Stadia

Europe is not only ready for stadium naming rights but the first companies to enter the market will get the best deals, said Charles Aster of New York-based attorneys Coudert Brothers during an afternoon work-shop at Sport Business 2000.

Content is still king on the internet ? especially if it is exclusive ? that was the message at a hugely popular workshop this morning at SportBusiness 2000 in London.

Richard Pound, vice president of the IOC, has emphasised the importance of keeping the Olympics on free-to-air TV, as he addressed delegates during the morning?s keynote speech at SportBusiness 2000.

Squash media and enthusiasts will be able to participate in the sport's first live worldwide interview with the world's leading women players - including England's world champion and world No1 Cassie Campion and Australia's former three-times world champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald - during the Com4Net Munich Open which gets underway in Germany today.

Rights fees for the major sports properties are set to keep on rising ? according to a panel of experts at the SportBusiness 2000 conference.

Europe could be about to follow the US with a new wave of privately financed sports stadia ? according to Charles Aster, partner at Coudert Brothers, speaking at the SportBusiness 2000 conference in London.

Sports.com (www.sports.com), the leading UK internet sports site, is to launch a #6.25m integrated marketing campaign.

Snider Capital has secured an additional investment of $1.22 million in Virtual Spectator, the live internet sports channel based in New Zealand.

Jesus Gil will return to the president's box at Atletico Madrid after a judge gave him back control of the Spanish first division club under the supervision of two financial administrators.

The rebuilding of Wembley Stadium, centrepiece of England's 2006 World Cup bid, may be delayed a year because its owners and the local council cannot agree on who should pay for improved transport links.

Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers have named Pepsi the `Official Soft Drink of Comerica Park? as part of a new, multiyear agreement.

A new internet site catering for event organisers and sponsors, is being launched by S-Comm.

Frank Maloney, the manager of Lennox Lewis, is to promote the first live pictorial coverage of a boxing fight on the internet, with a fly-weight match in London this Thursday on fighnight.com.

On the day that News Corps and Vivendi have proposed a joint shareholding of their digital businesses, European media big-hitters Bertelsmann, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert and Pearson (PTV) have agreed to merge CLT-UFA, Europe's leading commercial television and radio broadcaster, with Pearson Television, the independent television production company.

The St. Louis Cardinals, joining the trend of baseball teams moving to new state-of-the-art stadiums, have announced plans for a $370 million downtown ballpark complex.

To ability to insert personalised advertisements into web broadcasts of sport has taken a step closer after Philips Digital Networks and Symah Vision announced they were collaborating to develop a cutting edge technology.