Media

The Wall Street Journal has added fuel to speculation raised during Sport Business 2000 that stadium naming rights deals are coming to Europe. The newspaper reported: ?At least a dozen European premier division soccer-club owners over the past year have been privately huddling with U.S. fund managers about following the American model of raising corporate sponsorship cash to underwrite the construction of new grounds.?

Mike Miller, The BBC?s Controller of Television Sport, has resigned. Miller has accepted an offer from Worldsport.com to become the editorial director.

International Sportsworld Communicators (ISC), owners of the commercial rights to the FIA World Rally Championship, has been acquired by a consortium led by David Richards, the chairman of motorsports company, Prodrive.

Qpass, the digital commerce services firm, has announced a new content partnership with NHL Interactive CyberEnterprises, producers of the National Hockey League's official web site, NHL.com.

The president of Carlton, the Australian Rules football club, has called the AFL?s decision to impose heavy sanctions on any club that fails to adhere to the current television rights agreement ? an absolute joke?.

Southern Company, the international energy company, is to launch a year-long national TV ad campaign, composed of four new 15-second commercials centering around the company's role as the Official Energy Company of the PGA TOUR.

Soccer club Manchester United is understood to be considering hiving off its multi-media division, focused around its manutd.com website, according to a report in the UK?s Guardian newspaper.

Cable company, NTL, plans to acquire a 9.9% stake in Premier League Middlesbrough F.C according to the Guardian newspaper.

European soccer champions Manchester United have pushed back the commercial frontiers of sport even further today after a rise in its share price saw it become the first club in the world to be worth more than #1bn ($1.6bn).

BSkyB has offered #250million for exclusive UK television rights to the World Cup 2002, according to The Observer newspaper.

Coral, the UK's third largest bookmaker is planning to float to take advantage of the high ratings attached to Internet-related businesses.

Extreme Sports Channel, the new adventure and adrenaline sports service, is now available on digital cable in Germany.

David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, and Michael Levy, CEO of CBS SportsLine will keynote a seminar focusing on ``Reinventing Sports in the Age of the Internet '' for the Jupiter Consumer Online Forum, March 1-3, at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in New York City.

David Payne has been named to the new position of senior vice president and general manager of CNN/Sports Illustrated Interactive,. Payne will oversee all business activity of CNN/Sports Illustrated Interactive, which includes the 24-hour sports Web site CNNSI.com. Payne is based in Atlanta and reports to Jim Walton, president of CNN/Sports Illustrated.

A consortium of the BBC, Channel 4 and NTL-subsidiary Premium TV have confirmed they have struck a provisional agreement on a $320m rights deal with Britain?s 12 leading racecourses to take televised horse racing in the UK into the digital age.

UK satellite broadcasters BSkyB have been given the green light to carry on buying stakes in English Premier League clubs after League bosses said there was no problem in what it was doing.