Manchester United have agreed a deal with online betting firm bwin that will see the two partner one another for three years.
The Gibraltar-based business will run gambling kiosks and advertise from the Premier League runners-up Old Trafford home after the club announced their partnership today – with the bookmakers also being integrated into the United’s official website.
And bwin, who also sponsor La Liga juggernauts Real Madrid, claim the deal will allow the company to build upon United’s international fanbase to deliver unique online entertainment experiences.
“Manchester United is one of the biggest names in world sport with a global fan base running into hundreds of millions. We share a passion for football that has always been at the heart of our long-term brand development strategy,” said Norbert Teufelberger, Co-CEO of bwin’s parent company bwin.party.
“As Europe’s leading online sports betting operator, football is fundamental to our long-term success, making up approximately half of our total sports betting revenue of £204million in 2011.
“As well as supporting our real money gaming business, the agreement complements our recent move into social gaming. Manchester United has 569 million followers outside of Europe, providing us with a great opportunity to offer jointly designed and innovative products in countries that do not yet allow real money online sports betting.”
Read More: Bet on red: Manchester United agree three-year deal with gambling firm bwin | Mancunian Matters
ParalympicsGB's target, set by the government's funding body UK Sport, was based on data from all 18 funded Paralympic sports, that together produced a collective performance target range of 95 to 145 medals.
The team have finished second in the overall tally at the last three Games and the ambition is to once again secure that position by winning a minimum of 103 medals from at least 12 different sports.
Britain's London 2012 Paralympic campaign has been backed by over £49 million of funding and UK Sport are supremely confident of once again securing second place.
Baroness Sue Campbell, the chairwoman of UK Sport, said: "British Paralympic sport is better-resourced, and in a stronger position than ever before.
"We are able today to confirm that our goal of holding second place in the Paralympic medal table at our home Games remains on track, in line with our intentions set out back in 2006 when extra funding for Olympic and Paralympic sport was secured.
Read More: London 2012 Paralympics: UK Sport set ParalympicsGB target of finishing 2nd place with 'at least' 103 medals - Telegraph
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally got back to Victory Lane on the Sprint Cup Series with a win in the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway back in June, and he'll be looking to pay out on the NASCAR lines at the track once again on Sunday afternoon.
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Earnhardt Jr. and the rest of the drivers of the Sprint Cup Series will compete in the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, with the circuit fast approaching the start of its Chase playoffs; that begins in Chicago on September 16.
And Earnhardt Jr. will be looking for another good result at Michigan to secure his hold on a berth in the Chase; after leading the standings earlier in the season, he's now down to fourth place (17 points back of first-place Jimmie Johnson) and has just the one win.
Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman are the other drivers currently holding down Chase berths, with Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon all below the cutoff line heading into this weekend's race at Michigan.
Edwards has a pair of Michigan victories in his career in 2008 and 2007, while Busch took the checkered flag at the venue in this race last year and will be trying to pay off on the NASCAR odds at Bovada in the event once again on Sunday. Gordon has also won at Michigan in the past, but he hasn't managed to take the checkered flag there since 2001.
Stewart, Kenseth, Biffle, and Johnson followed Earnhardt Jr. across the finish line at Michigan back in June, with Gordon sixth, Edwards 11th, and Busch back in 32nd.
So the Minister for Sport has summoned representatives from the Valerie Adams camp and the New Zealand Olympic Committee to his Beehive office so he can get to the bottom of what happened in London.
Two reactions immediately surface.
Good luck.
And here's another cynical politician at work.
Only Murray McCully has proven himself to be a different beast, at least when it comes to sport.
That's why it will be intriguing to see what emerges from this week's meeting.
Will it be political posturing and grandstanding? More excuse-making? Or meaningful changes? And if so, why and what to?
The NZOC is struggling to conceal its annoyance that it has been summoned to the headmaster's office. These are matters that should be dealt with internally, they say. No need to involve the minister.
Now McCully has got himself involved. Normally most of us would, at best, sigh at the prospect.
But McCully has an interesting track history around elite athletes.
As the London 2012 Olympic Games drew to a spectacular end last week, attention quickly turned to the future and potential legacy and “inspiration“ it will deliver. This word has populated the media landscape and a search for #inspiration on Twitter will give some indication of its prevalence. Unsurprisingly, the capacity for sport to inspire has fronted the discourse before and during the 2012 Games. Over the coming months and years, the success of the Games will be judged against its claim to “inspire a generation”. And concerns were raised on Wednesday following a BBC survey suggesting that any inspiration-boost will be short-lived.
Whether or not the Olympics will have any lasting legacy in terms of increased rates in physical activity and sport remains to be seen. There is scant research to suggest that the hosting of the Games in other countries has led to any lasting increase in physical activity and sport; yet the 2012 slogan encapsulates the belief that in can. The Department of Culture Media and Sport suggested that “the Games offer a fantastic opportunity to improve the lives of young people”.
Read More: The end of the affair? Why inspiration from London 2012 might be short-lived | Emma Rich | Independent Notebook Blogs
England are on the verge of surrendering their number one ranking to South Africa after a miserable end to the fourth day of the final Test at Lord's.
Needing 346 to win the match, draw the series and stay top of the International Cricket Council rankings, England lost Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss, both lbw to Vernon Philander, to close on 16-2.
Earlier, the England bowlers stuck to their task in dismissing South Africa for 351, although Hashim Amla was able to complete his second century of the series.
His dismissal for 121 was the first wicket in a spell of 3-14 from Steven Finn which gave Strauss's men a glimmer of hope.
But JP Duminy and Philander blunted the England revival and manoeuvred South Africa into a position from which it will take something extraordinary to prevent them from moving to the top of the rankings.
Read More: BBC Sport - England v South Africa: Philander leaves England staring at defeat
Last week, Cantor Gaming launched Wi-Fi enabled sports betting across Nevada. All you need to place a sports bet in Nevada is a computer, tablet or phone that can connect to a Wi-Fi network, proximity to that network and an established account with Cantor Gaming.
That makes sports betting in Nevada the first gambling activity, other than lottery ticket sales, that can be conducted in a regulated online environment anywhere in the U.S. And here are 10 ways that it's going to change the gambling industry.
Read More: Top-10 reasons online sports betting in Nevada is a game changer
Rugby League more than lived up to its tag as the sport that keeps giving on Tuesday.
It was a day dominated by news of the ARLC signing a television rights deal worth just over a $1 billion with the Nine Network and Foxtel to broadcast the NRL for the next five years.
It also saw Laurie Daley's appointment as NSW State of Origin coach, the sacking of Warriors mentor Brian McClennan, the retirement of St George Illawarra's grand-final-winning skipper Ben Hornby and star hooker Issac Luke's relegation to NSW Cup by South Sydney coach Michael Maguire.
And for good measure axed NRL CEO David Gallop was appointed as new supremo of Football Federation Australia.
World No 1 at Test level. For South Africa, it is so much more than a sporting achievement; rather, it is the end product of a complex and difficult story of twists and turns in the battle against apartheid.
Watching this mace-wielding multi-racial team parade joyously around the Lord's boundary on Monday evening was a deeply emotional experience. Memories of the "bad old days" came flooding back.
I recalled many hours spent on the bumpy, dusty fields of the Cape Flats, where the pitches were made of matting and the outfields overlapped, so that boundary fielders from one match were standing close to the wickets of the neighbouring game. Appeals were not "Howzat!", but deafening bellows of "Umi-i-i-i-re!"
These were leagues for non-white players in an era when it was illegal for blacks and whites to play together. I was one of a tiny handful of whites who had defected from the elite white cricket set-up. As a cricket-mad university student, and a first-class umpire, deprived of seeing South Africa compete internationally, I had been "converted" to the cause by the leader of the non-racial cricket movement, Hassan Howa.
Read More: South Africa: From global outcasts to top of the world - Cricket - Sport - The Independent
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The England selectors have announced the team for the ODI cricket series against South Africa on Friday (August 24). at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, Wales, which is expected to be the same team that will defend its title in the ICC T20 World Cup.
The England versus South Africa ODI series consists of five fixtures that are as follows.
1st ODI Friday August 24 Sophia Gardens, Cardiff
2nd ODI Tuesday August 28 The Rose Bowl, Southampton
3rd ODI Friday August 31 Kennington Oval, London
4th ODI Sunday September 2 Lord's, London
5th ODI Wednesday September 5 Trent Bridge, Nottingham
Read More: England ODI Cricket Squad Against South Africa - GamblingKingz-com
Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region plans to apply to host the sport climbing World Cup over the next five to six years, as its plateau geography would be ideal for the event, according to local climbers.
"We hope to host the IFSC Climbing World Cup so as to enhance Tibet's influence in international sport climbing," said Nyima Tsering, chief of Tibet's mountaineering team, on Wednesday in the regional capital of Lhasa.
The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) Boulder World Cup will be held in Munich, Germanythis weekend.
Nyima Tsering said Tibet hopes to be more competitive in climbing events by training more athletes and popularizing the sport both in Tibet and across China.
Specialists are studying the feasibility of hosting an international sporting event in the high-altitude region, said Nyima Tsering.
"The results of their feasibility study will be reported to the IFSC, and if all works out well, Tibet will hopefully host its first climbing World Cup in five or six years."
The Tibet autonomous region boasts world-class climbers who are adept at climbing the craggy mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Its rock climbing team was established in 2006 and has 11 members who train in east China's Jiangxi province for most of the year.
Last month, Tibet hosted the 2012 China Himalaya Rock Climbing Contest. Tibetan climber Sonam Gyatso won the men's championship.
Read More: Eastday-Tibet hopes to host sport climbing world cup
The new beIN Sport network said Wednesday it had acquired rights to U.S. road qualifiers this year and next along with all other qualifiers in the North and Central American and Caribbean region for the 2014 tournament, except for matches involving Mexico.
The network, launched last week by the Al-Jazeera Sport Media Network, is available to only about 7% of U.S. television households. It can be received in the 8 million homes that subscribe to its tier on DirecTV and DISH, which are available in 34 million households in all.
While the U.S. Soccer Federation owns rights to its home qualifiers, Traffic Sports USA bought rights to the road games from the CONCACAF nations that owned them, and Traffic resold them to beIN.
"We don't control the rights for our away matches but have talked with beIN Sport and know that they have an aggressive plan to expand distribution over the weeks and months to come," U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati said in an e-mail. "Obviously, we'd like as wide a distribution in the U.S. as possible for our (World Cup qualifying) matches."
The U.S. team has remaining road qualifiers this year in the semifinal round at Jamaica on Sept. 7 and at Antigua and Barbuda on Oct. 12.
Read More: U.S. World Cup road qualifiers to be aired on beIN Sport USA
Will Power has managed to come out on top at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma in each of the past two years, and he'll be looking to take the checkered flag at the race once again on Sunday as the circuit's season draws closer to its conclusion.
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Power was the champion at the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma in both 2010 and 2011, and he heads into the 2012 running of that race with a five-point lead on Ryan Hunter-Reay in the IndyCar Series driver standings.
And after Sonoma there are only two more events left on the IndyCar calendar for this season (Baltimore and Fontana), meaning a Power victory on Sunday would go a long way toward him capturing the driver's title for 2012.
Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon rounded out the top five drivers at last year's Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, and Hunter-Reay ended up in 10th place.
Castroneves and Dixon are the top challengers to Power and Hunter-Reay in the driver standings right now, with Castroneves 26 points behind Power and Dixon 28 points back of first place. Dixon earned 50 points in the series' last race at Mid-Ohio on August 5, taking his second checkered flag of the season by holding off Power for the victory that day.
Power and Hunter-Reay lead the way with three victories apiece so far this year, with Dixon and Castroneves both winning twice. Franchitti and Justin Wilson are the only other drivers with IndyCar wins so far this year – they sit eighth and 12th in the current standings.
Dixon, Castroneves, and Franchitti won the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma from 2007-2009.
Elliott Sadler has already won one Nationwide Series event at Bristol Motor Speedway this season, and he'll be gunning for his second victory of 2012 at that track on Friday night as the circuit competes in the Food City 250.
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Sadler (11/1 to win the Food City 250) took the checkered flag in the Ford EcoBoost 300 at Bristol back in March, beating Sprint Cup Series regulars Kasey Kahne, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr. across the finish line for the victory that day.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (12/1) and Justin Allgaier (16/1) were sixth and seventh at the Ford EcoBoost 300, while Austin Dillon (16/1) had to settle for a 12th-place result, Sam Hornish Jr. (18/1) ended up 13th and Kyle Busch (2/1) disappointed his supporters on the auto racing odds by finishing 17th.
Busch, though, is the two-time defending champion at the Food City 250, winning the race both in 2010 and last season – when he grabbed his 50th career victory on the Nationwide Series. Sadler ended up in eighth place at last year's Food City 250 at Bristol.
Sadler leads the Nationwide Series standings heading into Friday's race with 824 points, with four victories, nine Top-5 results, and 16 Top-10 finishes on his resume for 2012. Stenhouse Jr. and Hornish Jr. are both 22 points back of Sadler in a tie for second place.
Dillon is fourth in the current Nationwide Series standings, 35 points behind Sadler, while Allgaier is 68 points back of the leader in fifth place. Allgaier, though, is coming off a win at the NAPA Auto Parts 200 in Montreal last week; that was his first victory of the season.
Sprint Cup Series regulars Busch, Logano (9/1), Keselowski (14/5), Kahne (12/1), and Kevin Harvick (4/1) are all in the field for Friday night's Nationwide Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway; none of them are eligible for the series title.
Kyle Busch is pegged as the favorite on the NASCAR odds to do something he desperately needs to do on Saturday night – pick up the checkered flag in the Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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Busch currently sits below the cut-off line to make NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup, with time quickly running out for the series' drivers to clinch their berths for the playoffs.
That means Busch will give his Chase chances a real shot in the arm with his second win of the season on Saturday night – he also won at Richmond back in April. A second victory would push Busch into a Wild Card berth for the Chase.
And with a history of winning at Bristol, Busch sits as the 5/1 favorite on the NASCAR odds at Bovada to visit Victory Lane on Saturday night. Busch has won five Cup races at Bristol in his career, first in 2007, then twice in 2009, and then again in both 2010 and 2011.
Brad Keselowski, though, has crossed the finish line in first place each of the last two times that the drivers of the Sprint Cup Series hit the pavement at Bristol, and he's just behind Busch at 7/1 odds to win on Saturday. Keselowski, who sits fifth in the current driver standings, won at Bristol back in March and in the Irwin Tools Night Race last August.
Jimmie Johnson follows those top favorites at 17/2 odds to take the checkered flag on Saturday, with Matt Kenseth at 10/1, and each of Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle, Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon at 12/1. Gordon is also below the Chase cut-off line right now and could use a second victory this season to get him back into title contention.
Denny Hamlin (15/1), Kasey Kahne (16/1) and Tony Stewart (16/1) round out the second tier of contenders for Saturday, with Kevin Harvick at 20/1, and Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Newman all at 25/1.
Cycling has long been mired in doping controversy but there had been signs that authorities were winning their fight against drugs before Lance Armstrong's fall from grace reopened all the old wounds.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency's decision on Friday to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him for life is a hammer blow to a sport which had often relied on the exploits of the cancer survivor for good publicity.
Stemming the flow of a stream of tales about cheats at the top, Armstrong's story of overcoming the biggest odds to become the greatest rider the world has ever seen transcended cycling and made the sport much more popular in the United States.
The suspicions were always there that the American, like so many other cyclists of his era, had dabbled in doping as he won every Tour from 1999 to 2005 but until Friday most fans hoped he would end up clean.
Armstrong denies wrongdoing but has been sanctioned after ending his fight against what he believes is an unfair witch-hunt, one which has hurt cycling just as much as the man himself just when the sport appeared to be shedding the drugs tag.
"It just adds to the negative image of our sport," British rider Chris Froome told reporters at the Tour of Spain.
Froome finished second behind compatriot Bradley Wiggins in July's Tour de France, a race that for once gained headlines for superb displays of racing and endurance rather than the scourge of doping which had all too often marred the event.
Read More: Armstrong ban hits sport hard after signs of progress | Sports | GMA News Online | The Go-To Site for Filipinos Everywhere
KIDS as young as eight are turning to sports psychologists to get the edge on their rivals in the relentless pursuit of sporting success.
Industry experts believe today's aspiring champions have to cope with heavier training regimes than athletes of yesteryear and have the added pressures of rankings, selections, media attention and sponsorships - all the while balancing school.
Are we pushing young sports stars too hard? Leave a comment below
Parents are also spending thousands of dollars on the same sports psychologists used by their children's professional heroes.
While every sport warrants a different technique, experts teach kids how to deal with anxiety, how to settle pre-game nerves, build mental toughness and how to undertake pre-game rituals. They also learn relaxation techniques and how to cope when things don't go their way.
Athletes and coaches also learn how to communicate so coaches and players can identify what's going wrong and how to fix the problem. The unprecedented pre-teen push is working, according to coaches.
Sports psychologist Paul Penna, who works with Swimming Australia and the Wests Tigers NRL club, said junior athletes make up 40 per cent of his focus performance psychology practice at the Sydney Sports Medicine Centre.
Read More: Psychologists help our young sport stars get a head start on success | The Courier-Mail
The Gibraltar-based business will run gambling kiosks and advertise from the Premier League runners-up Old Trafford home after the club announced their partnership today – with the bookmakers also being integrated into the United’s official website.
And bwin, who also sponsor La Liga juggernauts Real Madrid, claim the deal will allow the company to build upon United’s international fanbase to deliver unique online entertainment experiences.
“Manchester United is one of the biggest names in world sport with a global fan base running into hundreds of millions. We share a passion for football that has always been at the heart of our long-term brand development strategy,” said Norbert Teufelberger, Co-CEO of bwin’s parent company bwin.party.
“As Europe’s leading online sports betting operator, football is fundamental to our long-term success, making up approximately half of our total sports betting revenue of £204million in 2011.
“As well as supporting our real money gaming business, the agreement complements our recent move into social gaming. Manchester United has 569 million followers outside of Europe, providing us with a great opportunity to offer jointly designed and innovative products in countries that do not yet allow real money online sports betting.”
Read More: Bet on red: Manchester United agree three-year deal with gambling firm bwin | Mancunian Matters