Week in Sportbiz: Succession at Matchroom; PGA Tour’s $40m fame fund; taking knee banned at Tokyo 2020; India warms to The Hundred; NFL’s paint job April 23, 2021 It’s been a busy week for shifts in power at the top of sports organisations, splitting with old partners and signing megabucks new deals. Away from European football’s attempt to eat itself, Matchroom announced that founder Barry Hearn would be stepping down after 40 years at the helm. Matchroom Boxing boss Eddie Hearn is succeeding [...]
Week in Sportbiz: Amazon sign Serena Williams and Paul Pogba; Javier Tebas takes up league fight; Japan still cool on Tokyo 2020 with 100 days to go April 15, 2021 Amazon has continued its push into glossy sports documentaries by signing up Serena Williams and Paul Pogba. Both Williams and Pogba have committed to appearing in behind-the-scenes series about their personal and professional lives as part of wider deals with Amazon. Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger Films is among the producers of the currently untitled Serena doc. [...]
Rakuten chief revives calls to cancel Tokyo 2020 Olympics amid rising Covid-19 cases April 7, 2021 One of Japan’s most prominent businessmen, Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani, has urged the country to reconsider staging the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this summer. The delayed Games are set to begin on 23 July despite widespread opposition among the population and rising Covid-19 cases in the capital. “Honestly, I feel that the Olympics this summer [...]
Week in Sportbiz: Tokyo 2020 Olympics hit by another sexism scandal; World Rugby boosts women’s game; LaLiga brings tiki-taka teachers to East Sussex March 18, 2021 “I would like to show a new direction,” said Seiko Hashimoto upon taking over as president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the wake of a sexism storm last month. Four weeks later, Hashimoto’s hopes have been torpedoed by revelations that another senior male official for this summer’s Games made derogatory comments about women. Tokyo [...]
Week in Sportbiz: Olympic chiefs offer vaccines to athletes; Israel wins French Super Cup; and Winklevoss twins return to Boat Race March 11, 2021 Olympic chiefs have eased concerns around this summer’s Games by offering Covid-19 vaccines to any athlete set to compete at Tokyo 2020. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the offer applied to athletes and teams involved in either Tokyo or the Winter Games in Beijing in February 2022. The IOC will buy the vaccines from [...]
Tokyo 2020: Decision on overseas spectators to be taken this month amid Japanese concern over increased Covid-19 risk March 8, 2021 Olympics chiefs will decide this month whether to ban overseas spectators from this summer’s delayed Tokyo 2020 Games. The Olympics and Paralympics are set to go ahead despite continued concern at the Covid-19 situation in Japan, which extended a state of emergency in Tokyo and neighbouring prefectures on Friday. Around 15,000 athletes and other personnel [...]
Week in Sportbiz: England Netball weighing up approaches from private investors; plus Manchester City’s humble new partner club and ‘super spikes’ February 18, 2021 Netball’s prodigious growth has not gone unnoticed by the private investors who have embarked on a trolley dash of sporting properties. England Netball successfully launched its Covid-adapted 2021 Superleague season last weekend – another feather in the cap of an organisation that has doubled participation in a decade. The governing has renewed its broadcast deal [...]
Japan calms sexism storm by naming Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto as Tokyo 2020 Games president February 18, 2021 Japan’s Olympics Minister Seiko Hashimoto has been appointed to succeed Yoshiro Mori as president of the Tokyo 2020 Games. The replacement of Mori, an 83-year-old man who resigned over sexist comments, with Hashimoto, a 56-year-old woman, is a significant one for a country criticised for its overwhelmingly male boardrooms. Hashimoto is a former Olympic athlete [...]
Tokyo 2020 chief quits after sexist remarks towards women February 12, 2021 Yoshiro Mori, chief of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, resigned on Friday over sexist remarks that sparked a global outcry. The former Japanese prime minister received a backlash when he said during an Olympic committee meeting earlier this month that ‘women talk too much’. Mori’s resignation comes months before the postponed games are scheduled to begin, [...]
How Tokyo plans to stage a safe Olympics this year – and why cancellation remains the last resort February 12, 2021 In spite of the relatively upbeat mood music emanating from the corridors of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), nagging questions about whether the Games can be safely staged this summer have persisted. But the organisers of the world’s largest sporting event have now given the world the first concrete indications of how they propose to [...]