Basketball Ireland signs three year TV deal
Basketball Ireland has signed Setanta Sports as its television partner for the next three years.  This means the National Cup Finals will after all be televised on Friday night, February 3rd.
There had been anger at RTE’s decision not to screen the finals this year due to funding constraints brought about by extensive coverage of the London Olympics and Euro 2012 Championships this summer.
The broadcaster will also produce a regular magazine style programme in what is clearly a big boost to the sport.
“Basketball is an incredibly popular sport in Ireland with huge participation levels among men and women so it would have been a shame if the finals were not televised,” said Setanta CEO Colin Morgan.  “As Ireland’s only dedicated sports broadcaster we have the resources to accommodate important Irish sport in our schedules.  We expect this to be just the beginning of a long relationship with Basketball Ireland and we look forward to working together.”
High performance grants to remain the same
Reports in this morning’s media suggest that high performance grants for 2012 will be broadly in line with last year’s.  This applies to individual athletes because of an agreement not to introduce significant changes until after the London Olympics.  There are three levels of grant at ranging from Podium at €40,000, through World Class at €20,000 to International at €12,000.
In 2011eight boxers, four athletes, four paralympians, three cyclists and one athlete from cerebral palsy sport qualified for the Podium funding.  Fionnuala Britton is thought likely to move from International to World Class level but with the total amount of money remaining the same, it leaves little room for increased grants to emerging talent.
Perhaps there is room for a group of corporate supporters to come together in a model of tiered sponsorship to provide a business based supplementary grant scheme.  Just a thought but one we will explore in Sport for Business Weekly in the coming weeks.
Irish team named for Davis Cup
Captain Gary Cahill has named a full strength team for the BNP Paribas Davis Cup first round tie against Hungary on February 10th – 12th. Conor Niland and Louk Sorensen will be joined by Sam Barry and James Magee for the match in Szegad.
“We have a strong team heading out to Hungary and we’re really looking forward to the tie,” said Cahill.  “This is a team with the experience, ability and passion to win this tie. Hard work and a good team spirit will be key to a successful start to our 2012 Davis Cup campaign.”
Olympic Group admits changes to ticket sale
Continued difficulties with the resale of Olympic tickets have prevented the system operating as planned.  People who wish to sell will now have any unwanted tickets bought back at face value.  These will then be sold back to the public, together with the remaining 1.3 million tickets that had already been held back, in April.  Olympic football and Paralympic tickets remain on sale up until February 6th.