The Week in Sportbiz: Rugby fans in ticket rush for Lions’ Japanese Test, plus Uefa’s Euro 2020 delay silver lining October 22, 2020 Demand for attending live sport remains very strong in the time of coronavirus, if the British and Irish Lions are anything to go by. Some 35,000 rugby fans have already registered interest in tickets for next July’s home Test against Japan, which was only announced yesterday, City A.M. has learned. That means Murrayfield’s 67,000 seats [...]
Nico Rosberg to renew rivalry with Lewis Hamilton in new electric racing series Extreme E October 22, 2020 Former Formula One rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are set to cross swords again in new motorsport series Extreme E. Rosberg has followed old Mercedes F1 adversary Hamilton in launching his own team in the all-electric, off-road competition. The German, who retired from racing after winning the F1 title in 2016, has invested in [...]
Robert Zemeckis The Witches is a dark Dahl triumph October 21, 2020 Readers over a certain age will remember losing sleep over the 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book The Witches, in which Anjelica Huston donned hideous prosthetics that are still unsettling to this day. It perfectly captured the spirit of Roald Dahl’s storytelling, which always towed the line between wonder and abject terror. Robert Zemeckis (Back [...]
Manchester United chief throws down gauntlet to Premier League over Project Big Picture October 21, 2020 Manchester United chief Ed Woodward has publicly warned the Premier League that the club have not given up on plans to reshape English football. Project Big Picture, a radical overhaul of the domestic game drawn up and championed by United and Liverpool, was defeated in a vote of top-flight clubs last week. Woodward called on [...]
Manchester United lose £23m as coronavirus cuts revenue by £120m October 21, 2020 Manchester United suffered a £23m loss as revenue plunged by almost 20 per cent for the year ending 30 June. Annual income fell to £509m, from £627m the previous year, as the coronavirus outbreak saw football suspended. All three of Manchester United’s main revenue streams were hit during the fourth quarter, when most games were [...]
DEBATE: Is there any point trying to find love in lockdown? October 21, 2020 Is there any point trying to find love in lockdown? JOIN THE DEBATE. Emma Sayle, founder and chief executive of social network Killing Kittens, says YES. When lockdown started, traffic to the Killing Kittens website went up 300 per cent. We had 150 per cent more photo uploads and 425 per cent more messages — [...]
Wasps cleared to play in Premiership final despite coronavirus outbreak October 21, 2020 Rugby chiefs have cleared Wasps to take their place in Saturday’s Premiership final despite an outbreak of Covid-19 at the club. Fears grew that Wasps would have to forfeit their spot in the Twickenham showdown against Exeter Chiefs after 11 players and staff tested positive in the last week. But the six-time English champions have [...]
Champions League 2020-21: How prize money is calculated and why the winners don’t always get paid the most October 20, 2020 Winning the Champions League is not just about the glory; it also comes with a major prize money windfall of more than €100m for the eventual winner. Last season Bayern Munich earned an estimated €130m for lifting the trophy, while Liverpool pocketed €111m in 2018-19. But precisely how much a run in European football’s top [...]
Champions League behind the numbers: Richest clubs, most valuable squads and players 2020-21 October 20, 2020 The Champions League begins again in earnest this week when the cream of European football kick off the group stage. It comes less than two months after Bayern Munich lifted the trophy in a coronavirus-delayed conclusion to last season. Despite that success, the German club do not have the most valuable squad in this year’s [...]
Here’s why sport is still a good bet in a recession October 19, 2020 There has been a re-awakening. Have you felt it? If you haven’t quite felt it, you’ll have certainly seen the force with which live sport returned to our screens as professional leagues worked hard to piece together a schedule to meet fans’ desire for relative normality. And boy was the audience growing impatient for it. [...]