Category: Sports

MUMBAI: Soccerex has announce their partnership with Football Asia, a football- dedicated consultancy in Asia, to offer the football business community a two-day event in Asia next year.

Football Asia CEO Jon Collins says, “Asia is in love with European football and European football is in love with Asia. Soccerex is the global leader for the football industry and the Soccerex Asian Forum will act as the catalyst that brings these interest groups together. This event is a logical and long overdue step for the football industry.”

The Asian continent is home to 85 million footballers, a third of the world’s total, and over a billion viewers tune in each week to watch Premiership fixtures. The level of interest in football from the consumer and commercial markets in Asia is unparalleled. Soccerex’s move into Asia represents an important milestone for the company.

Soccerex CEO Duncan Revie says, “Launching the Soccerex Asian Forum signifies the strength of our global presence; with events in South Africa, Brazil, Europe and now Asia we offer a global selection of business platforms to the football industry. I am looking forward to working with Jon and the Football Asia team over the next four years.”

In a market where who you know is key, the Soccerex Asian Forum will look to help football’s stakeholders develop their Asian networks. The date and venue of the inaugural Soccerex Asian Forum will be announced at Football Asia’s launch event in Singapore on 26 October.

Now in its 14th year, Soccerex delivers networking platforms around the world. The Soccerex events calendar includes forums and culminates in the five-day Soccerex convention encompassing the whole ‘Soccerex Experience‘ (Conference, Exhibition, Gala Dinner and Football Festival).

The Soccerex 2009 Convention takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa from 28 November – 2 December.

MUMBAI: IMG Sports Media has renewed its exclusive consultancy deal with Tennis Properties Limited (TPL/ATP Media). It will continue to advise and assist on the global distribution of the worldwide media rights of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000s and the season ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals until the end of 2013.

IMG Sports Media has acted as TPL‘s exclusive media rights consultant (the broadcast media rights holder and host broadcaster of the series) since 2001.

IMG Sports Media executive VP Michel Masquelier said, “We are absolutely delighted to have renewed the deal with TPL/ATP Media especially given men’s tennis has never been stronger than it is today. You have at least ten guys every event challenging for these titles, and with the quality and quantity of the content available it makes the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and the ATP World Tour Finals a must have for broadcasters across the world.”

Tennis Properties CEO Steve Plasto said, “The Masters 1000 and World Tour Finals is one of the most prestigious global television properties in tennis. It is a broadcast package built on world-class events, great player rivalries, and the very highest quality host broadcast production and distribution by TPL/ATP Media. We are pleased to continue our successful longstanding partnership with IMG Sports Media, the biggest player in sports programming distribution in the world.”

BANGALORE: Fantasy cricket game Dream11.com today announced its tie-up with New Zealand Cricket to be the principal sponsor of its Champions League T20 team, Otago Volts.

Otago Volts stars seven players with international experience, four of whom were part of the New Zealand Champions Trophy runners-up squad, including Brendon McCullum. Otago Volts also boasts of its overseas import, England‘s all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas.

Commenting on the tie-up, Dream11 Gaming founder and CMD Harsh Jain said, “We at Dream11 are excited at being the first website to sponsor a cricket team at an international tournament. The New Zealand national squad has shown tremendous form in reaching the finals of the Champions Trophy and four key members from the national squad, Brendon McCullum, Ian Butler, Aaron Redmond and Neil Broom will be playing for the Otago Volts.”

MUMBAI: Hero Honda

has taken title sponsorship for the upcoming seven match India versus Australia ODI series.

Information available with Indiantelevision.com indicates that the two- wheeler major has shelled out Rs 150 million.

World Sport Group, which has the on-ground rights to BCCI events, has also roped in Fosters as an associate sponsor. The company which sells bottled water is coughing out Rs 60 million, a source says.

WSG is looking for two more sponsors. “They will be in the finance and insurance sectors. Those deals will be similar to the Fosters one,” the source adds.

The series will air on Neo Cricket.

Hero Honda, an associate partner of the Indian Premier League (IPL), is furthering its association with the game. The two-wheeler major is also an International cricket Council (ICC) partner.

MUMBAI: World Sports Group (WSG), the sports, marketing, media and events management company, has signed a three-year deal with Gautam Gambhir.

As per the announcement, Gambhir will be associated with WSG‘s player management division.

World Sport Group CEO Venu Nair said, “With the advent of the IPL, players and their earnings are at the centre of all the media attention. World Sport Group has in India added a second cricketer to its portfolio. The association is a long term one and is for Gautam‘s worldwide representation rights”

Gambhir is the only Indian cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar to be associated with WSG.

MUMBAI: Former India all-rounder Robin Singh was has been appointed as the new chief coach of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Mumbai Indians for the 2009-10 season.

Former fast bowler Paras Mhambrey has been named as his deputy.

South African Jonty Rhodes would continue to be with the team as a fielding coach. Former South Africa captain Shaun Pollock will also continue to contribute his cricketing knowledge and international experience for its benefit.

The other members of the support staff of Mumbai Indians include Praveen Amre, Nitin Patel, Dhananjay, Ramji Srinivasan and Donald Shugg.

MUMBAI: The International Cricket council (ICC) has announced the groups for the World Cup 2011, post its board meeting in Johannesburg today. India is in Group B along with South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland and Netherlands.

Group A comprises three-time defending champions Australia and 2007 runner-up Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya.

A discussion also took place on the promotion of cricket during the meeting. It was agreed to extend the scope of the project from promotion to include product research and analysis concerning Test, ODI and T20 cricket.

A competitive analysis of other sports and entertainment products will be carried out by a working group and there will be further research carried out into various proposals for product development and variation of test cricket, such as day/night test matches.

The working group will be chaired by ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat and will include a representative from each full member as well as the ICC GM commercial Campbell Jamieson and ICC GM cricket David Richardson.

MUMBAI: Neo Cricket will air the domestic one-day tournament, NKP Salve Challengers Series 2009, from 8- 11 October.

This is a short tournament of four one day matches featuring current and upcoming Indian cricketers. The series is played to showcase talent that the country has and provide opportunities to younger players to make an impression.

The cricketing talents will play against each other at Nagpur this year for the Challenger Series. While Yuvraj Singh will captain the India Red team, Suresh Raina will lead the India Green team and India Blue team will be lead by Mahendra Singh Dhoni whose team also includes Sachin Tendulkar.

Neo Sports Broadcast head programming Mautik Tolia said, “Since this series will be soon followed by the India-Australia ODIs, it will provide the best possible match practice for the Indian players just ahead of the vital series.”

From 25 October, Neo Cricket will air Australia’s tour of India ODI matches. Earlier this month, the channel had aired the Irani Trophy.

MUMBAI

: ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has announced that it has renewed the rights to broadcast the soccer property Barclays Premier League (BPL) on multiple platforms in India till 2013.

As a part of this arrangement, for the first time, all 380 BPL matches will be available to be shown live across multiple platforms including television, Internet and Mobile with up to 190 matches available on a VOD basis.

It has been learnt that Nimbus was the only other bidder for India. ESS says that its partnership with the Premier League stretches back more than a decade, a relationship which has seen the BPL brand enjoy massive growth in India since its initial broadcast on the ESS networks in 1995. In addition to India, ESS has also clinched exclusive rights for another 17 markets across Asia: Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives, Mongolia, Indonesia, The Philippines, East Timor, Cambodia, Laos, North and South Korea and in partnership with Astro for Malaysia and Brunei.

ESS MD Manu Sawhney said, “We have been showcasing the BPL in India for over a decade now and we are very pleased to further extend this association for another three seasons. This renewal underlines our commitment to football fans in India as we continue providing the most compelling content to our viewers and an excellent promotional platform for our business partners.

“We are very excited to renew our partnership with the Premier League with who we share a very strong relationship in many markets across the region. A relationship which has carried through to the fan with our coverage of live matches and continued focus towards developing the property with original, localised football programming and marketing activities and we are very pleased with our efforts in building a strong and loyal franchise of fans for Barclays Premier League in the Indian subcontinent.”

Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore said, “We have worked with ESPN Star Sports in a number of overseas territories for many years and we are very pleased to extend that partnership for seasons 2010/11 – 2012/13.

“We are proud to be working with an organisation that is world renowned for quality sports broadcasting and we have every confidence that they will continue to broadcast Barclays Premier League football in an exciting and innovative manner.”

NEW DELHI: UK-based Satellite Information Services (SIS) will bag the rights for producing and broadcasting the Commonwealth Games next year for the public broadcaster Doordarshan.

Doordarshan sources confirmed that the British group had been shortlisted out of the two consortiums – the other led by an Indian company – which had filed their bids when the last date (19 August) closed for this purpose, out of the five shortlisted earlier for production and coverage facilities in high definition television (HDTV).

Sources, however, said that the matter had been referred to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for its final decision along with some points raised by an empowered committee comprising top officials of Doordarshan and All India Radio.

Satellite Information Services Live of the United Kingdom has formed a consortium with SIS Broadcast and Satellite Information Services Ltd. as lead partner. SIS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Satellite Information Services (Holdings) Ltd and is owned by a combination of leisure and financial investors.

The other shortlisted group was Nimbus Communications which had come in a consortium with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as lead partner.

The others who had initially filed an Expression of Interest were Big Productions in consortium with the Beijing branch of Interpublic Marketing Services (Shanghai) Ltd. and Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. as the lead partners; Nimbus Sports International Pte Ltd of Singapore in consortium with International Sports Broadcasting of the United States as the lead partner; and International Games Broadcast Services of Switzerland.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 are scheduled to be held from October 3 to October 14 next year. The estimated production cost for the event may turn out to be around $ 250 million, the source said.