Three years after Covid began, Japan is welcoming tourists June 5, 2023 Just hours after arriving in Japan from London, a geisha girl is teaching me a drinking game. She sings a lilting, nursery rhyme-style tune as we take turns tapping the small wooden box between us, trying to catch each other out by whipping the box away so the other person must lay a closed fist on the [...]
Ed Warner: Football should offer players amnesty in wake of Ivan Toney betting ban May 25, 2023 This week Ed Warner examines what Ivan Toney’s betting ban means for football, the eye-watering cost of tickets for the Paris 2024 Olympics, and a nuanced take on the trans debate in sport. If you stick a betting company logo on a young man’s shirt, beam his image around the world for 90 minutes every [...]
ASOS share price recovers slightly after Mike Ashley’s Frasers raises stake May 17, 2023 Frasers Group raised its stake in online fashion retailer ASOS, a filing showed on Wednesday, as the Mike Ashley-owned sportswear retailer continues its drive into a more premium market. Frasers, formerly called Sports Direct, increased its stake in ASOS to 7.4 per cent from a prior stake of more than 5 per cent, as of [...]
UK looks to butter up NIMBYs with energy bill discounts for supporting new onshore wind May 11, 2023 Households living near prospective onshore wind turbines could be offered lower energy bills in exchange for supporting new projects.
Ed Warner: English cricket must accept that The Hundred is dead in the water May 4, 2023 England gave cricket to the world. It followed up with the generous present of T20. The Hundred, though, remains a gift unwrapped and a spurned England and Wales Cricket Board is now scrambling to secure its place in the crowded T20 world market. It’s not too melodramatic to say that the future of first class [...]
Why 2023 is the year of the litmus test for women’s rugby, cricket and football April 24, 2023 On Saturday afternoon more than 50,000 fans will descend on Twickenham Stadium to not only watch England’s final match of the Women’s Six Nations against France but also be part of history. Because the fixture is set to smash all previous records for attendances at a women’s rugby match and set a new standard in [...]
Lindsay Aamodt: The former ice queen now on fire in the metaverse April 21, 2023 Lindsay Aamodt, Head of Marketing at Upland, talks to Jillian Godsil about her love for ice skating and Web3.
Ed Warner: Demise of UK Athletics is a scandalous situation April 20, 2023 I’ve largely kept my counsel on the shambles at UK Athletics since I left in 2017 but reports that the governing body is at risk of collapse have flipped my switch. Five years encompassing five chairs and six CEOs (some permanent, others interim), unnecessary politicking, pursuit of vanity projects, timidity and simple sloppiness have laid [...]
Interview: Ovo Energy’s boss bets on green future to cement Big Six status April 20, 2023 Ovo Energy’s CEO Raman Bhatia talks about the sector’s latest challenges, from driving renewable energy to rethinking forced prepayment meters.
First football, now padel: US investors take fight to Qatar for future of the racket sport April 18, 2023 Heard the one about the historically European sports property turbo-charged by Middle Eastern sovereign wealth and now in the crosshairs of serial sports investors from the US? This isn’t football, though, but padel, the fast-growing racket sport now at the centre of a tug of war between rival competitions backed by the Qatari owners of [...]