MARKETING
DRUID PARK, the training ground for the Newcastle Falcons rugby union team, is set to be sold at auction in London on 18th May at the Park Lane Hotel, London. The ground, adjacent to Newcastle International Airport, has a guide price of £225,000 - £250,000. Dave Thompson, the major shareholder of the Falcons, signed a 25-year lease on the former Blue Star FC ground in 2007.
UKA (UK Athletics) announced an extension of its partnership with supermarket brand SPAR UK for a further four years until 2013, a deal negotiated by Fast Track. Niels de Vos, UKA chief executive, said: “The SPAR Sprints Initiative boasts twelve SPAR Sprints Centres throughout the UK providing regular, focused training for local youngsters by UKA qualified coaches. This support for athletics at all levels from grassroots through to a national level offers our youngsters a great chance to make world class podiums in the future.” The SPAR Sprints programme – which has taken place for four years – has been an initiative to help identify and develop talented young performers in an environment that ensures they reach their full potential.
THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL LEAGUE invited applications from suppliers of CRM and ticketing solutions to go on a list of approved companies for its member clubs. After being launched last season, the scheme already has three approved CRM suppliers, and is now looking to broaden the list. Once firms have been approved, their status will be reviewed on an annual basis. The Football League said there would be no costs to companies in the approval process, and it would not involve companies having to go through an extensive tendering process.
BRITISH HORSERACING launched a five-year marketing plan in the hope to rebrand the sport as a "new British classic" and broaden its appeal to the British public. According to UK newspaper the Guardian, the rebrand – devised with the help of brand consultants Harrison Fraser – is the result of months of interviews and workshops with racing professionals, race-goers and punters and has cost £250,000 to develop. Harrison Fraser's research found that around 10 per cent of the British population goes to the races at least once a year, a third attending on a regular basis. The rebrand’s goal is to convert irregular racegoers into more regular ones and reach out to around 90 per cent of the population who never go to watch the sport. An initial progress reports is expected in July.
ONLINE GAMING FIRM 188Bet signed sponsorship deals with English football clubs Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic, becoming the first company to sponsor two Premier League clubs at the same time. 188Bet will be replacing brands Reebok (Bolton) and JJB Sports (Wigan) to become the principal sponsor of each in a two-year deal starting with the 2009-10 season. The brand’s logo will appear on all adult club shirts.
THE SPL (Scottish Premier League) announced the extension of its existing media deal with the Sportfive agency. The SPL will continue to partner Sportfive for the marketing of the league's overseas broadcasting rights until the end of season 2013-14. Lex Gold, executive chairman of the SPL said: "Sportfive has proven to be a professional, reliable and successful partner. This deal secures and should increase our international reach. At a time of economic difficulty we are delighted to do a deal that will bring in over £10 million for our clubs between now and 2014."
EVENTS
A RECORD 174 medalists have been confirmed for the BT Paralympic World Cup in Manchester from 20-25 May. The Cup is the first major multi-sport international competition since the Paralympic Games. ParalympicsGB chief executive Phil Lane said: “It is fantastic that so many of our Paralympians from the Beijing Games will be competing in Manchester. The BT Paralympic World Cup is one of the few multi-sport events outside the Paralympic Games, so it provides an excellent opportunity for British competitors to experience a multi-sport environment.”
THE NFL (National Football League) is considering playing a second regular-season game in the UK for the 2010 season, according to commissioner Roger Goodell. The NFL first staged a regular-season game at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2007, when the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13–10, followed by the New Orleans Saints taking on the San Diego Chargers the year after at the same venue. Both games sold out. Some players have been critical of the overseas game because of the travel involved in the middle of the season, while team owners have also stressed that the initiative means one team loses a home game. The issue will be discussed at a league meeting next week, possibly in conjunction with two regular-season games being added to the NFL schedule.
ATTENDANCES at professional football matches outside the Premier League rose to a 50-year high this season despite the economic downturn, the Football League announced. Total attendances for the Championship, League One and League Two - the three divisions below the top-flight Premiership - reached over 16 million for the fifth consecutive season. More than 16.35 million supporters attended the 1,656 matches played during the 2008-09 season, an increase of 1 per cent on last year. Football League gates are currently at their highest levels for nearly 50 years, and have more than doubled since the mid-eighties. Attendances reached 7.5 million in the 1985-86 season. The Championship also retained its position as the fourth best attended league in Europe, ahead of Italy's Serie A and behind only the Premier League, Spain's Primera Liga and Germany's Bundesliga.
THE EUROPEAN GOLF TOUR confirmed that there will be no British Masters this year after failing to find a new sponsor to replace Quinn Insurance. The event was once one of the most high-profile tournaments on the tour in the early summer but its popularity has declined in recent years following a shift to a September slot.
WEMBLEY STADIUM will host a new annual pre-season football tournament to be called The Wembley Cup. Champions League finalists Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur, Celtic and African Champions Al Ahly of Egypt will take part in the inaugural tournament on Friday 24th and Sunday 26th July 2009. The tournament is being created and managed by the IMG agency. Sky Sports have the exclusive broadcast rights for the tournament.
SOCCEREX, the international football conference and exhibition brand, revealed that Manchester will host a new Soccerex European Forum from 2010-2013. This year’s Soccerex London Forum, held on Wednesday at Wembley Stadium, was attended by senior football industry executives, representing 200 football clubs, federations, leagues and brand representatives with delegates drawn from 62 different countries.
ANDY ROXBURGH, Technical Director of UEFA, was announced as a speaker at the Leaders in Football conference. Roxburgh is responsible for coaching and development across the 53 Uefa member football associations. Prior to his current role at Uefa, he was previously technical director at the Scottish Football Association, from 1975 to 1993. The Leaders in Football conference takes place at Chelsea FC on October 7 and 8 this year.
PAUL DEIGHTON, London 2012 Olympic Organising Committee CEO, will deliver the introductory keynote address at the Sports Event Management ’09 conference at the Shaw Theatre at the Novotel, St Pancras, London on November 10. Deighton will be making his third appearance at the event, now in its fifth year attracting sports event management professionals. His speech will reflect on the progress made by the Organising Committee and look to the challenges and milestones of the months ahead.
BERNIE ECCLESTONE, the Formula One commercial rights-holder, said he is prepared to cancel the British Grand Prix for one year if the revamp of Donington Park is not completed in time for 2010. “If the work at Donington is not finished in time, we would be happy to skip a year,” Ecclestone told UK newspaper The Times. He also ruled out staging a race at Silverstone, which hosts the British Grand Prix on June 21.
FINANCE
THE UK GOVERNMENT is investing £324 million of the Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) budget in the Olympic Village, it was announced. Figures also published showed that cost savings and good management across the project mean the final anticipated cost of the ODA’s spend on the programme has fallen by £179 million. Government ministers decided that the original deal for the developers Lend Lease to fund the Village was not in the best interests of the taxpayer and that it would cost more public money in the long term. With the Village publicly owned, the public sector will receive returns from unit sales after the Games.
THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE plans to strengthen its financial regulations, according to proposals announced by its chief executive Richard Scudamore. The proposals came in response to a request from Sports Minister Andy Burnham and the Football Association, who have put pressure on the Premier League to curb debt and increase financial transparency. Scudamore’s proposals include an independent audit of club accounts to determine whether a club is financially viable, an annual requirement to demonstrate that a club does not have outstanding debts to other clubs, improved ownership rules requiring the disclosure of any interest in a club over a 10 per cent shareholding and an extension of the rule whereby conviction for certain offences renders a person illegible for club ownership. Scudamore said the new guidelines should come into force for the start of next season, if approved by the league's 20 clubs.
KEITH HARRIS, the banker who brokered Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea, said that Premier League clubs have dropped in value by as much as 20 per cent in the past year. Harris told the Soccerex London Forum that the UK financial crisis was behind the drop in value and that new investors are unlikely to be able to finance deals by ‘raising debt’, as the Glazers did in 2005 when they bought Manchester United for $1.4 billion. He added that banks have tightened lending practices meaning owners will need “available cash not just to make the acquisition but also to invest in the businesses that they are acquiring.”
APPOINTMENTS
SPORTS RECRUITMENT INTERNATIONAL, an executive search specialist, was appointed by Commonwealth Games England (CGE) to manage the appointment of new board of directors as part of a radical shake-up of the organisation’s priorities and objectives in the lead up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. CGE took the opportunity to redefine the board’s remit, and as a result is looking for directors with strong experience in sport, finance, marketing and communications and governance to join Chairman, Sir Andrew Foster on the board.
