thomas Schieffer has been hired by the league’s Commissioner Bud Selig to run the Los Angeles Dodgers after the MLB stepped in to take control of the club in turmoil last week.

MLB took over operation of the franchise from owner Frank McCourt who is part of an ongoing divorce settlement with his wife whom he sacked in her role as chief executive of the side.

Schieffer has taken over immediately according to the Associated Press. In seizing control of the franchise, MLB told the Dodgers that any expenditure of USD$5,000 or more would have to be approved.

Selig stated: “Tom (Scheiffer) is a distinguished public servant who has represented the nation with excellence and has demonstrated extraordinary leadership throughout his career. The many years that he spent managing the operations of a successful franchise will benefit the Dodgers and Major League Baseball as a whole.”

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said the appointment wouldn’t affect his team’s approach, adding: “It has nothing to do with us. It doesn’t change anything about what we do or how we get ready, making pitches, making plays, being in the right spot, playing baseball. This is kind of year two of it. The fact MLB came in doesn’t really change anything for us.”

The bid to host the 2014 Sailing World Championships has been won by the Spanish city of Santander, medstore the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) announced on Sunday.

In being named as the host of the international flagship sailing event, Santander edged out rival bids from Argentina, Canada, China, Denmark, Korea, the Netherlands and Poland, with the event set to attract around 1,400 competitors from 95 countries, running from September 1-15.

In an interview with ABC, Gerardo Pombo, the president of the Spanish Sailing Federation (RFEV), stated: “We are very happy because it was a very difficult contest. All of the candidates were strong. The ISAF especially liked the Polish and Danish bids, with both countries having staged numerous championships, but the Spanish bid was ultimately rated as the best one.”

Pombo added: “We believe we have done a great job in explaining the project and the World Championships will be a success thanks to the contributions of all stakeholders.”

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

Rousseff, treatment a member of the ruling Worker’s Party, pharmacy order 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.

The National Hockey League (NHL) is preparing to begin negotiations over a new US television rights deal, and chief operating officer John Collins has said the league is in a much stronger position than last time.

The League is currently in the final year of its contracts with Versus and NBC, and Collins is preparing to start talks on a future deal.

Collins said: “We have a lot of ideas of things that we’d like to see – that we think will make the business better.

“And I’m sure our partners have some ideas that they’d like to see to make our business better. We’ll start with that and see where it goes.”

There has been speculation over what the merger between Versus/Comcast and NBC will mean for the negotiations.

The last NHL season generated record television viewing figures during the play-offs and experienced a 66 per cent increase in advertising and sponsorship revenue, according to the league.

Fox Sports is also reportedly another potential bidder for the future cable broadcast package.

The Professional Squash Association (PSA) and Women’s Squash Association (WSA) have inked a merger that will see the professional ranks in the sport of squash administered by one unified governing body for the first time ever. 

Following a lengthy consultation process involving the sport’s major stakeholders over the past ten months, which included inviting both memberships of the PSA and WSA to vote on the proposed merger, a decision was reached on Monday October 28 that will see the Professional Squash Association operate as the governing body for both the women’s and men’s ranks from January 1, 2015.

Continuing to operate under the existing PSA name, the re-formed organisation will be responsible for running the men’s and women’s professional game with the strategic aims of increasing the level of equality and parity in prize money and playing opportunities across the professional game.

“We have been in discussion with the WSA since the beginning of 2014 regarding a potential merger between the two associations,” said PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough.

“Both parties felt that a merger would provide a more unified base from which to grow the sport of squash across the globe and to proactively increase the levels of equality and opportunity for both genders at the elite level.

“We are committed to driving the sport forward and have long-term plans in place to achieve parity in prize-money across the sport and ensure that equal opportunities are available for both male and female squash players.

“Whilst also driving forward equality, we feel that a unified body will allow us to present a more appealing product to potential sponsors and broadcast partners and we look forward to undertaking the new challenge when the cross-over period is completed in what will be an exciting new era for the sport.”

As a result of the merger the WSA will now begin a wind-down process, set to be completed by December 31st 2014, when squash will usher in an exciting new era of joint-responsibility and unified governance.

With the US Open leading the way in driving the equality-agenda within the sport, having moved to a position of offering equal prize money for the first time in 2013, the long-term aims of the PSA will be to increase the overall level of prize money available in squash and narrow the gap between genders.

“The WSA members are very excited to merge with the men and form one unified governing body for professional squash,” said WSA Chief Executive Tommy Berden.

“Over the past ten months we have been able to discuss in depth how the merger will benefit our sport and we really feel this is the right time to move things forward for both the men’s and the women’s tour.

“It’s encouraging to see that more promoters are following the example set by the US Open to pay equal prize money and we are expecting more events to follow suit in the upcoming year.

“The response from both memberships has been overwhelmingly positive and we are looking forward to starting the transition phase to unify the two associations.”