North America

The Canadian government has abruptly caved into public pressure and scrapped a plan to subsidise the country's six National Hockey League clubs, admitting it had underestimated opposition to the proposal.

Peacock Real Estate Development Corporation (PDC), the wholly owned subsidiary of Peacock Financial Corporation, has signed an agreement with Milwaukee-based The Stadium Game, LLC to assist TSG in identifying stadium, arena, recreational and entertainment facility development opportunities in the Western United States.

International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch says he will welcome NHL players at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Major League Baseball owners have voted unanimously at quarterly meetings to approve the sale of the Texas Rangers to media magnate Tom Hicks.

NSGA and American Sportfishing Association (ASA) will hold their annual trade shows together at McCormick Place in Chicago in 1999.

Australian sports officials are hoping to bring the Goodwill Games Down Under.

World rugby's governing body has failed to promote the sport outside its traditional strongholds and is in dire need of a serious shape-up, former Australian hero David Campese has said.

International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) president Primo Nebiolo has insisted it was safe to stage the Grand Prix final in Moscow.

ABC's Monday Night Football continued to dominate ratings this week but Baseball and Clinton's Presidential peccadilloes made for unspectacular figures, with the lowest rated Dallas game ever.

The San Francisco 49ers have quashed rumors that Dwight Clark, the club's executive vice president, is about join friend and former 49ers president Carmen Policy to help assemble the new Cleveland Browns.

New Orleans was awarded its ninth Super Bowl on Wednesday, beating out San Diegofor the rights to the 2002 NFL title game.

After 11 days of silence, the opposing sides in the NBA lockout agreed to resume formal bargaining talks later this week, in a bid to save their Christmas NBC TV schedule.

Sixteen locked out NBA stars will stage an exhibition game this month in Atlantic City to raise money for charity and for other NBA players with less deep pockets who may be feeling the pinch of missed paychecks.

The International Olympic Committee plans to press up to 12 of its members to resign over the bribery scandal surrounding the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, according to reports in the US.

An Australian IOC member alleged to have taken his family on four free holidays to Salt Lake City has angrily denied any wrongdoing and accused the city's Board of Ethics of defamation.

John Krimsky, who in 13 years with the United States Olympic Committee raised more than $2 billion on behalf of U.S. Olympic athletes, is leaving his post to return to the private sector in a USOC shake-up.