Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria in Australia, is the best location in the world to hold a sports event according to an industry analysis of sports cities globally. Compiled by London-based consulting and research company ArkSports Limited, the analysis sought to determine which city in the world is the ‘Ultimate Sports City’ in terms of hosting international major events. Recent Commonwealth Games host Melbourne came out on top, beating France’s capital Paris and Australian rival Sydney, which are tied in joint second place. Berlin, Germany came fourth and London, England, fifth. Twenty cities made the initial cut based on their history of hosting sports events and were then ranked according to ArkSports by a range of criteria, including the number of annual sports events held, major events held or won up until 2010, facilities, transport, accommodation, government support, weather, legacy, public sports interest and quality of life. Melbourne topped the rankings in several sections, including major events held or won, facilities and government support, and came second in the majority of others including number of annual events held, weather and legacy. The ArkSports analysis also included the results from a survey of selected key executives within the business of sport, asking them their opinions on which city in the world is the best at hosting major sports events. Speaking about the findings, Luke Boyle, Director of ArkSports, said: “Bidding for and then hosting sports events is a huge industry with a lot of attention given to major events such as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Commonwealth Games. This year our winner has proven itself as an excellent host of the Commonwealth Games, and in recent years securing World Championships in Gymnastics, Cycling, Lifesaving and Swimming (2007). Melbourne also has a strong track record of hosting major annual events such as a Formula One Grand Prix, the Australian Open Tennis Championships and a round of the MotoGp. The City’s excellent facilities, strong government support, exceptional legacy planning make it a worthy winner.” For further details on the research e-mail survey@arksports.com quoting ‘Ultimate Sports City’.
Getty Images becomes S&T sponsor
ArkSports is delighted to announce that Getty Images, the world’s leading imagery company, has become the new Digital Photography Sponsor of Sport and Technology. Getty Images creates and distributes the world's largest and broadest imagery collections, making them available in the most accessible and usable way - 24 hours a day, every day. Getty Images’ products are found each day in the full range of traditional and digital media worldwide - from contemporary creative imagery to sports, news, entertainment, archival imagery and tailored assignments. Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein founded Getty Images in 1995 with the goal of turning a disjointed and fragmented stock photography market into a thriving, modernised industry able to meet the changing needs of visual communicators. Getty Images was the first company to license imagery via the web, moving the entire industry online. Today, Getty Images is a global company with customers worldwide. Its website (www.gettyimages.com) serves an average of 3.5m unique users and 167m page views each month. Nearly 100% of the company’s visual content is delivered digitally. In a sports capacity, Getty Images is a specialist in serving the imagery, brand and marketing needs of the world’s premier sports tournaments, rights holders, teams, sponsors and related businesses. As just some examples of its heritage and experience, it has supported multiple Olympic Games and football World Cups, maintains official relationships with bodies such as the IOC, NBA, AFL, Manchester United and ICC, and supports some of the world’s best known corporate brands. Speaking about the new partnership, Rachael Church, Editor of Sport and Technology said: “We are thrilled to have such a prestigious global brand as our new Digital Photography Sponsor, especially one which is fully-committed to using all the technology at its disposal as Getty Images is.” Brian Macreadie, Marketing Director – Sport, News and Archive at Getty Images added: “This sponsorship is a great fit for us due to our commitment both to new technology and the sports industry; areas in which Sport and Technology is a leader in the industry, offering valuable insight. We look forward to working with this market leading e-newsletter over the months to come.”
New downloads available for STEC members
Following the successful STEC day on Thursday 26 October, which encompassed both a breakfast seminar and evening networking event, the following new downloads are now available to STEC members: Clintons Breakfast Seminar (26 October 2006) - 'The Protection Racket - Safeguarding your sports data' (Video); SportelMonaco Panel Discussion (18 October 2006) - 'Opportunities in Digital Gaming' (Podcast); Think!Sponsorship Conference session (12 October 2006) - 'Improving the Odds' (Podcast). The first 2007 STEC networking evening will be hosted at the House of Commons on Thursday 25 January by Derek Wyatt MP who, as well as being an inaugural member of STEC and a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party, is Chairman of both the All Party Internet and All Party Rugby Groups at Westminster. The event will be sponsored by PA Sport. See www.sportandtechnologyexecutiveclub.com for membership details and fees.
Polish Broadcaster buys graphics technology
Red Bee Media has sold its sports technology, Piero, to Polish broadcaster ITI Neovision for its nsport channel. The news follows Piero winning two awards at the 2006 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. Piero is the first technology of its kind that enables better analysis of sports games. It enables viewers to see 'play' from angles that are not captured by cameras. Red Bee Media developed Piero from a BBC Research and Development 'proof of concept' in collaboration with BBC Outside Broadcasts for BBC Sport. Earlier in 2006, Piero was also adopted by SkyItalia, Hong Kong Cable and TV Globo in Brazil in time for the FIFA World Cup and later ITV in the UK for its UEFA Champions League coverage.
GlobeCast in UEFA deal
Content management and delivery company GlobeCast has extended its nine-year relationship with UEFA in a deal to provide worldwide coverage of the UEFA Champions League to non-European rights holders for the next three seasons. Europe's most prestigious club competition will be distributed to 26 territories via GlobeCast's content delivery network, with facilities on offer including downlink, uplink, capacity, encoding and encryption as well as a multi-lingual helpdesk. GlobeCast will enhance its high quality service provision to UEFA by transmitting a greater volume of matches at a higher bandwidth (24Mbps) than ever before, offering broadcasters a higher quality of signal and a greater choice of matches. Meanwhile, UEFA has launched UEFA Video Service (UVS), giving internet users in 96 countries access to live online matches from UEFA competitions. UVS has been developed by UEFA to enable its broadcast partners to extend their rights and provide live match coverage on the internet. Over 20 broadcasters around the world are using UVS to make every UEFA Champions League match from the 2006-07season and every UEFA Cup match from the quarter-final stage in April 2007 available live on the internet. As a result, more than 125 matches will be offered in over 100 countries
China takes UK soccer radio show
Global Broadcast Networks (GBN), an international media content provider, is providing UK soccer content, sponsorship and advertisements exclusively to a new UK soccer show broadcast to 168m urban listeners across China, called ‘UK Soccer Review/Yingchao Fengyunlu’. The new show is broadcast by China National Radio (CNR), the world's most listened-to radio station, on its flagship Channel One. The weekly half-hour show was launched on 20 August 2006 and will be on-air 52 weeks a year, for a planned three years. It will feature the latest stories, exclusive interviews with top players and managers, previews and reviews, as well as lifestyle, history and UK culture elements. GBN further announced that the show will be produced with Sky News Radio, a division of BSkyB. Voice talent and translation will be provided by GBN.
New ticketing for the Tigers
Castleford Tigers has invested in a new ticketing and CRM system, Talent Sport, developed by UK-based technology company Software4Sport, in order to drive advance ticket sales and offer customers a more sophisticated service. The system will be installed and operational in the New Year. Software4Sport is part of Computer Software Group plc, whose worldwide client base includes top flight clubs such as Liverpool FC, Manchester City FC and Newcastle United FC, as well as a range of other soccer, rugby union, rugby league and cricket clubs.
PA Sport invests in Australian sports internet
PA Sport has announced an investment in the Australian sports internet and information company, Sportal Australia. This deal means that PA SportsTicker customers in North America will have access to Sportal Australia's new generation of web-ready products. In return, Sportal will become the sales agent for PA SportsTicker's US sports content in their home territories of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Under the terms of the deal PA Sport will acquire 33.3% of Sportal Australia to gain the exclusive rights to commercialise and develop Sportal's content and technical products and services outside its home territories of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
College sports fans go mobile
CSTV Networks and VeriSign have announced the launch of products that will connect fans to their favourite college teams via mobile devices. ‘CSTV 2 Go’ will use VeriSign’s Mobile Delivery Services and Intelligent Portal Services, and include customised team news alerts via SMS as well as the opportunity to purchase custom ringtones and wallpapers for approximately 100 colleges and universities across the US. The mobile alerts product will allow fans to select the sports, and frequency, for which they receive scores and headlines from favourite schools. The information will be available for up to 15 men's and women's sports, with frequency options ranging from final score to as detailed as per inning, per period or per half.
SportAccord 2007 anticipates early sell-out
An early sell-out is expected for the 5th annual SportAccord event to be held on 23-27 April 2007 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Beijing. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) is the confirmed local host organising committee for the International Sports Convention, which is owned by the International Sports Federations through their governing bodies GAISF, ASOIF and AIOWF. In response to feedback from delegates, SportAccord 2007 in Beijing will provide even more networking opportunities. New developments include a ‘speed meeting’ facility. A more compact conference programme is planned, featuring high-level keynote speakers, interviews and case studies. Playing host to the General Assemblies of the International Sports Federations and the Executive Board Meeting of the International Olympic Committee, SportAccord draws bidding and host cities plus organising committees from all over the world to participate in a week-long programme consisting of an exhibition, conference and networking activities. Suppliers and consultants to the International Sports Events Industry are also strongly represented at the event which commands a global attendance of over 1,200 delegates.
Page from ArkSports' Sport and Technology (www.sportandtechnology.com) on 2008-11-21 : News - November 2006 : http://www.sportandtechnology.com/news/0436.html
Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria in Australia, is the best location in the world to hold a sports event according to an industry analysis of sports cities globally. Compiled by London-based consulting and research company ArkSports Limited, the analysis sought to determine which city in the world is the ‘Ultimate Sports City’ in terms of hosting international major events.
Content management and delivery company GlobeCast has extended its nine-year relationship with UEFA in a deal to provide worldwide coverage of the UEFA Champions League to non-European rights holders for the next three seasons. Europe's most prestigious club competition will be distributed to 26 territories via GlobeCast's content delivery network, with facilities on offer including downlink, uplink, capacity, encoding and encryption as well as a multi-lingual helpdesk. GlobeCast will enhance its high quality service provision to UEFA by transmitting a greater volume of matches at a higher bandwidth (24Mbps) than ever before, offering broadcasters a higher quality of signal and a greater choice of matches. Meanwhile, UEFA has launched UEFA Video Service (UVS), giving internet users in 96 countries access to live online matches from UEFA competitions. UVS has been developed by UEFA to enable its broadcast partners to extend their rights and provide live match coverage on the internet. Over 20 broadcasters around the world are using UVS to make every UEFA Champions League match from the 2006-07season and every UEFA Cup match from the quarter-final stage in April 2007 available live on the internet. As a result, more than 125 matches will be offered in over 100 countries
CSTV Networks and VeriSign have announced the launch of products that will connect fans to their favourite college teams via mobile devices. ‘CSTV 2 Go’ will use VeriSign’s Mobile Delivery Services and Intelligent Portal Services, and include customised team news alerts via SMS as well as the opportunity to purchase custom ringtones and wallpapers for approximately 100 colleges and universities across the US. The mobile alerts product will allow fans to select the sports, and frequency, for which they receive scores and headlines from favourite schools. The information will be available for up to 15 men's and women's sports, with frequency options ranging from final score to as detailed as per inning, per period or per half.
