How Playtomic surfed – and fuelled – tidal wave of interest in padel December 10, 2024 The platform now boasts 1.4m active users in Europe, up 40 per cent on last year.
Major bank sponsor follows Carlos Sainz from Ferrari to Williams December 9, 2024 Spanish banking group Santander has switched its Formula 1 team sponsorship from Ferrari to Williams after driver Carlos Sainz Jr made the same move. Williams said the partnership was a “multi-year” agreement, believed to be in line with Sainz’s contract at the Oxfordshire-based team, which runs until 2026 with the option of an extension. Santander’s [...]
Biggest contract in sport history tempts baseball star to join city rivals December 9, 2024 Major League Baseball star Juan Soto has agreed sport’s biggest ever contract, worth $765m (£599m), to join the New York Mets. The Dominican’s 15-year deal eclipses Shohei Ohtani’s $700m contract with the LA Dodgers, signed last year, although that is worth more per season. Soto, a free agent after leaving the New York Yankees, is [...]
‘One or two errors’: Ratcliffe comments shed light on Ashworth departure December 8, 2024 Manchester United are searching for a new sporting director after splitting from Dan Ashworth, the man who was supposed to be a key architect of the team’s revival. United waited for almost half a year to prise Ashworth from his contract at Newcastle United but have dispensed with him midway through his first full season. [...]
Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia sponsor rugby when it invests everywhere else? December 7, 2024 If you were going to have a gander through the list of sports sponsorship deals related – directly or indirectly – to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you’d be scrolling for a good while. Because research by Play the Game reports that there’s a total of 910 deals between Saudi Arabia or Saudi companies/individuals and [...]
Top footballers spend 87 per cent of time working, study finds December 6, 2024 Fresh concerns have been raised about player burnout ahead of next year’s Club World Cup after a new study found that top professional footballers typically spend 80 per cent of their time working. Drawing on data that it compiled for global players’ union Fifpro, independent consultancy Football Benchmark says that, for some individuals, the number [...]
Show football’s 3pm blackout the red card and women’s game will benefit December 6, 2024 While men’s football works out whether to scrap the 3pm blackout, women’s matches offer a perfect test case, argues Anna Reynolds. Imagine being barred from watching your favourite TV programme at a certain time of the day. That’s the current situation in football, where games scheduled for Saturday at 3pm are restricted from being broadcast [...]
Ed Warner: It’s sports awards season, so here’s my team of the year December 5, 2024 ParalympicsGB are my team of the year – they succeeded where others failed and all without the fanfare they deserved, says Ed Warner. Sports award season is upon us. This of the Year and That of the Year, on red carpets and across multiple platforms with misty eyes and banging showreels. Not a vintage year [...]
Premier Sports boss on Champions Cup, 24/7 rugby channel and rights December 5, 2024 Ahead of the Investec Champions Cup, City AM sat down with Richard Sweeney of Premier Sports as the broadcaster takes on European rugby’s rights. When the Champions Cup TV deal between TNT Sports and European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) came to an end, many assumed a copy-and-paste agreement would see the partnership continue. But the [...]
Championship rugby clubs expecting legal challenges over promotion criteria December 4, 2024 Championship rugby clubs are expecting legal challenges to the criteria that they will be judged against for promotion to the Premiership. Top-of-the-table Coventry announced yesterday that they had applied for an audit that, if passed, would grant them access to a play-off between the team that finishes bottom of the Premiership and the Championship winner. [...]