TOP 100 SPORT SITES
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| Ashley Force Hood stays in celebration mode as royalty The NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship has officially started and Team Force is off to a great start! We raced this past weekend ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
BBC loses exclusive Masters rights Sky Sports ends corporation's 24 years of exclusive rights and will share TV coverage of tournament from next yearThe BBC has lost exclusive live TV rights to the Masters golf tournament after 24 years and will be sharing coverage with Sky Sports from next year.BSkyB's sports channels will broadcast exclusive live TV coverage of the opening two rounds of the tournament, one of golf's landmark events, from 2011.The BBC will share coverage of the final two rounds, played on Saturday 9 April and Sunday 10 April next year, with the pay-TV broadcaster, which plans to show the first golf major tournament of the calendar year in 3D. The BBC retains UK radio and online rights.Today's deal with the Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters tournament, is a coup for Sky, which already screens hundreds of hours of golf, including the biennial Ryder Cup between the US and Europe.Sky Sports will launch its 3D channel on 1 October with coverage of the Ryder Cup.The BBC has held the exclusive UK TV rights to Masters since 1986 and the event is one of the highlights of its sporting coverage. The BBC's last three-year content deal with Augusta expired in April this year.Barbara Slater, the BBC's director of sport, who led the corporation's attempt to hold on to exclusive TV rights, put a brave face on Sky's successful bid. It had been expected the BBC could lose TV coverage of the tournament completely."The BBC is very proud we have broadcast the Masters every year since 1986 and we are delighted that this new deal enables us to continue this relationship," Slater said."It means terrestrial audiences can continue to enjoy live coverage of the concluding rounds of this hugely prestigious tournament on BBC TV, alongside our comprehensive coverage on radio and online."Senior BBC insiders warned last week it could be forced to withdraw from the bidding for some sporting events after the BBC Trust said it would freeze the licence fee for up to two years.The decision to forgo a planned 2% rise in 2011 will leave executives with ÂŁ144m less to spend than they had budgeted for.Despite Sky's success in the sporting arena the BBC has kept hold of much of its coverage since the satellite company's inception, including Premier League highlights for Match of the Day and exclusive live TV rights to the Six Nations rugby union tournament, Wimbledon, the Olympics, the Commonwealth games, and major golf tournaments including the British Open and the US Open.Sky pulled off a coup when it won the rights to the Ryder Cup at the start of the decade, however, and the BBC also lost the rights to screen live TV coverage of the England cricket team's home Test matches to Channel 4 in 1999. Sky subsequently took over those cricket rights from Channel 4 in 2006.The Sky Sports managing director, Barney Francis, said: "Sky Sports is now the only place to see all four days of the Masters, live."Sky Sports has enjoyed a great partnership with golf for nearly two decades. We follow a hundred different tournaments each year, from five different continents, and are excited that the Masters is now at the heart of this calendar."• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".Sports rightsBBCBSkyBTelevision industryThe MastersGolfJames Robinsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
U.S. women cruise into world basketball championship semis Angel McCoughtry scored 17 points, Candice Dupree added 12 and Swin Cash 11 for the undefeated USA, which placed six players in double figures ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Lewis Hamilton suffers another setback in the Japanese grand prix The 2008 world champion's mid-summer run of two wins and two second places has given way to bad luck and a series of errorsThe image was striking. An hour before the start of the Japanese grand prix the 24 drivers were led to a priceless array of classic sports cars in order to be paraded around the Suzuka circuit. There were Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, Ferraris, Alfa Romeos and Jaguars but, as the cavalcade set off, perched in the back of a three‑wheeled Messerschmitt was the unmistakable figure of Lewis Hamilton.It was one of those weekends when nothing quite worked out the way it should for the 2008 world champion, and now any hopes that this season will bring a second title must be as likely as one of Japan's Shinkansen trains ever running late.In mid-summer Hamilton put together a four-race run of two wins and two second places to lead the championship but in the six grands prix since the British round at Silverstone on 11 July he has stood on the podium just once, the top step at Spa. In a five-way title fight results like that do not a champion make, and Hamilton must now be ruing the errors and ill fortune that have blighted the second half of his season.There was little he could do about the gearbox failure in Hungary, but an ill‑judged passing manoeuvre on the opening lap at Monza and then not leaving Mark Webber's Red Bull enough room in Singapore as he looked to make up a place were errors he could ill afford. Stuffing his McLaren into the barrier only 45 minutes into practice here on Friday was another black mark on what will be an interesting report card come the season's end.Today Hamilton found himself stymied behind his team-mate, Jenson Button, despite running on soft tyres and clearly having more speed.He should never have been there having qualified as the third fastest, but he had to start from eighth on the grid after being docked five places for replacing his gearbox, damaged in the collision in Singapore.Once he had pitted on lap 23 and his car was in clean air he was the quickest man on the track, but he was defenceless against Button when, on lap 44, his soft‑tyred team-mate, now with a low fuel load, drove straight past him and into fourth place. It did not help that Hamilton's new gearbox refused to engage third as the race wore on. The icing on this cake of woe for Hamilton is that he was also suffering from an ear infection.There are three races left, starting with the inaugural Korean grand prix in a fortnight's time, and none of the circuits left – Brazil and Abu Dhabi wrap up the season – look like McLaren-friendly tracks. To be fair, few have been bar Montreal. It has been Hamilton's phenomenal talent and sheer will along with Button's guile and craft that have kept the Woking team in the hunt.The 2010 McLaren-Mercedes is a good car but it is no Red Bull, and it has not been developed as progressively as the Ferrari that Fernando Alonso has made such good use of in recent races. There is no doubt that Hamilton has made the car look better than it really is.His drive in Australia was mesmerising before he got clattered by an over-excited Webber, and it was the Englishman's dogged pursuit of Sebastien Vettel and Webber in Turkey that was the catalyst for the Red Bulls to crash into each other.It might yet be that Hamilton can rescue his season and race with the No1 on the front of his car next year, but after yesterday it is long odds against. The never-say-die attitude and the racer's instinct have not been enough, and on occasion have even been the Englishman's own worst enemies.Hamilton will have learned a lot from having the error-free Button on the other side of the garage this season and will no doubt put it to good use in 2011. But for the remainder of this season he will continue to go flat out – that is the man's forte.It is also his foible.Lewis HamiltonFormula OneMotor sportOliver Owenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Rutgers' LeGrand watches game from hospital room By 2010-10-24T17:24:26ZNEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano says paralyzed player Eric LeGrand was able to watch the Scarlet Knights play from his hospital room.... hosted.ap.org |