Argentina

Argentina has held talks with leading southern hemisphere nations over the possibility of expanding rugby union’s Tri-Nation series, according to the BBC.

Havas Sports opened a new office in Buenos Aires Argentina headed by Diego Soraires, former commercial director of ISL Puntogol.

Argentina and Chile will host the 2009 Dakar Rally after agreeing a deal with organisers the Amaury Sport Organisation.

The Australian Rugby Union said that Southern Hemisphere rugby’s flagship competitions, the Super 14 and Tri-Nations, could be reinvigorated in quality and financially by the introduction of Argentina.

Santa Monica signed an agreement with various 1st Division teams in Chile and agreed a deal for a controlling share in an Argentine marketing company with rights for the Argentine Football Association and national team.

With more than 2 months to go before the opening of SPORTELMonaco 2006, exhibitors have committed to more than 85% of the expanded floor space in the Grimaldi Forum.

The FC)dC)ration Internationale de l’Automobile approved the calendar for the 2007 World Rally Championship, adding three new races in Ireland, Norway and Portugal. The new races replace those in Australia, Cyprus and Turkey. The FIA said in a statement that its World Motor Sport Council had approved a calendar which would continue to run on the existing January-November format instead of the proposed August-May switch. It said that it would decide whether to add further events to the calendar at its next World Motor Sport Council meeting.

The 2006 World Cup is generating record television audiences for football in the US.Before the quarter-finals US network ABC averaged 3.7 million viewers for each of its 10 matches while cable channels ESPN and ESPN2 averaged 1.8 million and 1.1 million viewers respectively per match and Spanish-language broadcaster Univision averaged 2.2 million viewers per match.

TV audiences for the FIFA World Cup in host country Germany have rocketed by 51 percent on the 2002 event, according to the latest research commissioned by Infront.

Close to four in ten viewers of the global audience for the FIFA World Cup are women, according to soccer world governing body FIFA’s marketing agency Infront.

After all the hype it is finally here – the FIFA World Cup 2006 kicks-off this evening in Germany and is set to smash TV viewing records.

It will come as little surprise to most, but Brazil’s soccer team is the most commercially attractive for corporate sponsorship to play at next month’s FIFA World Cup, according to a survey conducted by a sports marketing company.

International Volleyball Federation president Ruben Acosta and associates have been acquitted of charges relating to falsifying FIVB financial records.

World Rally Championship (WRC) and BP-Ford World Rally have formed a joint partnership with cleaning technology company KC$rcherfor the 2006 season.

Fernando LC3pez has been named senior news director of the Spanish-language editions of SportsCenter, televised on ESPN Deportes in the U.S. and on ESPN Dos in Latin America.

TWI is looking to strengthen its presence in Latin America, the Caribbean and US Hispanic markets by moving a key senior executive to Miami.