South America

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is set to further strengthen its presence outside the North American market by entering into a partnership with the Brazilian Liga Nacional de Basquete (LNB) top-tier domestic league, according to the Grantland.com website.

Israeli company International Security & Defence Systems (ISDS) has said it has been awarded the contract to plan and coordinate the security concept for Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympic Games in a deal worth $2.2bn (€1.7bn).

The Argentine Olympic Committee (COA) has said it is considering a bid for a future edition of the summer or winter Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has praised the progress made in Rio de Janeiro’s preparations for the 2016 Olympics over the past six months, but has maintained that the schedule for the next edition of the summer Games “remains tight.”

Key figures from Fifa, Coca-Cola and Apex-Brasil are the latest additions to the international speaker line-up for the Leaders Sport Business Summit.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has praised Buenos Aires’ hosting plans for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, which will focus on engaging with the Argentinian city’s sizeable inner-city population.

Gilbert Felli, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive director of the Olympic Games, is confident that a lawsuit against Rio de Janeiro and the developer of a new golf course in the city will not impact the sport’s test event ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The North American IndyCar motor-racing series is set to return to Brazil next year after organisers announced that a deal had been agreed for a race to take place at Brasilia’s Autodromo Internacional Nelson Piquet.

Rio 2016 has announced details of its ticket pricing strategy for the Olympic Games, and insisted that more than half of the 7.5 million tickets available will be priced at R70 (€24/$31) or less in a bid to ensure the event is “open to everyone.”

The International University Sports Federation, FISU, has announced that the inaugural International University Beach Games will take place later this year in Maceio, Brazil.

German ticketing company Eventim has been appointed as the exclusive ticketing services provider for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Bernard Lapasset, the president of the International Rugby Board, the global governing body of rugby union, is now “much more confident” that organisers of the Rio 2016 summer Olympics will provide an ideal platform for rugby sevens’ debut at the Games.

Paraguayan Football Association (APF) president Juan Angel Napout has been appointed as the new president of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol).

Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A club Botafogo, one of Brazil’s most historic football teams, has had its accounts frozen as its financial crisis deepens.

Luis Segura has taken on the presidency of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) on an interim basis until October 2015.

Rio 2016 on Monday celebrated the two-year countdown to the opening of its Olympic Games, with organisers vowing that the delays and cost overruns which blighted the lead-in to the country’s staging of the 2014 Fifa World Cup will not be repeated.