Spotify set for £237m Barcelona sponsorship deal February 8, 2022 Spotify are close to agreeing a sponsorship deal with Barcelona that would be among the biggest in football, according to reports in Spain. The music streaming platform would pay the Catalan club €280m (£237m) over three years, said radio station RAC1. In return Spotify would get naming rights to Barcelona’s stadium, which would be rebranded [...]
Padel: The racket sport proving a smash but heading for the courts January 28, 2022 It’s loved by footballers, boasts celebrity investors and is among the fastest growing sports in the world, yet you may not even have heard of padel. The fast and furious hybrid of tennis and squash has long been hugely popular in Latin countries but recently participation has rocketed elsewhere, including the UK. Now it is [...]
Ed Warner: Stand up for English cricket January 27, 2022 Wanted: someone to stand up for English cricket. National governing body the ECB is hunkered in its bunker, losing the PR battles over racism and the Ashes debacle. This simply won’t do. Challenging though the circumstances are, the sport needs visible leadership with a strong voice, prepared to defend what is good about it while [...]
Cricketer Taylor reveals ban after spot-fixing cocaine blackmail plot January 24, 2022 Former Zimbabwe cricket captain Brendan Taylor says he is facing a ban for failing to quickly report a spot-fixing approach. Taylor says he reluctantly took a payment of $15,000 during a business trip to India in 2019 after being blackmailed with footage of him taking cocaine. The 35-year-old waited four months before reporting the incident [...]
Sports must protect its precious human capital like Djokovic and Hamilton January 20, 2022 Picture Novak Djokovic. Do you see a villain sticking two fingers up at vaccine orthodoxy, or a heroic advocate for personal freedoms you’d risk a pepper-spraying for? What of Lewis Hamilton and his rainbow helmet and sloganed T-shirts? Gesture politician or vital diversity campaigner? And what say you as one football team takes the knee [...]
Netflix tennis doc to capture Novak Djokovic Australian visa drama January 13, 2022 The Novak Djokovic Australian Open visa saga is set to feature in a new fly-on-the-wall docuseries to be shown on Netflix, according to reports. The makers of smash-hit Formula 1 show Drive To Survive are currently filming a tennis version featuring some of the biggest names on the men’s and women’s tours, says the Mail. [...]
Novak Djokovic: Sponsors tipped to stand by tennis star’s £20m contracts January 11, 2022 Novak Djokovic may have been deluged with negative publicity over his visa row and anti-vax stance but that is unlikely to cost him any major sponsorship deals, say industry experts. Djokovic looks set to play the Australian Open next week after successfully appealing the decision to deny him entry to the country over questions about [...]
Novak Djokovic set to be deported after Australia visa row January 5, 2022 Nine-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic looks set to miss this month’s Grand Slam after he was dramatically denied entry to the country yesterday. The men’s tennis world No1 struck a triumphant tone when posting on social media this week that he would be playing the Australian Open having been exempted from its strict Covid-19 [...]
Best of 2021: Lewes FC, the football club of the future? December 25, 2021 In this article from March 2021, Frank Dalleres speaks to Maggie Murphy, general manager and now CEO of Lewes FC about the club’s pioneering stance on equal pay, how a purpose-led approach can attract commercial partners, and bold plans for the future. They take pride in doing things differently at Lewes FC, the small football [...]
Fifa biennial World Cup claims questioned by sport industry experts December 21, 2021 Leading figures in sports marketing have questioned Fifa’s claim that switching to biennial men’s World Cups would drive a huge revenue increase. Football’s world governing body revived the argument to stage its showpiece more regularly on Monday by presenting research that estimated the change would boost income by 60 per cent over the first four [...]