Industry Shorts: Racing League, Ioc, Pti Digital
New team-based horseracing series Racing League has appointed integrated sports marketing agency rEvolution as its PR agency.
The appointment sees rEvolution and the Racing League expand their partnership following a series of successful joint projects together in 2020, including the official launch of the league format, as well as the announcement of the new £1.8m Racing League 2021 dates and venues in October.
The new points‐based horseracing competition will begin in July 2021 and run for six weeks across four racecourses around the UK. It will seek to ‘demystify’ horse racing and present it to a wider audience, with 12 teams going head‐to‐head at six meetings which will include £50k prize money per race.
The IOC has published the first in its series of ‘Playbooks’ which will lay out its measures to safely stage the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer.
The first lays out health and social distancing measures to prevent the spread of the virus in venues. Fans or support staff inside venues asked not to sing or chant in support of competitors, while athletes themselves will undergo coronavirus testing at least once every four days.
The first of the ‘Playbooks’ is, ‘for logistical reasons’, aimed at international federations and technical officials, while more are set to be published in the coming days and aimed at athletes, media, and broadcasters. will be published in the coming days.
PTI Digital has appointed former EFL Head of Audience Bob Tait as its new Head of Digital Engagement.
Throughout his career in sport, Tait has held roles at both Sunderland and most recently at Middlesbrough, serving as Head of Digital at the Stadium of Light, and on the senior leadership team at the Riverside as Head of Digital and Marketing Development.
Tait is one of a trio of February hires for PTI, with Steven Ward joining as Lead Technology Consultant in its Venue Tech team and Eloise Ramson joining as Graphic Designer to support across the whole business.
Japanese manufacturer Molten Corporation has renewed its three-year agreement with UEFA to continue as the Official Match Ball Supplier for the UEFA Europa League.
As part of the deal – which will run from 2021 until 2024 – Molten will also provide the official match ball for the newly created UEFA Europa Conference League which gets underway in July.
The official match balls will be used from the group stages in both competitions.
US collegiate athletics league, the America East Conference, has partnered with Sportradar Integrity Services to implement a new integrity program aimed at educating student-athletes and other key stakeholders about the topic of sports betting integrity.
As part of the deal, Sportradar will work alongside college sports experts, as well as professional educators, to design and develop educational content drawing upon Sportradar’s unrivaled experience in combating match-fixing around the world for over 15 years.
Topics will include best practices for identifying and reporting integrity concerns, rules and regulations around sports betting and match-fixing, responsible gambling and inside information misuse.
The Professional Triathletes Organisation has announced a new date for the inaugural Collins Cup, which will now take place on 28th August 2021.
The event – a new Ryder Cup-style competition which will see the world’s best triathletes compete – will have a record setting prize purse of $1.5 million and will be hosted, as originally planned, in Samorin, near Bratislava, Slovakia.
