Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner, has today suggested the NFL should have a franchise in London.

Speaking to SkySports.com Kraft said: “I personally think we should have a franchise in London and that is something I am going to push for.

“I think I said that the last time we were over here in 2009 and before this next decade is out, I hope we have a team here. I think that would be right for the NFL and this fan base has proven they deserve it.”

Kraft stressed, however, that that team won’t be the Patriots. He also said he likes the idea of the Patriots playing a game in London annually.

“We lobbied hard to come back after having such a good experience in 2009. We would love to be the permanent visiting team. It was good for team bonding and everyone really enjoyed our last trip to London,” he said, before noting the support the Patriots receive from their growing UK fan base.

The Patriots face the Rams at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 28.

NASCAR are bringing with it companies pitching everything from pizza to pharmaceuticals to a new mango-strawberry energy drink to Atlanta this week.

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More than 100 companies have marketing or sponsorship deals with Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS) in conjunction with Sunday night’s AdvoCare 500 race, according to AMS vice president of sales Greg Walter.

It’s all part of NASCAR as a marketing machine.

Many of the companies will be giving away product samples on the speedway grounds through the weekend, including title sponsor AdvoCare, which plans to hand out 150,000 samples of the latest flavor of its “Spark” energy drink in the track’s fan-zone area.

Across the way, Krispy Kreme will be offering free 12-ounce samples of its new “signature” coffees and free doughnuts Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings in the campground areas.

Among other products that will be sampled or demonstrated at display areas around the speedway: Schick razors, Papa John’s pizzas, Sprint 3D phones, General Motors 2012 cars and Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

Walter said: “It runs the gamut, We’ve even got a pharmaceutical company doing a ‘gout pit stop,’ where they explain what gout is.”

The company, Takeda Pharmaceutical, sells a drug used in gout treatment.

So why do companies find Atlanta’s NASCAR event, like others on the circuit, a major marketing occasion?

Walter cited the large, early-arriving crowds, the “festival atmosphere” and a multi-day schedule that has a truck series race on Friday night, a Nationwide series race on Saturday night and the main event, the Sprint Cup series race, on Sunday night.

“The track becomes in essence the fourth largest city in the state,” Walter said. “Imagine being able to sample a product to a whole town.”

Krispy Kreme said it chose the event as part of its new coffee launch because of NASCAR’s “family-friendly, family-oriented experience” and because fans attend from all over the country, with approximately 15,000 of the attendees camping at the track for several days.

Some companies use the race for business-to-business purposes, such as entertaining corporate clients, rather than for consumer marketing.

The event’s biggest sponsor is AdvoCare, a Texas-based direct-sales company that offers nutrition, weight-loss and sports-performance products. The company signed a three-year contract in May to succeed Emory Healthcare as the race’s title sponsor.

“I just felt, instead of buying a bunch of TV commercials for one or two nights, this would get us more value,” said Jan Wold, AdvoCare’s vice president of marketing. She said the company is “always trying to do something to build the brand, become a household name.”

“I knew the moment we talked title sponsorship and what we could do, it would be huge for AdvoCare,” she said.

In addition to having its name on the marquee and introducing its mango-strawberry flavor drink, AdvoCare will have 500 of its distributors at AMS.

Wold declined to say how much AdvoCare paid for the sponsorship, calling it “a pretty large investment” that will be increased by the added costs of marketing efforts in the fan zone.

AdvoCare is not new to sports sponsorships. It is the title sponsor of college football’s Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., and has many sports figures, including New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and auto-racing legend Richard Petty, among its endorsers.

CVC Capital Partners Ltd., a U.K. private-equity company, have had their investors plan to question the firm over bribery allegations made in connection with its purchase of the Formula One car-racing series, the Financial Times reported.

CVC, which holds its annual investors meeting on Sept. 14, bought Formula One from banks including Germany’s Bayerische Landesbank for $1.7 billion in 2005. Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has taken the main focus from the Munich prosecutors over payments he made to Gerhard Gribkowsky, a former BayernLB banker who was arrested in January and has been in custody, the newspaper said.

Ecclestone hasn’t been charged with any offense, the FT said.

CVC, which has never been accused of any wrongdoing and said in January that it had no knowledge of any payments made to Gribkowsky, declined to comment on the prospect of questioning by investors, the newspaper reported.

A mistake by Barclaycard saw more than 100 people who applied for tickets for the London Olympics have their purchases declined after the transactions were flagged as suspicious because they did not follow the normal pattern of spending for the customers.

The Olympic organisers, LOCOG, say they will try and take payment again, while Barclaycard has apologised and said it has adjusted its fraud detection.

A female applicant stated: “I ordered about £2,000 (US$2,880) worth of tickets.

“I got an automated call saying that a payment had been blocked for £700 ($1,008) from a London ticketing agency. I assumed immediately it was the Olympics.”

After calling Barclaycard she confirmed the purchase was for Olympic tickets, adding: “They’d blocked it because it was an unusually large payment, which I thought was rather odd considering that it should be expected that people would be buying Olympics tickets.”

Nissan Becomes 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals Sponsor, price Highland Spring had extended its partnership

The ATP announced that Nissan is a new sponsor for the 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals while Highland Spring, UK bottled water provider, extended its partnership through 2013.

Nissan will be the official car supplier of the ATP final in London.
The top 8 single players and the 4 doubles team playing this event will be riding Nissan cars like Qashqai, Murano, X-TRAIL, Navara, Pathfinder and LEAF vehicles.

John Parslow, Marketing Manager, Nissan Motor (GB) Limited commented: “We are thrilled to be involved in such a significant event, which extends Nissan’s proud partnership with The O2. The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals offers a brilliant opportunity to showcase our diverse range of cars, including the soon to launch Nissan LEAF, the world’s first, mass market family 100% electric vehicle.”

“We are happy to welcome Nissan as the official car supplier of the 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Transportation services are a critical part of every ATP World Tour tournament and as a founding partner of the venue, Nissan is familiar with handling world-class events at The O2. We look forward to a successful partnership,” said Brad Drewett, Tournament Director, Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

Highland Spring signed a four-year agreement as the official water supplier to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

Claire Wilson, Head of Sponsorship at Highland Spring, commented: “The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is one of the biggest and most exciting events on the international sporting calendar and provides a fantastic platform for Highland Spring to strengthen its association with tennis. We are looking forward to supporting the event for the next four years and are delighted to be keeping the world’s top eight players hydrated during the tournament.”

Brad Drewett, Tournament Director of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, said: “The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals has quickly established a terrific home for itself in London, and having Highland Spring as official water supplier will further boost the reputation of the event.”

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s bid to become vice-president of the International Cricket Committee (ICC) is over after the governing body’s executive board rejected his nomination at a meeting in Singapore.

Howard was put up as the candidate of Cricket Australia and Cricket New Zealand, as it is their turn to fill the position, but there was widespread opposition to his appointment and the ICC has announced he “did not have sufficient support” from the board.

It appears it was Howard’s political history which may have cost him the position. As a critic of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, he lost support from Zimbabwe, South Africa, and later, the influential Asian block.

The boards of Australia and New Zealand now have to submit a new candidate by 31 August.

 

The Italian Winter Sports Federation (FISI) (Federazione Italiana Sport Invernali) and Infront Sports & Media, viagra 100mg its strategic marketing agent and advisor, have launched a new fan-oriented web portal www.fisi.org.

Developed by Infront’s dedicated digital media experts, the state-of-the-art online platform provides the key point of reference for fans, to source information, to experience the sports action and directly interact with athletes. The portal has been rolled out as part of a strategic partnership agreement signed last year between Infront and FISI. The ultimate objective of the collaboration is to enhance the impact of the FISI brand on both a national and international level.

Bruno Marty, Executive Director Winter Sports at Infront, said: “A high impact digital presence is a key element towards enhancing the perception of the FISI brand and supporting the federation to more effectively connect to its ever growing fan base.

“Thanks to our comprehensive partnership, we can help develop the federation’s brand positioning across the board, generating immediate results by having a positive impact on sponsorship marketing and audience appeal. We look forward to continuing this successful path with FISI leading up to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.”

WWE today announced the appointment of Lou Schwartz as the company’s Chief Digital Officer.

Schwartz, anesthetist who previously held executive level positions at UUX, clinic Piksel and Multicast, will report directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.

Schwartz will lead WWE’s Digital Media division and be a key member of the company’s senior management team.

Schwartz’s primary focus will be on expanding WWE’s digital and social media presence and profitability. He will also be responsible for developing strategic plans and initiatives for all digital platforms including WWE.com, WWE App and social media where WWE has a passionate fan base of nearly 415 million worldwide.

In addition, Schwartz will oversee product development and operations for WWE Network, the first over-the-top (OTT) 24/7 streaming network with scheduled and live programming as well as a massive video-on-demand library.

Prior to joining WWE, Schwartz was CEO of UUX, where he successfully led the merger of Totalmovie, a leading Latin American retail OTT service, with OTT Networks, a best-in-class Brazilian content management software and service company, to form the first cloud based OTT platform for next generation operators around the world.

Cardiff has been announced as the host for Snooker’s BetVictor Welsh Open world ranking event, the first time since 2004 that the city has hosted the event.

The tournament has been staged in Newport in recent years but now moves to the Motorpoint Arena in the Welsh capital and will run from February 16th to 22nd, 2015. 

The BBC Wales-televised event will be contested by 128 players, all starting in the same round, with a top prize of £60,000. 

This year’s final saw Ronnie O’Sullivan thrash Ding Junhui 9-3, making an incredible 147 maximum break in the last frame. Other winners in recent years include Stephen Maguire, Ding, John Higgins, Ali Carter, Mark Selby and Neil Robertson. 

World Snooker Chairman Barry Hearn said: “The BetVictor Welsh Open has grown dramatically in recent years with increased prize money, growing live attendances and a new structure. While we are grateful to the people of Newport for their support, it is time to move the event down the M4 to the capital city to allow it to continue to build momentum. 

“The Motorpoint Arena is a top class venue and a fitting stage for the world’s very best snooker players. This is a tournament with such a rich history, ever present on our calendar as a world ranking event for over 20 years. I have no doubt that the people of South Wales will be out in force to make the 2015 Welsh Open a truly spectacular week of snooker.”