Industry Shorts: Bt Sport, England Netball, Rlwc, Sis

BT Sport has announced the return of the BT Sport Pub Cup for a third year, with this year’s tournament open to more teams than ever before.

Over 190 men’s and women’s places are available in the free-to-enter competition, which aims to celebrate pubs and their football teams.

The tournament will begin on the 8^th May with twelve regional qualifiers at stadiums across the UK, including Anfield – Liverpool, Selhurst Park – Crystal Palace, St. Marys – Southampton, Molineux – Wolverhampton, Stadium of Light – Sunderland , Liberty Stadium – Swansea and Windsor Park – Belfast, before the winning teams face off in the semi-finals at the state-of-the-art City Academy, home of Manchester City and with the final at Newcastle’s St. James’ Park on 4^th June.

Bruce Cuthbert, director commercial customers, BT Sport, commented: “This year we’re bringing back the BT Sport Pub Cup, bigger and better, with more teams able to take part and the biggest pub team kit giveaway ever.  Sport is such an important part of pub culture and this competition aims to strengthen the tie between licensees and their communities by offering a once in a life time experience to pub football teams up and down the country.”  

This year BT Sport will also be giving away a full Puma team kit for every BT Sport Pub team that enters the draw to compete.

England Netball and UK Sport have officially opened the Netball Heritage Archive to the public.

The archive, located at Heritage Quay, University of Huddersfield, traces the sport’s formation back to 1897.

It forms part of the Netball Heritage Project, which England Netball embarked on as part of its 90^th birthday in 2016 with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The objective of the project is to help future generations of netball and other sport researchers by providing a state of the art safe archive for the storing of documents, photographs, videos and other memorabilia throughout the history of the sport.  

The exhibition space at Heritage Quay is open seven days a week for 50 weeks of the year, except for Bank Holidays, giving the public a chance to book a place to come and see netball’s history and development.

England Netball is gearing up for the Netball World Cup in Liverpool this summer, in addition to the BT Sport Industry Awards, for which it is shortlisted for Sport Organisation of the Year in association with AXA XL.

Before then, England Netball CEO Joanna Adams will headline next Tuesday’s (12th March) Sport Industry Breakfast Club alongside partner Vitality’s Nick Read. Limited places and #SIBC annual membership packages are still available.

Rugby League World Cup 2021 (RLWC2021) InspirationALL ambassador Jodie Cunningham returned to her former school, Cardinal Newman Catholic High School in Warrington, to present one of the first seven CreatedBy RLWC2021 Capital Grants projects, which range from kit and equipment for weekly touch rugby league sessions at Castleford Tigers Women to a clubhouse refresh for Wigan St Judes ARLFC.

The seven chosen small grant schemes, part of the tournament’s wider InspirationALL legacy initiative, are the first to receive funding for the provision of capital items, kit and equipment or to refurbish and improve existing facilities.

Applications for grants have been open since October 2018, with a total of £10 million available for local clubs and community projects to create a positive impact. £9 million will be allocated to large-scale requests costing more than £15,000, with the remaining £1 million being granted to smaller-scale projects. The government investment, delivered in partnership with the RFL and Sport England, is part of RLWC2021’s plan to leave a lasting legacy from the tournament.

Sports nutrition brand Science in Sport (SiS) has announced the launch of a new product range specifically formulated for footballers.

The range, which consists of a ‘Pre-90’ energy loader, a Surge pre-match Gel and a Surge Zero pre-training shot, was developed in collaboration with a number of leading nutritionists at professional football clubs, including Manchester United, Celtic, Rangers, Aston Villa and Wigan Athletic.

SiS has supplied clubs at all levels of professional football for nearly a quarter of a century. In the UK, more than 85 clubs currently use SiS products to aid their players with energy, hydration, rebuild and recovery needs.

The brand is the official nutrition partner of Manchester United in Europe.