information, insight and analysis for the global sports sector ...

AGENDASHORTSTOPUSA Track and Field: Chief executiveDoug Logan was fired. Logan becamechief executive just before the 2008Olympics and kicked off a majorreview of USATF after the team’s poorshowing in Beijing.Winter Olympics 2018: SwedishInternational Olympic Committeemember Gunilla Lindberg wasappointed to lead an 11-personevaluation team. Lindberg has been amember of commissions monitoringprogress of five Olympic Games.ATP Tour: The professional men’s tennisseries said it will consider shorteningits calendar to give the players moretime to rest. The Tour currently consistsof 62 events in 32 countries and runsfrom January until November.NHL: The National Hockey Leaguefined the New Jersey Devils $3m andtook away the franchise’s first-rounddraft pick for its initial contract offer toIlya Kovalchuk. The league’s complaintthat the 17-year, $102m contractcircumvented its limit on team payrollswas upheld by an arbitrator in August.Trinidad and Tobago: The republic’sfootball federation (TTFF) appealedagainst a Port of Spain High Courtdecision that it should honour anagreement with 13 of its 2006 WorldCup squad players and also paythe legal costs of a four-year courtbattle. It is reported that before thetournament the TTFF agreed to pay thesquad 50 per cent of revenues raisedwith the World Cup campaign.FIFA: World football’s governing bodyinvestigated allegations that a Togoteam which played an exhibition matchagainst Bahrain in September wasfake. Local media reported that thegame had been “sold” to the BahrainFootball Association by a “fake agent.”Brawn GP: The Formula One teammade a profit of £98.5m in the yearthey won both the drivers’ andconstructors’ titles, 2009, according toa company filing.AIBA: The International BoxingAssociation provisionally suspendedSouth Korea’s national federationover allegations its former president,Yoo Jae-joon, disrupted AIBA’scompetition procedures and bribedmembers for votes during elections.BETTMAN UPS THE ANTENHL commissioner Gary Bettman - Getty Images SportPaul Romanuk unravels the future direction of international ice hockey.NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE (NHL)commissioner Gary Bettman has cast doubt onwhether the world’s most influential ice hockeyleague will make its star players available for the2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.Speaking at the first ever ‘World HockeySummit’ in Toronto, Canada this August,Bettman revealed during a Q&A session: “Goingto the Olympics is a mixed bag. It can be verygood, but there can be problems.“There is mixed sentiment among theclubs. Some think it’s a terrible idea [Olympicparticipation, which involves halting the league’sschedule of matches right in the middle of theseason] but others think it’s very important.”Why would the commissioner provoke suchcontroversy at a gathering devoted to strengtheningthe international appeal of ice hockey?The speculation is that Bettman is hesitatingto declare NHL participation in Sochi in order touse the issue as a bargaining chip in upcomingnegotiations with the player’s union (playersoverwhelmingly want to play in the Olympics].There is also a belief in some quarters thatBettman wants the NHL to be financiallycompensated for stopping its season andallowing players to go to the Games.Not surprisingly, the president of the RussianbasedKontinental Hockey League, AlexanderMedvedev, was incredulous that the NHL wouldeven toy with the idea of not allowing players toparticipate in what will be the biggest internationalsporting event in modern Russian history.“It’s quite obvious that there’s no need tospend time and money to analyse the effectthat international events like the Olympicshave on hockey,” said Medvedev during a paneldiscussion. “To not send the NHL to the OlympicGames, either to Sochi or the next destination, islike putting poison or pesticide into the soil thatproduces this first-class product.”Looking forward, it is more than likely thatthe NHL will still pause its season in 2014 andallow players to participate, as they have done forevery Winter Olympics since Nagano 1998.For both the sport and a multitude ofinternational broadcasters, there is simply toomuch riding on the presence of the NHL players.Indeed, the very idea for the “Global Ice HockeySummit” was born out of the Vancouver WinterOlympic Games when the men’s final betweenCanada and the United States became the mostwatchedice hockey match in history.“I think we should be placing an even greateremphasis on NHL players at the Olympicsand we should increase their profile,” saidBrian Cooper, a long-time sports marketingexecutive and present Director of the HockeyCanada Foundation. “The marketing value thatthe Olympics brings to the sport cannot bequantified. It’s priceless.”Other major issues discussed at the summitincluded developing a cohesive schedule betweenthe International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF)and the NHL for international competitionsto replace the current somewhat convolutedagenda. There was also discussion about there-establishment of a European ChampionsLeague. The most recent attempt was in 2008-09,when the competition met with success at thebox office but was a failure financially when theventure’s main backer, Gazprom Export, pulledout as a result of the global financial crash.Ultimately, the IIHF would like to see arenewed Champions League, with the winnerplaying the NHL champion.“For the hockey fans,” said IIHF presidentRené Fasel, “that would be music.”10 SportBusiness International • No.161 • 10.10