DID YOU KNOW…?
In 1980, Jaeger became the youngest ever player seeded at Wimbledon at the age of just 15 years and 19 days. The American went on to reach the first of her two US Open semi-finals that year, and in 1983 had a Wimbledon final appearance to add to her one at Roland Garros the previous year, losing to Martina Navratilova on both occasions.
Years after retiring due to a shoulder injury in 1987, Jaeger revealed that the night before the Wimbledon final, her father locked her out of their apartment after a row, and she had to ask Navratilova to help persuade him to let her back in. She also revealed that she threw several matches at the peak of her career in order to avoid becoming world number one and the pressure and attention that would have gone with it.
She is now known as Sister Andrea and lives her life as an Anglican Dominican nun. Yahoo! Sports, 8th Jul 2008
DATA BOX
Germany: F1 Tops The Bill
Published on Sports Media, 8th July 2008
The Formula One British Grand Prix at Silverstone attracted the highest audience of any sporting event in Germany during the first weekend of July. RTL’s main race coverage began at 14:03 and was watched by 5.4 million viewers, meaning 37.3% of the total television audience watched Lewis Hamilton register an imperious victory in the Northamptonshire rain. The second stage of the 2008 Tour de France attracted 10.2% of the viewers (1.4 million) at 15:56 on ARD. ZDF’s sports magazine programme, Sport Reportage, pulled in an audience of 1.2 million, meaning 8.2% of the viewers tuned in at 17:10.
SPORTS SHORTS
* Two leading satellite operators, AsiaSat and SES NEW SKIES, have signed capacity agreements with India's Essel Group for the use of multiple C-band transponders for digital Headend-in-the-Sky (HITS) distribution platforms covering India's 70 million cable connections. Up to 150 cable channels are expected to be on the Essel group HITS platform. Essel Group includes channel provider Zee TV, DTH operator Dish TV and cable operator WWIL. AsiaSat, SES NEW SKIES and ZEE TV are all CASBAA members. CASBAA.com, 7th July 2008
* The Hero Honda Indian Open golf event will offer the largest purse in its history this October after it was announced that this year’s tournament would offer total prize money of US$1 million. Prize money for India’s flagship golf tournament, which began in 1964, has been gradually increased since the motorcycle manufacturer assumed the title sponsorship of the event in 2005. The latest increase represents a doubling of the 2007 purse. Sports Media, 8th Jul 2008
* Austrian public-service broadcaster, ORF, said that it is in negotiations to renew its broadcast rights deal for the Uefa Champions League. ORF holds the free-to-air Champions League rights in Austria, paying a reported €2.5 million ($3.93 million) to €3.4 million a year in a three-year deal that ends after the 2008-09 season. A new deal would be for three years from 2009-10 onwards. Sportcal, 8th Jul 2008
* Mexican top-flight team, Puebla, is weighing offers for the club's television rights. TV Azteca is the incumbent, but two other groups - believed to be Imagen Group and ESPN - have tabled offers. Puebla said that “better offers” were received from the new parties and are “searching for the best offer”. Since 2003, when Atlante home games were snapped up by Channel 52, no other club has signed a contract with any other company but Televisa or TV Azteca. The current agreement with TV Azteca is worth around US$1.9 million per year, but according to reports, Imagen’s offer is double that amount. During the 2008 Clausura campaign, only four of Puebla’s home games were televised by national television. Sports Media, 8th Jul 2008
* German broadcaster DSF has acquired exclusive TV rights in Germany for MotoGP in a three-year deal with Dorna Sports, the race series’ commercial rights-holder. The deal covers the seasons 2009 to 2011, and includes rights for coverage of the MotoGP class, 250cc, and 125cc world championships. DSF will broadcast live all three races at each event – a total of 18 MotoGP races, and 17 250cc and 125cc races – as well as practice and qualifying sessions for all three classes. DSF coverage will amount to 170 hours per year. Sportsbusiness.com, 8th July 2008
* The International University Sports Federation (FISU) has a new platform on which to promote its events after launching a service on YouTube. Highlights of FISU events are available free of charge at www.youtube.com/FISUTV and the service complements the coverage available at www.fisu.tv. The FISU YouTube service will be constantly updated with action from world university championships in various sports. Sportcal, 8th Jul 2008
* UEFA is considering changing the name of its UEFA Cup competition to the UEFA Europa League. A senior UEFA source said the rebranding was meant to reflect the new group stage system being used in the competition from the 2009-10 season. In December 2007 UEFA said that it was revamping the Cup’s format – dropping the five-team groups in which teams play each opponent just once either home or away in favour of a simpler home and away system. It is hoped that the new name will help distinguish it from the previous UEFA Cup format. Sports Media, Sports Business, Sportcal, Sports City, 8th Jul 2008
MORE NEWS
BWF: Badminton Draw Date Brought Forward
The draw for the Beijing Olympic Games have been rescheduled and will take place in 19 days. The BWF Council has approved a request from BOCOG to change the draw date for badminton from the original date of 4 August to Saturday 26 July - starting at 4:00pm local time.
Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB) has been requesting draw and schedule information from BOCOG for some time and it was concerned about the lateness of the draw date and the first round draw information fro broadcasters. Scheduling of television programming for badminton by the TV rights holders worldwide was considered very late and the concern for the BWF and the BOCOG Competition Management Team was that Day 1 of the Games programming by television rights holders would be taken up by other sports.
The earlier date provides a better chance of badminton being locked into programming schedule for Day 1 coverage and provides more time for the locking in of satellite up-linking for the rights holders. This will facilitate better advanced scheduling. TV rights holders complete scheduling well in advance – and badminton is probably the last sport to complete its draw processes and have information available for broadcasting.
The revised date has been chosen by BOCOG and Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB), and agreed to by the BWF. This date will capitalise on international media, NOCs representatives and IOC Members who are participating in the Official Opening of the Games Village at 8:30am on Sunday 27 July. The draw venue has been chosen so that it is accessible to all that wish to observe the draw process and ceremony. Badminton Europe, 7th Jul 2008
Olympics/Rights: Beijing Organizers Reverse Ban on Live City Broadcasts
China will allow broadcasters to beam live pictures from Tiananmen Square and the capital's streets during the Beijing Olympics, reversing a decision to delay broadcasts. U.S. and European rights-holders had voiced concern that delays to broadcasts would give Chinese authorities the ability to censor them. The delay was announced in March after riots broke out in Tibet protesting Chinese rule.
China pledged to allow about 22,000 accredited Olympic journalists to report freely at the Games as part of its bid to host the event. Human rights groups have questioned the fulfillment of that promise. Beijing's organizing committee today repeated a pledge to offer unrestricted Internet access to journalists covering the Aug. 8-24 Games.
China bans gambling as well as pornographic and anti- government material from the Internet by blocking access to Web sites, including that of human rights group Amnesty International. China last year implemented a new media law to ease restrictions on foreign journalists. According to Human Rights Watch, media controls have become worse over the past year on topics including Tibet and anti-government protests.
Officials have often ignored the lifting of restrictions, particularly since March demonstrations in Tibetan areas, the New York-based group said in a report yesterday. The report also faulted the International Olympic Committee for failing to press China harder on media issues. Tiananmen Square in central Beijing was the site of a pro-democracy movement that was crushed by Chinese troops in 1989. Sportcal, Sports City, 8th Jul 2008
Asia/General: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Launches Asia Operations
The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing, China. The office becomes the third global office of professional women’s tennis, adding to the Tour’s main headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA and the European office in London, UK.
The Tour’s office operations in the Asia Pacific region will be located in the Beijing Central Business District in the Vantone Center. David Shoemaker, who has been the Tour’s Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, has relocated from the Tour’s office in Florida to assume the role of Head of Asia Pacific. Shoemaker will be responsible for defining the strategy for women’s tennis in Asia Pacific, growing the Tour’s presence in the region as well as assuming overall leadership of all Asia Pacific staff. He will maintain his role as General Counsel as well as other executive responsibilities for the Tour.
The initiative to open an office in China is part of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour’s effort to grow and develop women’s tennis in China and across Asia. As part of the Tour’s 2009 Roadmap circuit structure plan, the city of Beijing has been awarded one of four prestigious events that will anchor a new streamlined calendar in 2009. This event will be a nine-day tennis tournament featuring prize money of at least US$4 million and equal to that of the men’s ATP Masters Series event in Shanghai. The event will be mandatory for all players who qualify by ranking and thus see the best women’s tennis fields to ever compete in China.
Building on the flourishing partnership with Beijing, the Asia-Pacific office will serve as the hub of a major marketing and promotional initiative to grow women’s tennis in China and the Asia-Pacific, one of the world’s largest and most dynamic markets and regions. Several initiatives will support this goal including customizing the Tour’s new global marketing campaign, creating regional media partnerships, developing a Chinese language website and supporting national grassroots development programs. The Tour will work closely with the China Open Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Beijing Youth Daily), the China Tennis Association and the Beijing Municipal Government. Sports Business, 8th Jul 2008
Global/General: New Head for Bundesliga International Rights Agency
Robert Niemann, a general manager of Sony Pictures Television, the US television production and distribution company, is to head up a new international distribution arm for the sale of broadcast rights for German soccer’s top-tier Bundesliga worldwide. The DFL, the German football league, formed the subsidiary company in Frankfurt at the league headquarters.
The agency subsidiary will market international broadcast rights from the 2009-10 season onwards, in addition to branded licences and other platforms, such as bundesliga.de, the official league website. As general manager of Sony Pictures Television, Niemann was responsible for AXN, Sony’s pay-television, cable and satellite channel and Animax, Sony’s Japanese animated satellite broadcaster, in German-speaking European countries.
Christian Seifert, the DFL chief executive, said that Niemann's experience in marketing channel brands to international television and advertising partners made him ideally qualified for the position. The DFL announced in October that it intended to take the international rights in-house, taking over from the Sportsman Media Group agency, whose contract ends after the 2008-09 season. Sportcal, 8th Jul 2008
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