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Olympic Bloopers

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New York Mets (Baseball) and Vancouver Canucks (Hockey) will upgrade it´s data systems by offering fans the opportunity to order food, see instant replays, call up player statistics on the fly or buy merchandise right from their seats, using a handheld device.
"This is the general direction things are going in. People want information and convenience," says Harvey Jones, the Canucks vice president for arena operations.
According to Forbes, neither team expects to have fans punching up food orders or buying merchandise on their PDAs just yet. The system upgrades undertaken by each club will serve the immediate purposes of speeding up communications for the employees, the better to get fans into parking lots and through the gates faster. Concession workers will be able to re-stock hot dogs faster, while ticket scanning can be done in more locations, not just at the turnstiles.

A new study from Commercial Alert, a public-interest group, has highly criticised the marketing and adverting of junk foods, sodas, fast-foods chains and alcoholic beverages at the Olympic games. They study says that IOC policies must be re-examined.
‘The Commercial Games’ report states that such products conflict with the stated purpose of the Olympics, which they say is to "celebrate healthful living." Promoting such products in the widely watched Olympics, the study says, is "unhealthful," and particularly inappropriate "for an event with enormous appeal to children."
The study also criticises the IOC for what the groups believe is its lack of concern that some companies with marketing ties to the Games rely on so-called "sweatshops" that offer substandard wages and working conditions to produce goods. It specifically cited Nike and Adidas as companies that haven't taken effective steps to eliminate sweatshop conditions within their supply chains. In addition, study also criticises the IOC for awarding "monopolies" to sponsors such as Visa and Coke that limit spectator choices at the Games themselves. Only non-alcoholic beverages marketed by Coca-Cola are available at the Olympics, and Visa is the only credit card accepted there.

According to Sport Business Journal, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has announce a a plan to stream live games to local markets on the internet.
Under the plans, the NBA will negotiate contracts for its member teams so they can stream live games to targeted local online audiences this autumn. In theory, Los Angeles residents would be able to watch games directly from LA Lakers web site. NBA will use geo-targeting to improve market segmentation.
It is still unclear whether the games will be streamed for free, with advertisements, or even on which sites they would be shown. The NBA is also dealing with rights issues and potential pushback from regional sports networks.

According to Forbes, nine of the 10 most lucrative are indoor basketball/hockey venues that seat between 18,000 and 21,000 with at leats 89 luxury suits. Football and baseball stadiums, are too big to compete on a per-seat basis.
The Los Angeles Stapples Center it´s the #1, with more than 140 events a year thanks to LA Lakers, LA Clippers, NHL´s Kings, WNBA´s Sparks and de AFL´s Avengers.
The arena draws $5.8 million annually in naming rights from Staples. It adds up to approximately $216 million in annual sports revenue, or $10,200 per seat.
Take a look at the Top 10 in pictures.
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Spanish soccer club, Real Madrid launch an official mobile website of the team in Japan.
Real Madrid Mobile will feature weekly club news, interviews, video footage of goals from the UEFA Champions League and text updates of schedules, scores and results for users in Japan.
The site will be available on Japan’s three major mobile phone carriers.
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The greatest Olympic athlete so far, Michael Phelps is lifting up sponsors brands.
Phelps, who already receives an estimated $5 million annually in endorsement deals - more than 10 times what most of the high-profile athletes in his sport make - is likely to see his net worth increase by tens of millions of dollars.
According to Joyce Julius & Associates, Phelps’ air time on US network NBC has been worth $3.6 million for Speedo alone. Also senior vice president for marketing and sales for Speedo, Stu Isaac, said: "Truly, we've been able to leverage his popularity with all of our accounts because he has transcended swimming. It's helping Speedo become cooler and addressing a younger market outside just that core competitive swimmer."
Speedo offered a $ 1 million bounty if Phelps, only 19 at the time, could equal Mark Spitz´s record of seven gold medals, but the offer still stands for Beijing 08.
Phelps other sponsors include Visa, AT&T, Kellogg's, Hilton and Omega watches.
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During this Olympic game, Nike allowed swimmers to wear the Speedo LZR Racer suit, but at leats three non-Speedo athletes have covered up Speedo´s logo.
Eric Wright of Joyce Julius & Associates said that "Usuallly they were throwing a piece of black tape over the logo". A replay of NBC´s broadcast of the 4x100 meter relay, Speedo´s logo can´t be seen on the suits worn by Nike-sponsored athletes Cullen Jones or Jason Lezak.
According to Wright, Speedo has lost 30 seconds of exposure in both the men's and women's competitions from the cover ups. "Which comes to $750,000 of value if you're comparing it to ad buys," he said.

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Lenovo, fourth largest PC manufacturer and the Olympic sponsor, has said that it´s marketing campaing will boost brand abroad.
Lenovo is the only Chinese company among the International Olympic Committee's 12 top-tier sponsors. The firm acquired IBM Corp's PC unit in 2005 and is hoping its link to the Games will help its efforts to become a global brand name.
Lenovo is planning Olympics-related television advertising campaigns in the United States, Australia and India and will be running Internet advertisements in Europe, according to Alice Li, the company's vice president for Olympic marketing.

Sport marketing company, IMG, agreed a 20-year deal with China´s television broadcast, CCTV, to develop and market new sports events.
According to WJG, the venture hopes to capitalize on the post-Olympics commercialization of sports in China and intend to develop sports across that country for broadcast on CCTV- whose daily audience of 680 million people.
Ted Forstmann, IMG's chairman and chief executive, said: "The fundamental purpose of the joint venture is to marry what CCTV does in China and what IMG does all over the world. "If we are successful [in China], there are going to be a whole lot of events that exist that do not exist today," he added.