PSG announce first blockchain partnership to increase fan engagement September 11, 2018 Paris Saint-Germain has today announced a new partnership deal with a blockchain platform, the first of its kind in world football. They have agreed a contract with Socios.com, an online voting website that looks to increase supporter engagement in football clubs while offering teams a chance to monetize their fanbase. The deal is part of [...]
Sam Torrance: Europe’s big-hitters timing their form perfectly for the Ryder Cup September 10, 2018 The conclusion of the BMW Championship may have been delayed by heavy rain in Philadelphia on Sunday, but the weather didn’t stop Europe’s best from putting on a show. Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn will have been delighted watching on as Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari all played to their [...]
Day in the life: Freeride mountain biker Sam Pilgrim September 9, 2018 I don’t do anything like a typical athlete would. I get up, eat and then slowly decide what I’m going to do that day, as I make videos. I then head out to the woods in Essex, where I’m based, with whatever bike I’m using. I film YouTube videos, which can take all day, and [...]
Para-cycling: Discipline setting positive precedent for inclusivity in disability sport September 9, 2018 Disability sport is always fighting for something: more participants, more funding, more exposure. It’s been an ever-present, worthy battle – and one which has been making progress. The Paralympic Games are the pinnacle of the movement; a visible global competition with a wide reach. But by their very nature the Games have a limited impact. [...]
Amazon Prime’s US Open coverage represents a missed opportunity for streaming September 9, 2018 When Amazon purchased the UK television rights for the US Open earlier this year in a £30m five-year deal, the acquisition seemed like the next stage of streaming giants acting as great disruptors to the established media order. Potentially, Amazon could shape live sports broadcasting in ways that we can't yet imagine, much in the [...]
Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt at the V&A review: A fascinating deep dive into videogame design and culture September 7, 2018 Exhibitions about videogames frequently land wide of the mark. Either they’re bogged down in dusty arcade nostalgia – that decades old aesthetic of Pac-Man pixel art and bleepy chiptunes that just won’t go away – or they have the desperate air of a culturally sidelined medium crying out to be taken seriously by art critics. [...]
American Animals review: An audacious and twisting heist movie September 7, 2018 Director Bart Layton is the man behind 2012’s audacious docu-thriller The Imposter, about a French con artist who bamboozles a Texan family into believing he is their long lost son. The film braided fact and fiction into a chunky dramatic rope, drawing on talking head testimony from the real world players, interspersed with very credible [...]
Ollie Phillips: Leicester need to manage expectations after O’Connor’s departure, Lam has Bristol aiming high and Cipriani pulling strings for Gloucester September 6, 2018 Anyone who plays Exeter away from home first game of the season are always going to be in for a rough ride. But Leicester Tigers’ crushing 40-6 defeat last weekend had far-reaching consequences, with head coach Matt O’Connor sacked just 48 hours later. Typically after one game you don’t change coach. It’s unusual behaviour and [...]
Why Fifa and the Premier League are at odds over an imminent overhaul of the transfer market September 6, 2018 The great and the good of football head to London later this month to settle a contentious matter: the recipients of the 2018 instalment of Fifa’s The Best awards. But an even thornier topic is also set to be debated in the capital, with many of the game’s most influential stakeholders in town. The issue [...]
Marvel’s Spider-Man review: Insomniac’s web-slinging open world brawler is Spidey at his absolute best September 5, 2018 There’s a very simple recipe for making a decent Spider-Man game, or at least there seems like there is to people who think that making games is simple. First, it needs to be open world. Not even open world, just open Manhattan, a city that has been accurately recreated in games so many times now [...]