Media

Insurance group, The St. Paul Companies will sponsor the PGA Tour?s 2001 West Coast Swing events.

Following a flat year on the business side of the US motorsports industry, H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president and chief operating officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc, has said that the growth experienced by the industry, and NASCAR Winston Cup racing in particular, during the 1990s will resume in 2001.

WIGE and RTL New Media are to team up to produce an online service package for the forthcoming four-hill ski-jumping tournament and ski-jumping World Cup.

Member federations of the International Olympic Committee(IOC) have been commenting on the issues raised by the IOC World Conference on Sports and New Media in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The concluding session of the first day of the IOC Sports and New Media conference re-emphasised the key values of rights exclusivity, but according to Christopher Murray, Chairman of the Entertainment & Technology Dept of O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Los Angeles: "The web has so radically changed the dynamics of publishing, that with one keystroke anyone can download a CD or video and become a pirate".

Media reports in the UK suggest the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium has hit a major funding crisis which threatens the entire project.

Boston Media Corporation, a Boston-based internet advertising, media and technology firm, has launched an online sports advertising network.

John Deere, a manufacturer of commercial and consumer lawn care equipment, has been named as the preferred golf & turf equipment supplier for the 2001 Ryder Cup.

English county cricket club Kent has appointed Jon Fordham as its head of marketing.

Fox Sports Net 2 has launched on three cable systems in the L.A. area which have been holding out against the Fox offering.

Sri Lanka's scandal-tainted cricket board has suspended its chief executive amid reports of a multi-million dollar television rights dispute.

Major League Baseball?s ?Subway Series? cost the owners of the Fox network, an incredible $70 million, far more than analysts expected.

Media company Digital Sport, which features onefootball.com as its flagship web site, is raising at least #4m ($6m) for future development.

Totalbet.com, the e-betting joint venture between the Tote and PA Sporting Life Limited, has become the first UK betting site to offer direct-to-pool betting on US horse racing pools.

Since the October launch of NBC6?s motorsports show `On Track from Lowe?s Motor Speedway?, nbc6.com has been placing every episode on the web.

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp says it will buy a major stake in a motor racing circuit as part of its preparations for a return to Formula One racing in 2002.