The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) has announced that the 2016 Volleyball World League Finals will be staged in Poland.
The five-day Finals featuring the top six teams in the 2016 edition of the competition will take place from July 13 to 17.
More info HERE.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) and L’Equipe.fr have partnered to launch NBA.com/France, here the new official online NBA destination in France.
Launching to coincide with the start of the 2015-16 NBA season, herbal the site will be hosted in a dedicated section of L’Equipe.fr and will feature multimedia content including videos, viagra highlights, localized in-language editorial and real-time statistics.
Fans who visit NBA.com in France will be automatically redirected to NBA.com/France.
“We are excited to be unveiling NBA.com/France as the new official online destination in France,” said NBA EMEA Digital Director Xavier Bidault.
“L’Equipe is a sporting institution in France, and as they look to diversify their digital offering, we are excited to partner with them to enhance the NBA experience for our fans in France.”
L’Equipe General Director Cyril Linette: “We are thrilled to be partnering with the NBA. Through this partnership, the NBA section on L’Equipe.fr will be rich with content and provide our fans with the most comprehensive and exhaustive NBA offering ever in France.”
Papua New Guinea has been selected to stage three matches at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup after they were given co-hosting rights with Australia and New Zealand.
More info HERE.
iSportconnect, troche the world’s largest global private network of sports business executives, cheap pills is delighted to announce that the first ever Media and Communications Masterclass will take place at Odgers Berndtson in London on Wednesday June 17.
An impressive panel line up has already been confirmed for this event with Pedro Pinto, Chief of Press at UEFA and Will Chignell, Head of Communications at the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Dan Johnson, Director of Communications at the Premier League, Steve Atkins, Head of Communications and Public Affairs at Chelsea FC, Philip Bernie, Head of BBC TV Sport, Shaun Custis, Head of Sport Content at The Sun, Lee Clayton, Group Head of Sport for the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday and Christian Pfennig, Director of Corporate and Brand Communications at the Bundesliga.
TimeTable:
Venue:
Odgers Berndtson, 20 Cannon Street, London, EC4M 6XD.
To register your interest, please contact Sylvia-Line Lamaro at: sylvia-line@isportconnect.com
Sports Agencies, professional service providers & suppliers, please contact Michael Rocha-Keys at:mike@isportconnect.com for sponsorship opportunities.
For more information, visit Masterclass website
Invitation Policy: The Media and Communications Masterclass is an exclusive invite only event to senior media industry executives and other similar positions.
To register your interest please contact Sylvia-Line Lamaro at sylvia-line@isportconnect.com
IAAF Presidential Candidate Seb Coe has called for the restructuring of the global Athletics calendar and improvements to the presentation of the sport to enable Athletics to reach its full potential and grow and flourish worldwide.
Coe confirmed that if elected IAAF President he will establish a World Athletics Calendar Reform and Sports Presentation group to produce recommendations that would be considered by an IAAF Special Congress in the first quarter of 2016.
Speaking from the Diamond League meeting in Doha, link Qatar, Seb Coe, said: “I believe that the creation of a truly harmonised calendar is key to the global promotion of Athletics and also Member Federation development.
“Listening to the Federations and our broadcasters, sponsors and athletes, it’s clear that we need new competitive structures for the future.
“We must look at how the format and presentation of competitions like the Diamond League fit within the overall calendar and how we can help boost the quality of these competitions to make each meeting and the overall season more compelling. “
Sports and entertainment agency Lagardère Unlimited has announced the acquisition of UFA Sports, symptoms the European based sports marketing subsidiary of RTL Group.
This purchase allows Lagardère Unlimited to stengthen its football and media assets in Europe, and expand its portfolio of football marketing activities in Germany, Poland and Slovakia.
As a subsidiary of Lagardère Unlimited, UFA Sports will continue to operate its football marketing activities in Germany as a separate and independent entity within the Lagardère Unlimited network of businesses.
“We are delighted to welcome UFA Sports to the Lagardère Unlimited family,” said Andrew Georgiou, Chief Operating Officer of Lagardère Unlimited.
“This acquisition underlines Lagardère Unlimited’s strategy of strengthening its position in football globally and attracting the industry’s best talent.
“We are very happy with our agreement with RTL Group and that the management of UFA Sports has chosen to work with Lagardère Unlimited and we look forward to continuing to grow our businesses”
Robert Müller von Vultejus, Managing Director UFA Sports said: “The new leadership of Lagardère Unlimited has successfully started to unlock the true potential of their various positions in sports and we therefore believe Lagardère Unlimited provides for the best environment to further expand and grow our business.”
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Former American women’s tennis player Katrina Adams has been named as the new president of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) becoming the first African-American to take up that position.
Adams will take up her two-year term on 1st January in combined role as the USTA’s chairman, viagra 40mg chief executive and president on 1st January.
Adams will also be the first former tour professional to take up this senior position in world tennis.
The 46-year-old had a 12-year tennis career on the WTA Tour.
In this new role, discount Adams will oversee the opening of the USTA’s new tennis facility in Orlando, medstore Florida, along with the continued renovation of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.
Adams will replace the outgoing President David Haggerty, who has led the USTA since January 2013.
“Katrina has experience at every level and in every facet of the game, along with the passion and know-how to guide the association in the years to come,” said Haggerty.
“She is an inspired, deserving selection – and the right choice to continue the advancement we have made as an organisation in recent years.”
Last week I had the pleasure of hosting the World Cup Sponsorship Special for iSportConnect TV where the burgeoning role of digital in activation was discussed. With its ever-growing influence in major sports events, is digital the one to watch or could it become a marketing strategy which delivers diminishing returns?
Review the last seven years of sports marketing and the landscape has changed exponentially; it is easy to forget that the now ubiquitous tablet wasn’t even around for the Beijing Games in 2008. When London was awarded the 2012 Olympics, the sports agency world heralded it as being the ‘most social Games ever’; this was very prophetic although whether anyone actually knew what social really meant is suspect.
What a difference two years makes. Just 24 months later and the World Cup has achieved staggering things through mobile, social media and video. A new Twitter tweets per minute record was set at 618,725 tweets during the final; a new total Tweets record of 35.6m resulted from the Germany/Brazil game whilst Facebook’s 88 million global users hit a ground-breaking 280m interactions (including posts, likes and comments), smashing the 245m from Super Bowl 2013.
Looking at specific brand activity there were some impressive numbers too. Whilst it is said that Adidas bought c.1.6 million social media mentions during the World Cup, including campaign phrases and hashtags on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, blogs, forums and news sites, its ‘All in or Nothing’ ad achieved over 38m views on YouTube, 17 million Facebook likes and was hashtag featured in over 900,000 Tweets. However rivals, Nike, out-performed them despite a lack of sponsor-status. Nike’s ‘Risk Everything’ campaign, according to researchers Visible Measures, saw it emerge as the most viewed World Cup marketer. Of the 97 campaigns tracked in the research, Nike’s eight virals secured 240.6 million views, topping Samsung’s 124,374,254 and Adidas’ 90,314,729 views.
Whilst big numbers are always exciting, what does that mean when it comes to sales? Budweiser, the tournament’s official beer, also achieved respectable cut through digitally but it went further, determining how mentions equated to purchase. The results weren’t overly exciting; based on a sample base of 710,823 social posts, specifically mentioning buying Budweiser, only 0.0006% were deemed influential in driving sales. So, despite all the brand mentions, purchase intent was detectable only 426 times. Another campaign with surprisingly low digital figures was Coca-Cola’s. Whilst much of its sports involvement is primarily based on pourage rights, the brand still scored surprisingly poorly on social platforms.
So what is next for marketing around the big sports fixtures. Clearly the numbers digital delivers are exciting and, much to the delight of sports PRs, create media hooks in their own rights but big figures aren’t a legitimate target, consumer action – ideally purchase – is. Also there is significant overcrowding on current platforms so how many social engagements will a brand need to get cut through? Increasing levels of investment alone is not the answer, so what is? Sports agencies have four years to figure this out.
Watch the Sports Marketing Show on iSportconnect TV
Rebecca Hopkins is Managing Director of ENS Ltd, a London-based sports agency tasked with promoting and protecting brands in sport. They specialize in sports PR, crisis management and online public relations.
Rebecca’s 
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Donald Sterling and his lawyers have filed a motion to take the case of the Los Angeles Clippers sale to a federal court, stating that his medical privacy had been violated.
A probate court trial is set to start on Monday to find out if Sterling is mentally incapacitated and whether his estranged wife Shelly can take control of the family trust that owns the NBA franchise.
Shelly Sterling struck a deal with ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sell the team for US$2bn after Donald Sterling was recorded making racist remarks to his girlfriend.
A report on ESPN LA said that now, Donald Sterling’s attorneys have filed the notice and said airing his medical information in the probate case violates federal privacy laws.
They argue that Donald Sterling agreed to be examined on his mental competence under false pretences, but Shelly Strling’s attorney, Pierced O’Donnell said it was a “cowardly ploy.”
“Donald Sterling’s 11th-hour attempt to move the probate trial into the federal courts is a desperate act by a desperate man,” O’Donnell added in a statement.
Ballmer’s attorney, Adam Streisand said: “We will be filing emergency relief in federal court to undo this last desperate and frivolous attempt to block our trial from going forward Monday.”
However, Donald Sterling’s attorney Bobby Samini commented: “We feel strongly that this important issue should be addressed by the federal court at this time.
“While it has become popular to attack Donald Sterling for his regrettable comments, his right to privacy and to the protection of his medical records should not be acceptable collateral damage.”
The case is still set to go ahead in state probate court on Monday, until a decision is made by a federal judge.
Beijing will host a race on the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) after problems with logistics meant the US round in Sonoma, cialis price California had to be dropped.
The race at Beijing’s Goldenport Park Circuit on October 4-5 will be the first of back-to-back stages in China, with the following weekend’s race being hosted at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Eurosport Events, the WTCC’s organising body, said it had to cut the Sonoma race because the vessel carrying cars and parts to Shanghai had been cancelled.
The vessel was due to leave Oakland’s harbour on September 17, but the next available one would not leave until September 21, meaning there would not be enough time for transportation and preparation for the race on October 12.
François Ribeiro, director of operations for Eurosport Events, said: “We had to face a logistical challenge and after consulting WTCC stakeholders, we went through all possible scenarios, including date change or air freight, but we came to the conclusion that keeping Sonoma on the schedule was not viable. Chinese Touring Car Championship promoter, our partner in China, has quickly reacted to change its CTCC schedule and put together an alternative event at Beijing, the week before Shanghai.
“This will not only allow WTCC to race in the two main provinces of China, and keep raising WTCC profile in the most important car market in the world, but will also simplify logistics and save budget for the teams.”
Xia Qing, CTCC promoter, added: “Beijing Goldenport is different from Shanghai International Circuit. It will offer Chinese motorsport fans compact and intense touring car races.”