NBA’s Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder is set to open a new retaurant in  Lower Bricktown entertainment district which is scheduled to open early fall 2013. Construction will begin following the groundbreaking ceremony held on Oct. 30.

The upscale Southern cuisine restaurant will feature Durant’s favorites including chicken satay, popcorn lobster, honey-dipped fried chicken, center cut pork chops, blackened catfish stuffed with crab meat and shrimp, slow-smoked barbecue ribs, chicken and shrimp jambalaya as well as a variety of steaks, seafood and desserts. KD’s will also feature a complete wine list and specialty drink menu.

“I am very excited to be opening my first restaurant in Lower Bricktown,” Durant said. “I look forward to spending a lot of time there with my fans and friends, and enjoying great food and live music. I want customers not only to enjoy incredible food at my restaurant, but to always gather for a great experience.”

The interior will be warm and comfortable with a vibrant atmosphere. The restaurant will feature a walk-around bar and live music played by local and nationally known musicians on select nights. KD’s will seat approximately 320 people and will occupy approximately 10,000 square feet.

Nestled between Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill and Harkins Bricktown 16 movie theater in Lower Bricktown, the restaurant will be built along the Bricktown Canal and will include an outdoor patio as well as a hookah room. KD’s is expected to be another popular destination point along the canal where water taxis carry visitors to various stops including restaurants, shops and nightclubs.

“This new restaurant will undoubtedly be a hotspot for the Oklahoma City community, Thunder fans and tourists alike,” said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett. “We are lucky to have a professional athlete like Kevin Durant who is helping make Oklahoma City a great place to live, work and have fun.”

Lower Bricktown is an extension of Bricktown, which received a much-needed facelift in 1993 following a massive public facility enhancement project. Just steps away from Chesapeake Energy Arena, home of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Bricktown is a popular destination for both locals and tourists. Today, Bricktown together with Lower Bricktown are home to more than 50 restaurants, Harkins Theaters Bricktown 16, Bass Pro Shops, and nightclubs as well as corporate headquarters of Sonic Drive-In.

The restaurant is being developed by Hal Smith Restaurant Group and Oklahoma City Developer Randy Hogan in partnership with K. Durant Restaurant Group, LLC. Joe Jungmann will serve as managing partner overseeing day-to-day restaurant operations. Jim Buchanan from Buchanan Management Group, LLC, consulted on the project. The Hal Smith Restaurant Group is a restaurant management company which owns and operates a variety of concepts in seven states with more than 50 locations.

Durant is a professional basketball player with the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA.

Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL) today issued a tender notice inviting bids from prospective buyers for its financially stricken IPL franchise, impotent | Deccan Chargers.

The Indian cricket board’s (BCCI) working committee on Monday decided to allow DCHL to go ahead and issue tender notice in the leading national dailies.

According to the tender notice, prostate | “under this invitation to tender issued by DCHL, sale the winning bidder will acquire from the DCHL on an “as is where is” basis the right to own and operate the IPL team currently known as Deccan Chargers, which is and will continue to be based in Hyderabad and which competes in the Indian Premier League and which has the opportunity (if applicable and subject to qualification) to compete in each and any CLT20 which is staged from 2013 onwards“.

The term “as is where is” means that the new buyer will have to use the name Deccan Chargers and will have to clear the liabilities of the current owner.

The invitation to tender and the bid document can be acquired from the BCCI office in Mumbai from September 7 upon a payment of Rs 5 lakh by demand draft or pay order favouring DCHL.

According to the IPL constitution, 5 per cent of the bidding amount will be acquired by the BCCI.

The last day for submitting the bid will be 12 noon on September 13 and the winning bid will be announced on the same day.

The new potential buyer may have to pay the salary of the Deccan Chargers’ players for the fifth edition of the IPL.

The move will also help consortium of banks, which had loaned out significant amount to DCHL, to recover their money since the name of the team will remain Deccan Chargers.

Earlier in June, DCHL had appointed investment banking institution, Religare to find a potential buyer but they were unable to find one, who would readily buy the team with its financial liabilities.

The National Football League (NFL) is to refurbish football fields in 15 cities spending $2.5 million in grants by doing so.

The money will go to schools, parks and other facilities in Atlanta; Spartanburg, S.C.; Chicago; Alexandria, Ky.; Grafton, Ohio; Pueblo, Colo.; Detroit; West Allis, Minn.; New Orleans; Newark, N.J.; Philadelphia; Penn Hills, Pa.; Clearwater, Fla.; Madison, Tenn.; and Washington.

Teams whose markets will benefit from the grants are the Falcons, Panthers, Bears, Bengals, Browns, Broncos, Lions, Packers, Saints, Giants, Eagles, Steelers, Buccaneers, Titans and Redskins.

Commissioner Roger Goodell calls community fields “the pillars of neighborhoods across the country, places where families can `play 60′ together in a safe environment.”

The program is a partnership between the league and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

The Terrible Towel, a yellow and black cloth, signature of the Pittsburgh Steelers fans has been in the middle of a lawsuit between the Steelers, compatriots a disabled school and Eugene Berry Enterprise LLC about trademark breach.

The lawsuit alleges that Eugene Berry Enterprise LLC filed a trademark application in May for “The Terrible T-Shirt” and had been selling the shirts emblazoned with those words and “A Pittsburgh Original,” court documents said.

Attorneys for the Allegheny Valley School, which owns the Terrible Towel trademark, asked the company to withdraw the application before its owner attempted to have more of the shirts printed, the documents said. It has been selling the shirts since February, according to the suit.

The suit, filed on Monday, alleges trademark infringement, unfair competition, fraud and other offenses. It seeks damages including profits from the T-shirts, attorneys’ fees and other expenses.

The late sportscaster Myron Cope invented The Terrible Towel in the mid-1970s. In 1996, he gave the trademark to the Allegheny Valley School, where his autistic son lived. The Steelers have an exclusive license to market Terrible Towel-marked items.

Organisers of next year’s London Olympics (LOCOG) have announced that most of the money for the first round of Olympics tickets sales will be debited from ticket applicants’ bank accounts by next week.

LOCOG said 60 per cent of cards would be debited by midnight on Wednesday, the “vast majority” by 31 May, and the process completed by 10 June. The payment process had been due to begin on 10 May, but so far no cards had been debited.

LOCOG revealed that the second round of sales, in late June, will initially offer unsuccessful first round ticket applicants the first chance to buy those tickets still available on a first come, first served basis before the public who did not originally apply are able to buy tickets.

Initial applicants will be contacted before 24 June to confirm if they have been successful in buying any of the 6.6 million tickets available, and which ones they have been allocated.

The e-mail sent out to these applicants stated that Visa payments would only be taken for successful applications, and that if cards had been lost or stolen, or there were any issues with collection of payment, applicants would be contacted about it by 10 June.

LOCOG deputy chairman Keith Mills said they were trying to make sure the system was “fair and even” and that people were informed at the same time about whether their application had been successful.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “One of the problems when you are doing something on this scale is if you tell one person they’ve got tickets, they tell their friends and suddenly we have a switchboard jammed with people – so we are trying to do this extremely thoroughly.”

“It’s going brilliantly well – it’s very complex, but it is going brilliantly well,” he added.

He added that hundreds of thousands of unsold tickets would be available to buy later in the year.

This year’s Peace and Sport Image of the Year Award has been given to the doubles tennis team formed by Indian Rohan Bopanna and Pakistani Ul-Haq Aisam Qureshi, it has been announced.

The award, presented by the Peace and Sport organisation in partnership with SPORTELMonaco and Getty images, is given to the image that best showed the ability of sport to advance peace in the world.

Hindu Roham and Muslim Aisam have been playing together for three years and actively campaign for peace between the two nations through their partnership, displaying the slogan “Stop War, Start Tennis” on their gear.

President and founder of Peace and Sport Joel Bouzou said: “Sport’s greatest victory is not measured in terms of medals. It is measured by its ability to positively change people’s lives and bring them hope. And that’s exactly what Rohan and Aisam succeed in doing.”

Gold Coast Suns have appointed chief operating officer Andrew Travis as the AFL club’s new chief executive.

Travis had been acting CEO at the Suns following the departure of Travis Auld to the AFL’s executive last month.

The 44-year-old, who has been COO at the Suns since their inception, will take up the role immediately and lead the hunt for a new head coach following last week’s sacking of Guy McKenna.

Travis said he was looking forward to taking on the role.

“It is a very exciting time to be at the Suns, with a playing list that is the envy of the league, and a great stadium,” he said in a statement.

Suns chairman John Witheriff said Travis had beaten over 100 applicants to the position.

He comes to the job with a deep understanding of our club, a passion for the next stage of our journey, and ready to hit the ground running as CEO,” Witheriff said.

“Andrew has the respect of the club and the industry, and his strong relationships across the AFL will deliver for the Gold Coast Suns.”