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'Outdoor Channel Launches National Outfitters Gateway'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

Outdoor Channel, America's Leader in Outdoor TV, announced the formation of Outdoor Channel Outfitters and Outdoor Channel Outfitters Unlimited in partnership with Wayne Pearson, producer and host of Ultimate Outdoor Adventures. Both national organizations offer exclusive membership benefits and multiplatform tools for outdoor enthusiasts to connect with certified outfitters at www.outdoorchanneloutfitters.tv.

"We're lending our brand and expertise in the industry to support outfitter businesses by offering a vehicle to reach our audience of outdoor enthusiasts," said Tom Hornish, COO at Outdoor Channel. "In addition to the exciting perks, the program also offers our viewers more confidence when selecting an outfitter that has the Outdoor Channel seal of approval."

Designed for professional guides, Outdoor Channel Outfitters features a political organization, marketing resources and a benefit program all rolled into one. The association is open to lodge operators, charter captains, business owners, guides and outfitters who meet the certification criteria. Membership is 300 dollars per year and offers benefits such as website and logo design and access to a dedicated group of outdoor enthusiasts through the consumer membership organization.

Outdoor Channel Outfitters Unlimited is the consumer association targeted at sportsmen and women of all skill levels, offering a variety of perks for those who enjoy a high-quality outdoor experience. Among the benefits included in the 35 dollar yearly fee, members receive a 10 percent discount with any Outdoor Channel Outfitter and a hat, decal and membership card.

The two organizations come together online at www.outdoorchanneloutfitters.tv where outfitters can reach potential customers with their marketing materials. In turn, consumer members can search for outfitters and access exclusive events, video and outdoor content.

More information about the programs is available online. SHOT Show 2009 attendees can learn more by visiting the Outdoor Channel booth #1661. Consumers who join Outdoor Channel Outfitters Unlimited at SHOT Show will be automatically entered to win a $15,000 elk hunt at the Lodge at Chama in New Mexico.

About Outdoor Channel

Outdoor Channel is America's Leader in Outdoor TV, offering programming that captures the excitement of hunting, fishing, shooting, off-road motorsports, adventure and the Western lifestyle. The network can be viewed on multiple platforms including high definition, video-on-demand, as well as on a dynamic new website. Outdoor Channel is operated by a wholly owned subsidiary of Outdoor Channel Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: OUTD). For more information about Outdoor Channel, please visit www.outdoorchannel.com.

'Isaac Daniel Group Signs with EAG Sports Management'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

'EAG Sports Management announced today the addition of Isaac Daniel Group (IDG) to their growing list of sports-related clientele.

“I am delighted to work with EAG Sports Management as we continue to develop and expand the Isaac Daniel® brand,” said CEO Isaac Daniel. “IDG provides a wide range of proprietary wireless communications and tracking solutions developed by IDG engineers; our partnership with EAG Sports Management will allow Isaac Daniel Group to reach new audiences.”

Isaac Daniel Group will officially launch the highly anticipated ID COACH™ system, a sports technology product that will revolutionize the game of football, at Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Florida.

Isaac Daniel Group is an advanced technology corporation headquartered in Miami, Florida whose mission is to develop and commercialize visionary and practical technologies for Global Positioning systems (GPS), data and mapping applications, and Location-Based Services (LBS) for government, businesses and individuals.

EAG Sports Management is a Los Angeles based sports publicity, marketing and management firm that handles high-profile celebrity athletes and counts Tony Gonzalez, Willie McGinest, Bob Sanders, and Antonio Gates among its clients.

For more information please visit www.eagsportmanagement.com.

Contacts

Entertainers & Athletes Group/EAG Sports Management
Denise White or Lauren Renschler
p. 310-301-4274
f. 310-301-4275
denise.white@eagsportmanagement.com
lauren.renschler@eagsportmanagement.com

'AOL Launches New Sports Site FanHouse.com'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

'MediaGlow, AOL’s newly created publishing unit, announced the launch of the new sports site FanHouse.com, http://www.fanhouse.com. An evolution of AOL Sports, FanHouse.com features a new design, an expanded line-up of leading national sports columnists, increased on-site coverage of major sporting events and new features that give fans more ways to interact with others and show support for their favorite teams. The new FanHouse will be joined by a growing roster of writers, including nationally acclaimed columnists Jay Mariotti, Kevin Blackistone and Lisa Olson, who will provide daily commentary and analysis across the spectrum of sports. FanHouse will also continue AOL's tradition of stellar Super Bowl reporting and will again feature the "Super Sunday Ad Poll," the comprehensive viewing and voting destination for Super Bowl commercials.

The launch of FanHouse.com follows 12 months of remarkable growth and expansion at AOL Sports, and responds to the changing Web habits of sports fans dominated by the important male 18-54 demographic. Since December 2007, monthly unique visitors to AOL Sports grew 21% (from 9.1 million to 11 million), page views climbed 142% (from 142 million to 345 million), total time-spent increased by 65%. It is now one of the top five most visited sports sites, according to December 2008 comScore Media Metrix data.

“Over the past year, AOL has had tremendous success in growing its sports audience and FanHouse has become one of the premier brands in online sports media. With the addition growing stable of world-class writers, FanHouse will provide a daily must-read for any serious sports fan,” said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL News, Money & Finance, FanHouse, KOL and Weblogs. "In addition to its unique news and editorial offering, FanHouse is a comprehensive sports destination, with a full suite of scores and stats, robust community forums, as well as Fleaflicker's best-in-class fantasy sports coverage."

In April 2008, AOL acquired Fleaflicker.com, http://fleaflicker.com, a leading fantasy football site and plans to continue the aggressive expansion of its sports offerings. Featuring a new look and feel, FanHouse.com is significantly expanding on-site coverage of major sporting events, including Super Bowl XLIII, in addition to offering new dynamic live scoreboards, a new community platform, a fantasy Baseball game, an expanded editorial staff, additional video highlights, more RSS feeds, and enhanced community elements including live chats and message boards.

The new FanHouse.com also features:

A bold new design with enhanced navigation and custom sponsorship opportunities;
Award-winning blogger Michael David Smith, and key FanHouse talents Ryan Wilson, Matt Watson and Shane Bacon, as full-time writers;
Expanded NASCAR and auto racing coverage from award-winning writer Holly Cain;
Exclusive Mixed Martial Arts coverage, including top fighter interviews, industry news, and live event reporting;
New and expanded scoreboards and stats;
Expanded fantasy games through Fleaflicker, http://www.fleaflicker.com;
The FanShop, http://shop.fanhouse.com, an online store featuring apparel, collectibles and authentic autographed memorabilia.

FanHouse blogs, dedicated to each individual team within the NFL, NHL, MLB, and top NCAA Football teams, will continue to provide fans a place to discuss news and events of their favorite teams – one and off the field. FanHouse plans on growing aggressively in 2009, including the creation of a number of vertical sites featuring coverage targeted at specialized sports fans, including a Mixed Martial Arts site among others.

FanHouse also outlined its Super Bowl XLIII coverage, with Jay Mariotti, Kevin Blackistone and Michael David Smith on site with around-the-clock reporting leading up to the big game. FanHouse will also bring fans the 7^th Annual AOL Super Sunday Ad Poll, which lets fans watch each Super Bowl commercial online and rank their favorites. The poll will begin shortly after kick-off and will run for a week after the game with results constantly updated on the site.

The launch of FanHouse.com follows AOL's announcement this week that it will centralize its publishing content sites into a new division called MediaGlow. Year-end numbers announced by comScore Media Metrix show AOL’s page views growing from 48 billion to 71 billion in 2008, up 47% for the year, unique visitors up from a monthly average of 70.4 million to 73.4 million, and total minutes growing from 40 billion to 47 billion year over year, up 17%.

About AOL

AOL is a global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs one of the largest Internet access businesses in the U.S., and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC and its subsidiaries have operations in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.

Contacts

AOL Corporate Communications
Alysia Lew, 212-652-6376
alysia.lew@corp.aol.com

'English clubs receive £4.14m from UEFA'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

English clubs received £4.14m and Scottish clubs £359,196 from Uefa, European football's governing body, for releasing players to play in Euro 2008.

The BBC reports that Arsenal were England's top recipients, earning £732,760 for the efforts of players such as Spanish European Championship winner Cesc Fabregas whilst in Scotland Celtic earned £272,989, compared to four figure sums picked up by Inverness and Rangers.

German side Werder Bremen were highest earners overall, taking in £935,107.

England's overall sum comes in third behind Germany and Spain in the list of top earning countries, despite the national team failing to qualify for the tournament. Overall 39 players from the English top flight, 23 of them from the top four of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, competed in the tournament.

Premier League champions Manchester United earned the fourth highest amount in England, £440,614, while Chelsea and Liverpool came second and third with £702,827 and £607,641 respectively.
Scottish Premier League side Inverness Caledonian Thistle were paid £57,471 for the services of Romanian striker Marius Niculae, almost twice the £28,736 Rangers received for the Czech Republic's Libor Sionko.

The sums are calculated by Uefa, with clubs receiving compensation amounting to approximately £3,420 per player, per day and also take into account pre-tournament qualifiers.

The payments were agreed to last January as part of a deal to end a long-running dispute between the clubs and the governing bodies Fifa and Uefa.

'Scotland and Wales consider Euro 2016 bid'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

Scotland and Wales have held "tentative talks" about the possibility of hosting the European football championship in 2016, according to the Scottish FA.

Reuters reports that officials from Northern Ireland are also expected to be included in further discussions at the end of February, as the three British associations explore the possibility of hosting the tournament in eight years time.

"To suggest that we are planning to launch a bid is wide of the mark, but we have had tentative talks with the Welsh and further talks are planned with Northern Ireland when the International Board meets in Belfast at the end of February," a Scottish FA spokesman told the news service.

"We all know none of us can stage a 24-team tournament as it will be in 2016 but we are exploring the possibility of co-hosting."

Three of the last four European championships have been co-hosted with Belgium and Netherlands staging Euro 2000, Austria and Switzerland hosting this year's championship and Ukraine and Poland due to co-host the event in 2012.'

'UK Government agree £50million bailout for London 2012'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

The UK Government said last night that it had “reached the very limit” of public investment in Olympic sport after agreeing a new £50 million funding deal for London 2012 athletes.

UK newspaper, the Guardian reports that the last-minute injection of £29million from the Exchequer and £21million from extra Lottery receipts brings public funding in elite sport to £550million since the Athens Games in 2004. Yet it still leaves a £50million shortfall in a £600million package announced in the March 2006 Budget by Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor.

This extra money, which would have topped up the £304million secured for the four-year London cycle to £354million, has not materialised during the depressed economic climate.

The bailout secured, by Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, means that all Olympic and Paralympic sports will receive some funding in preparation for the London Games.

Burnham told the paper that efforts to rally businesses around 2012 athletes would continue but said that no more money would be coming from the Treasury or the Lottery. “I have made it clear that we have reached the very limit of public investment in Olympic sport,” he said. “I accept that raising private funds is challenging in the current economic conditions but British business has a great track record of investing in sport. I urge them to rally round the British athletes as we prepare for this historic moment of our first home Olympics in generations.”

Officials in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, aided by Fast Track, the marketing company, have failed to attract private-sector money to their Medal Hopes scheme, designed to plug the gap in 2012 funding. In a sign of the financial pressures on the Olympics, leading sponsors of the 2012 Games met the Prime Minister to discuss ways to beat the credit crunch. Lord Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee, said: “In these challenging times, we all need to look at creative ways in which we can make the most of these [sponsorship] partnerships.”

'IOC issues tender for 2014 Youth Games'

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has written to all 205 national Olympic committees asking for nominations for the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games.

The Associated Press reports that the initial deadline for submissions is February, while official bids must be entered by next July.

The IOC's executive board will select a shortlist in October and IOC members will vote on the host city for the 2014 Youth Games during the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in February 2010.

According to the news service 2014 Youth Games is scheduled to take place over 12 days with up to 3,500 athletes ages 14-18 competing in as many of the 26 official Olympic summer sports as possible.

Meanwhile, the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games will be announced at IOC headquarters next week. Innsbruck Austria and Kuopio Finland are the final two candidates competing.

'Infront Sports & Media renews with CEV for European Volleyball Championship until 2013 '

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

The European Volleyball Confederation and Infront Sports & Media announced that they recently renewed their partnership for the sale of worldwide media rights related to the bi-annual CEV Indesit European Championships.

The new contract will run until 2013 and will include all forms of electronic media rights including television, radio and new media broadcast rights for the above mentioned Championships. Infront will continue to offer the rights in a varied and flexible manner, including live, delayed, highlights and news coverage.

Rising television figures
The Infront Group – through Infront Italy – has been marketing the media rights of the European Championships since 1993, whilst the direct interaction with the CEV has been established in 2005. The relationship has been a success, leading to an enhanced coverage of the most prestigious European volleyball event which reached record levels last year.

For the Final Round of the 2007 CEV Indesit European Championships in Russia and Belgium/Luxembourg, Infront secured coverage in 90 different countries and territories worldwide and the events were transmitted by 30 broadcasters. Most were provided live or through near-live transmissions.

Infront has invested in the quality of the television coverage, providing a framework for a state-of-the-art host broadcast production, supervising all aspects of the broadcast in collaboration with the chosen networks in each host country and upgrading the camera coverage. In 2007, the production specification included more than ten cameras in each arena and for each game.

Marco Bogarelli, President of Infront Italy, said: “We are delighted for the renewal of our partnership with the CEV. Our relationship to date on this project has been successful and productive. We have invested in the quality of the television product and also devoted considerable efforts in expanding the impact of the competition.”

CEV President André Meyer commented: “Infront’s international broadcast and media sales experience and its involvement into top events make a compelling argument for the continuation of our relationship with that Group. Infront has a lot of expertise at its command and this is providing considerable benefits to the European volleyball family.”

Two Championships in 2009
The next Men’s CEV Indesit European Championships will be held in Turkey from 3 — 13 September 2009. The matches will take place in Istanbul and Izmir with Semi-finals and Finals to be played in Istanbul. 16 teams — Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey — will compete for the European title. The choice of Turkey, which hosted the Women’s Championships in 2003, indicates how highly this venue is regarded for its high quality organisation and volleyball experience.

The Women’s Championships taking place next 25 September — 4 October 2009 will be hosted in Poland, where volleyball is a top sport, as the huge success of the 2007 World League Finals has demonstrated. The four preliminary rounds will be played in Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Lodz and Wroclaw with the Semi-finals and Finals to be staged in Lodz. The 16 teams qualified are: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey.

'China, Italy and Spain ready to present their 2014 FIBA World Championship bids '

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

On Friday 5th December 2008, the International Basketball Federation will host in Geneva, Switzerland, the presentation of the three candidatures which are in the race for hosting the 2014 FIBA World Championship.

Denmark and France have withdrawn their candidatures, whilst China, Italy and Spain continue to pursue their dream of organizing the world’s most prestigious basketball championship in 2014. A date marked in red in the agendas of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), the Italian Basketball Federation (FIP) and the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) is Friday 5th December 2008, when the leaders of the three above-mentioned national federations will hand in their candidature files to FIBA in a public presentation ceremony to be held in Geneva.

All media representatives are cordially invited to attend and cover the candidatures presentation of China, Italy and Spain for the 2014 FIBA World Championship for Men. The ceremony will take place on Friday, 5th December 2008, from 17:00 to 19:00 hours, in the Alhambra Theatre (www.ville-ge.ch/culture/alhambra/contact.html), located in Rue de la Rôtisserie 10, Geneva.

After the candidatures presentation, a cocktail reception will be offered by FIBA at the Saint Gervais Room of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (Quai Turrettini 1, Geneva).

All media representatives covering the 2014 FIBA World Championship candidatures presentation will have a workroom at their disposal at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

In addition, please be informed that the International Basketball Federation will provide free and live coverage of the gala on www.fiba.com so that basketball fans around the world can follow the candidature presentations. Live video streaming will be available by visiting the dedicated section on FIBA’s website: www.fiba.com/2014bid.

After the handing over of the candidature files on 5th December, FIBA will appoint an Evaluation Commission to examine all files and to formally visit the countries and review the commitments made.

The complete bidding process will end in 22nd-23rd May 2009, when the FIBA Central Board will decide the host of the 2014 World Championship for Men.

'Ricoh extends partnership with FIS Nordic disciplines '

2008-07-03T16:24:40Z

FIS, Ricoh and marketing agency Wige Event have agreed an extension of the ten-year partnership for three additional seasons up to and including 2010/2011. Ricoh, a global leader in digital office solutions, has supported the FIS World Cups in the Nordic disciplines since 1998 as the official data service provider and brought a high level of innovative technology to the competition results and information services. Ricoh has been partnering with FIS Ski Jumping since 1998 and with Cross-Country and Nordic Combined since 2007.

Looking forward to a continuing partnership and especially the enhanced future sponsorship activation plans, FIS President Gian Franco Kasper stated: "Ricoh is an ideal partner for the FIS World Cups in Ski Jumping, Cross-Country and Nordic Combined, all of which are traditional yet dynamic and exciting sports. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Ricoh for the past decade and sincerely look forward to developing the partnership into the future." He added: “The support of WIGE Event is also much appreciated, especially in the activation of Ricoh’s rights and significant engagement over the years to nurture the partnership between FIS and Ricoh.”