Stadia

The New Zealand Rugby Football Union has appointed Media Content, the UK-based agency, to advise on exploiting its media and broadcasting rights.

National Football League owners have voted to bring club web sites and the league?s NFL.com under one national umbrella called the NFL Internet Network. The two-year plan was approved at the annual owners meeting in Palm Beach, Fla.

I7, the online and broadband content and distribution subsidiary of Australian broadcaster Seven Network, has formed an alliance with Evolution Technologies to supply Evolution with a sports channel as well as three additional channels each covering the 2000 Olympics.

The 20 chairmen of the English Premier League soccer clubs are meeting today to start discussing the terms for the League?s lucrative new broadcast deal.

The latest in a wave of new US stadia opened on Thursday when city officials cut the ribbon on $250 million Enron Field, the new home of the Houston Astros baseball team.

BSkyB has opened talks with Ladbrokes, the leisure group owned by Hilton, that could lead to online betting on Sky Sports television channels and internet web sites, reports the Financial Times.

The Lee Valley Stadium in North London has been chosen as the venue if Britain is awarded the 2005 world athletics championships.

Internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks has snapped up the exclusive internet broadcasting rights to international cricket matches played in India.

Argentine buyout fund The Exxel Group is going to launch an Internet soccer portal in the near future.

E.comsport, an internet company aiming to challenge club?s reliance on information from agents, is set to float on AIM with a market value of #20m.

NBA.com, the official internet site of the National Basketball Association, is launching a customised service for UK fans called NBA.com/UK.

Belgian speech and translation software firm Lernout & Hauspie has said its language translation services would be used by private soccer club internet site InterClubNet.com.

KVP Venture, a $250 million venture capital fund founded by Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer and two Indian partners, has decided to invest in four Indian startup companies focused on the internet and software, the fund has announced ? and a sporting venture is set to be among the first to benefit.

D.C United has attracted an offer from US cable company Discovery Communications to become a major sponsor of the MLS club in a one-year $150,000 (#95,000) deal, reports the soccer industry newsletter, the Soccer Investor Weekly Bulletin.

ScoreCardUSA.com, a recreational sports portal providing personalized Web services for active individual sports enthusiasts, has raised $1.6million in first-round funding, led by CrossBow Ventures of West Palm Beach, Fla., and individual private investors. ScoreCardUSA.com is scheduled to launch June 1.

Soccer clubs will soon be able to sell tickets and reservations to Vodafone Interactive and WAP mobile phone users following an agreement between Vodafone and UK ticket company ticketingsolutions.com.