The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) has confirmed plans are going ahead to launch the basketball Champions League in 2016/17.

Seven leading European national federations met in Rome on Thursday to discuss the current remodeling of the European club competitions which was recently announced by the Euroleague.

Full story HERE.

Bermuda’s national drink, cheapest viagra the Dark ‘n Stormy®, will be introduced to America’s Cup fans everywhere during two years of international events.

As an Official Partner of the America’s Cup, all of Gosling’s unique products will be available at official America’s Cup events and functions around the world, beginning with the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Portsmouth, on the south coast of England, later this month.

Read more HERE.

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Jockey Club Racecourses today announced crowds at its 15 racecourses in 2014 grew by 3.3 percent year-on-year to 1.8 million from staging 362 fixtures.

From staging roughly a quarter of British racing’s fixtures, sale viagra the UK’s leading racecourse group – which stages the Cheltenham Festival, allergy Crabbie’s Grand National Festival, physician QIPCO Guineas Festival and The Investec Derby Festival – welcomed around a third of all spectators nationwide.

According to official figures released for 2014, attendances at UK racecourses as a whole increased by 2.4 percent year-on-year to 5.8 million.

Paul Fisher, Group Managing Director of Jockey Club Racecourses, said: “We’ve been working hard to offer a top quality experience to our customers on the back of £175 million of investment into our facilities in the last decade.

“In particular we are seeing great excitement around our major festivals and we’re pleased with the success of various promotional initiatives and our loyalty programme, Rewards4Racing that is helping to increase the frequency some of our customers return.”

Social Response: Transfer Deadline

If it was a busy time for players, managers, agents and Sky reporters as transfer deadline approached in the Premier League, it was an even busier day for the social media managers and fans – who certainly had their say. We kicked off with Manchester United using Vine to announce the signing of Di Maria from Real Madrid. While cynics might suggest that was method over message, it did mean fans got to create their own Vines to mark the arrival of the new number seven – always a good social sign. United not only paid a UK record for the Argentine midfelder, but they were also top of the charts when it came to mentions, using the #deadlineday on Twitter. One club that didn’t fare so well in its social media was Leeds United. The Yorkshire club had kept fans guessing and kept expectation high as the deadline loomed, but  – for reasons unknown – the call for fans to wait up as there was still work to be done, ended in disappointment. There was no further action, just the sale of two players. It wasn’t a great exercise in managing expectations and the fans vented in no uncertain terms and several ones not safe for work. Perhaps the only people having a worse day were the Sky sports reports outside grounds who were the subject of attacks by fans with sex toys. Not great for the guys with the microphone, but certainly one way of creating a buzz on social media as the clips went viral.

Teed Off: Golfer’s Selfie Ban

We’ll no doubt seem some superb golf when the Ryder Cup comes to Scotland this month – what we won’t see too much of is selfies from the greens of Gleneagles. Yep, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) and PGA European Tour have banned the uploading of images from the course. This may be bad news for Rory McIlroy who tweeted a selfie with the Hoylake Open trophy to his two million followers in July. So, what would McIilroy’s penalty be if he snaps and uploads? Well, it’s not going to be too severe, he might get a slap on the wrist and his mobile confiscated, but that’s about it. And while we’re on the subject, this one has been dubbed the best sporting selfie of all time. Tennis legend and social media fan Roger Federer snapped himself with basketball legend Michael Jordan when the two met at the US Open. Certainly there can be fewer pairings who possess bigger trophy cabinets.

NFL Get Airing On Apple TV

And while for years the armchair fan’s viewing options have been cable, terrestrial or satellite, Apple TV is becoming more and more a must-have. Already available in the US are the increasingly expanding Red Bull TV, ESPN, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. And now added to that line-up is NFL Now. It means Apple TV users get original NFL shows, press conferences and for a monthly fee instant in-game highlights. Rights-holders are more and more using digital channels to surface additional, second-screen content to those not at the event, hopefully not distracting from the actual game itself.

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Having spent eight seasons in Formula One managing the digital channels for world champions Red Bull Racing, David Granger now runs Fact 51, a social and digital content agency.

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With the 2014 World Cup in full swing I am always interested to see what brands are trying to communicate around the global media event of the year.

We’ve been told for the past four or five years or so that the latest mega event is the social event and that the reaction on Twitter, Facebook and every other social platform is where we all need to be focussing our attention. All very interesting but in my view it still doesn’t add up to a whole hill of beans, especially when it appears that the social campaign is what the brand is hanging its hat on and, in isolation, makes little or no sense. Even worse, you risk opening yourself to ridicule. 

As an example – and aside from questions about the relevance or value-add of a mouthwash brand associating itself with a football event – have a look at a sample of the reaction to Listerine’s weird and wonderful hashtag #powertoyourmouth:

This isn’t the only bemusing hashtag adorning the World Cup perimeter boards. McDonald’s bizarre #Fryfutbol wasn’t even mentioned in the 30″ spot they ran at half time of the opening game in the UK and interestingly I don’t think has been seen on their boards since. It may have been pre-planned but this article suggests that the reaction was so bad that perhaps it might be better to run with a corporate URL than with something that makes no sense.

I am a big fan of social media but I see it as a means to an end, a support mechanism, which when integrated into a well thought out campaign can deliver great value. On its own it loses context: It is not a silver bullet and in an increasingly cluttered social landscape – as with every other marketing campaign – brands need a really creative and relevant message to encourage people to engage with it. Social media’s real-time “measurability” appears too often to replace genuine RoI measures and I would argue, leads to laziness and complacency. 

Brands need to remember that people do genuinely love these events. They are not stupid and recognise inauthenticity at 100 yards. Ironically, social media can just as quickly break as make a campaign and shouldn’t be taken lightly: as the commentator above says, it doesn’t become a thing people talk about just because you’ve put a hashtag in front of it.

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Ben has seventeen years’ experience on the marketing side side of sport. Having spent six years at Chelsea FC, where he was Head of Marketing and a year as Commercial Director at Reading FC, Ben has set up his own consultancy, specialising in improving business model elasticity through genuine long-term customer engagement programmes. Prior to his time at Chelsea, Ben spent nearly four years at Redmandarin, the strategic sponsorship consultancy. Follow Ben on Twitter @ben_wells1 This blog appears regularly at http://benwells1.blogspot.com.

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There is a scene during the film Pulp Fiction in which Vincent Vega (John Travolta) recounts his experiences of eating at McDonalds in France to his fellow partner in crime, Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson). Vega revels in telling an enthralled Winnfield that a “Quarter-Pounder with Cheese” is known there as a “Royale with Cheese”. Winnfield is rather less impressed though upon finding out from Vega that a “Big Mac” in France is simply referred to as “Big Mac”.

And therein lay a fundamental message about the 21st century delivery and consumption of many products: homogeneity, consistency, standardisation. Walk into a McDonald’s (or, for that matter, a Starbucks, KFC or Burger King) anywhere in the world, and you know what you are going to get, even though the product name might be slightly different. While critics inevitably denounce our consumption habits as overly sanitised, for many people loyalty to a familiar brand is simply a safe and trustworthy way to consume a product.

In several sports, we are heading towards the “business end” of the season when trophies are won and lost, and promotions and relegations are decided. For most fans this is an incredible time of year, laced with either anticipation and excitement or fear and loathing, or possibly a combination of both.

This is the antithesis of a trip to McDonald’s: there is minimal certainty in sport at this time of year, when teams and clubs are fighting for their futures. There is no standardisation, every game is different, sometimes starkly so; there is no homogeneity – as TV coverage on the final day of a season switches from one game to another it is always clear that every contest is completely different. And that is why sport can be so incredible to fans, so painful for diehards, so attractive to commercial partners and so compelling for the media.

Yet our relationship with sport raises some interesting issues about how people consume things. We might live in a Big Mac world where we seek certainty and security, but in sport it seems we do not. While some products might make us unhappy, few are likely to make us cry in the same way some people do when they watch sport. Or consider anger and aggression – when buying bread or opening a bank account, few of us will perceive the need to shout or fight. Yet in sport, sometimes people do exactly this.

The kind of sporting uncertainty that many of us are currently dealing with has an awful lot to answer for, leading us to think and behave in unusual or irrational ways. Research in both sport economics and sport marketing strongly emphasises the importance of equal competition, which enables the uncertain outcome associated with sporting contests to be optimised.

Conventional wisdom says uncertainty is necessary for sport to exist, that it is vital to its health, and that fans crave uncertainty. Indeed, research findings support such an observation – fans prefer not to know the result of a game: it is what motivates them to watch, attend and engage. This is why a season’s end is such an evocative time of year in any sporting calendar.

Contrary to this view however, some analysts argue that fans do not actually like uncertainty, nor do they want an uncertain outcome to games involving the teams they support.

This implies that those preoccupied with uncertainty and matters of competitive balance might well be somewhat misplaced in their concern for equality within sporting competitions. Indeed, closer inspection of the evidence reveals a subtle distinction between fans who simply do not want uncertainty (they want their team to win every time), and fans who seek uncertainty of outcome and the excitement and tension this brings – but only so long as their team wins in the end.

Clearly, there is a social, cultural and political context to such behaviour: sports fans are not necessarily rational in the way some researchers portray them as being. Instead, when their team wins, this says something about them, the town they are from, or their home region and what it stands for. Their team might stand for old-fashioned values, or for the emergence of a new era in a sport. A team may also represent a particular set of political values, a win for the team thus constituting a public proclamation of ideology.

Uncertainty is therefore not simply a sporting issue, nor for that matter an economic one. Our relationship with it is deeper than that, and it involves our self-identify: our birth-right, lifestyle, heritage, family ties and more.

The first time I watched Pulp Fiction the outcome was uncertain, the film’s plot having twisted and turned like a relegation six pointer. On second watching, Pulp Fiction was still great: brilliant performances and a tight script, but this time entirely predictable.

The final few games of any season always bring the kind of tension and drama that Tarantino and his crew could only bring us once. Given that we are now well into April and season’s end is nigh, sports fans would do well to reflect upon and possibly reappraise their relationship with uncertainty. Do you want your sport standardised and pre-packaged, or are you willing to accept the pain when it is your team that gets relegated?

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Professor Simon Chadwick holds the position of Chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School, where he is also the founder and Director of CIBS (Centre for the International Business of Sport). Simon is the founding Editor of ‘Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal’, is a former Editor of the ‘International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship’ (he continues to serve as an editorial board member for several other sport journals), and has authored and published more than 600 articles, conference papers and books on sport. His academic research has appeared in journals including Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Advertising Research, Thunderbird International Business Review, Management Decision, Marketing Review and Sport Marketing Quarterly. Simon has co-edited the books ‘The Business of Sport Management’ and ‘The Marketing of Sport’ (both Financial Times Prentice Hall), ‘Managing Football: An International Perspective’ (Elsevier), ‘Sport Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice’ (F.I.T.), and ‘International Cases in the Business of Sport’ (Routledge). Alongside his books, Chadwick has created a Sport Marketing talk series for Henry Stewart Publishing, is Editor of a Sport Marketing book series for Routledge (Taylor and Francis), and is a visiting academic at IESE and Instituto de Empresa in Spain; the University of Paris, France; the Russian International Olympic University in Sochi, and the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

Follow Simon on Twitter @Prof_Chadwick

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Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the iSportconnect Digital Café where we take a look at what’s happening sporting-wise online. In this blog we’ll look at motorsport in the US, apps for visiting football fans and potatoes shaped like hashtags.

In Focus: NASCAR

The national motorsport of America Nascar is, at times a confusing beast. Like Formula One, its European-based counterpart, Nascar is passionately supported by die-hard fans, it’s a little inexplicable to non-fanatics… and it keeps changing the rules and regulations. In September last year the social media world went a little bit crazy when, two days before the play-offs, officials added another spot for one more car: 13 instead of 12. And the sport’s owners aren’t afraid of moving the goalposts. What they’re also keen on, and which helps out the fans and the newcomers no end, is getting digital right. Motorsport can be confusing at the very best and calmest of times, so it’s worth checking out the Nascar mobile app to see how they deliver some really fine, detailed content. Downloaded by millions, the app has the usual news, reports and stats, but also a great Live Race Centre and breaking news is pushed to your smartphone. 

Which Way To Coronation Street?

Visiting football fans are traditionally given a bit of a tough time by the home side when playing away. But Manchester City has turned this on its head with its new app for away supporters. It was launched in the run-up to last week’s Champions League game against Barcelona in English, Spanish and Catalan; but the languages will change according to who they’re playing. The CityHome app will offer visitors information about the match, travel to the ground and stuff to do while they’re in the city.

Athletes Getting It Right: Julian Edelman

If you’re looking at how the new wave of next generation athletes are going digital and embracing new technology, then cast your eyes at New England Patriot footballer Julian Edelman. He’s not just someone who uses social media to boost his fanbase – currently hitting more than 150,000 Twitter followers and 175,000 Facebook fans – he has also embraced new technology. Really embraced it. He’s done a Reddit Ask Me Anything, he’s got himself a Google Glass to create unique videos and he’s got himself a digital agency. The agency not only builds his his brand and his relationship with his fans, but also helps introduce him to that new technology to stand out from the crowd. A real trailblazer. We’ll have links to all his channels and some of his more innovative tech experiments on the blog.

Breakfast of Champions?

And finally something which has nothing to do with sport. Birdseye, the frozen food specialists have brought out a range of frozen potatoes shaped for all you lovers of hastags, @ tags and emoticons. You really now can tweet what you eat. Or should that be eat what you tweet. There is no link to these on the blog, but you might find them in the freezer aisle.

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Many sport leaders and key stakeholders of sport are asking themselves, what the role of regulation is or should be in ensuring good governance in sport governing bodies. Some favor voluntary approaches and upholding the autonomy of sport. Some favor regulation and common mandatory minimum standards. Others favor a mix of the two.

This tenth contribution of mine for iSportconnect’s expert column on sport governance offers perspectives on the case of the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act. The contribution focuses on the nature of regulatory minimum standards for good governance that Canadian sport governing bodies are required to comply with by mid October 2014. It also offers some challenging questions for sport leaders to consider about pros and cons of regulatory vs voluntary approaches, as they start the process of modernizing their governance standards for the future.

My 11th contribution is going to be published in the middle of February. It will offer perspectives on the case of the International Paralympic Committee with a focus on gender equality in sport.

To regulate sport governance or not? – And to what extent?

Many sport leaders attach great importance to upholding the autonomy of sport. While acknowledging that exemplifying good governance is key to avoiding rigorous regulation, they favor voluntary approaches and believe that there is no one-size-fits-all governance model for sport governing bodies, not least because such bodies have very different sizes, resources and challenges.

With governments being the sole or biggest source of sport funding for a lot of sports in many countries, many politicians and regulators have an inherent interest in making sure that sport governing bodies spend public funds effectively and efficiently in a transparent and accountable manner. They favor regulation and minimum standards for good governance for all sport governing bodies to comply with.

Appreciating the value of the two opposing perspectives requires striking a delicate balance. The Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act can be seen as an attempt to do exactly that. Some people will say that the Act is just right. Some will say that it has a too narrow or a too broad scope in defining good governance. Others will say that for the areas of governance that it regulates, the Act is too detailed or leaves too much discretion to sport governing bodies in defining good governance themselves. Often, where you stand depends on where you sit.

A brief introduction to the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act

The Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act comprises the first significant modernization of Canada’s not-for-profit legislation since 1917. The Act aims at fostering greater public trust and confidence in the not-for-profit sector through accountability, transparency and other means of good governance.

Upon royal assent on 23 June 2009, the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act came into force on 17 October 2011. Following a three-year transition period, all not-for-profit entities in Canada, including sport governing bodies, must comply with the Act by 17 October 2014.

The nature of the regulated boardroom in Canada, including conflicts of interest

According to the Canada Not-for-Profit Act, board directors have to be elected by the members of a sport governing body. That implies that past presidents and other ex officio directors cannot be part of the boardroom. However, it does not imply that a director is required to be a member of the actual sport governing body. Directors can be appointed, but only for the period until the next annual meeting. The number of appointed directors can comprise no more than 1/3 of the total number of elected directors.

While the term in office for board directors cannot be more than four years at a time, staggered terms are allowed. Directors can grant themselves a reasonable remuneration at their discretion. They can also grant a reasonable remuneration and expenses for any specific task that goes beyond the director role – for instance the situation, where a director in reality becomes a consultant to the sport governing body.

A board director must act honestly and in good faith with a view to pursue the best interest of the sport governing body. (S)he is deemed to have consented to any resolution passed or action taken in a meeting, unless (s)he requests a dissent to be entered in the minutes of the meeting. Also, alternate directors cannot act for an absent director at a meeting of directors.

Board directors are required to disclose the nature and extent of any conflict of interest, either in writing or by requesting to have it entered into the minutes of a meeting of directors or the minutes of a meeting of committees of directors. Disclosure is required for any interest that a director has in a material contract or material transaction, whether made or proposed, in the meeting at which a proposed contract or transaction is first considered.

A board director is seen to have an interest, if (s)he:

(a) is a party to the contract or transaction;

(b) is a director or an officer, or an individual acting in a similar capacity, of a party to the contract or transaction; or

(c) has a material interest in a party to the contract or transaction.

Most importantly, a board director required to make a disclosure of interest is not allowed to vote on any resolution to approve the contract or transaction.

Furthermore, if a board director becomes interested only after a contract or transaction is made, (s)he has to disclose it at the first meeting after becoming interested. The same applies to a person who is interested in a contract or transaction and later becomes a director. In that case, the person is required to disclose the interest at the first meeting after (s)he becomes a director.

It is particularly noteworthy that in the case of a director failing to make a required disclosure of interest, the sport governing body or any of its members can apply to a court to request that the contract be set aside and that the director repay any profits or gains realized from the contract.

The nature of regulated membership rights in Canada

Unless a sport governing body has different classes or groups of members with different rights and responsibilities, all members are entitled to vote at an annual meeting of members and to make a proposal to make, amend or repeal a by-law.

In the context of an annual meeting, any member may demand a ballot either before or after any vote by show of hands. At each annual meeting, the members are required to appoint a public accountant to hold office until the closing of the next annual meeting. Also, the members may remove any board director or board directors from office by ordinary resolution at a special meeting.

Last but not least, any member may examine the portions of any minutes of meetings of board directors and of committees of board directors that contain disclosures of interest, and of any other documents that contain such disclosures.

Other noteworthy aspects of regulated sport governance in Canada

The Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act also sets out requirements for other governance related matters such as notice of meetings, absentee voting, requisitioned meetings, timing of the annual meeting and time required to publish financial statements. It is particularly noteworthy that conflict of interest requirements similar to the ones for board directors apply to professional staff too.

Critical questions for sport leaders to ask themselves

Inspired by the case of the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, critical questions for sport leaders to ask themselves, as they start modernizing governance standards for the future, include:

> Had your sport governing body been registered in Canada, which are the main changes you would have to introduce to your governance standards to comply with the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act? – Which of those changes would create a better foundation for good decision-making in the support of the future development of your sport? – And which of those changes would leave your sport governing body worse off?

> Which are the pros and cons in putting in place regulatory measures that define the nature of mandatory minimum standards of good governance in sport governing bodies? – And which are the pros and cons in putting in place voluntary measures that define the nature of good governance standards in sport governing bodies?

> When putting in place regulatory governance measures, what is the best way of striking the delicate balance between on one hand appreciating differences in size, resources and challenges among sport governing bodies and on the other hand ensuring that government funding to sport is effectively and efficiently spent in a transparent and accountable manner? – In which areas and to what extent does it add value to define mandatory minimum standards for good governance for all sport governing bodies to comply with, and in which areas and to what extent does it add value to leave it to each sport governing body itself to define its own standards of good governance?

> What is the best way to support sport governing bodies in modernizing their governance standards to ensure compliance with new regulation?

> How could sport governing bodies be further motivated to comply with new regulation that defines good governance standards? – For instance, what is the possible positive effect in ensuring compliance by tying it to the eligibility for receiving continued full government funding? – Through carrots and/or sticks?

Links to my previous contributions for iSportconnect’s expert column on sport governance:

9) “The Netherlands Olympic Committee and Sport Confederation: A Winning Model for Incentivizing Good Management Practices in National Sport Federations?”

8) ‘Colombianitos: A Winning Management Model for Sustaining, Scaling and Replicating Social Change through Sport?’

7) ‘Football in Germany: A Model Case for Addressing Match-Fixing?’

6) ‘Clean Games Inside and Outside of the Stadium in Brazil: A Winning Legacy Model for International Sport Events?’

5) ‘England and Wales Cricket Board: A Winning Model for Transparency and Accountability in Sport?’

4) ‘Badminton World Federation: A Winning Model for Democratizing Sport in the 21st Century?’

3) ‘Governance in Netball New Zealand: A Winning Model for Professionalizing the Boardroom and for Handling Conflicts of Interest?’

2) ‘The Business Case for Good Governance in Sport’

1) ‘Sport Governance – What Are We Actually Talking About?’

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Michael Pedersen, Founder of M INC., is an internationally recognized expert and leader in good governance, transparency, ethics and integrity.Michael is the former Head of the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, an international good governance partnership with over 175 multinational companies and their CEOs. He holds three MSc degrees; an MSc in Global Leadership; an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice; and an MSc in International Relations.

Michael is passionate about sport. Sport has and continues to play an important role in his life. He is of Danish origin and currently lives in Lima, Peru and in Barcelona, Spain.

He also publishes a leadership series on good governance in sport that is available for free download at:http://minc.ch/sport-practice.html

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