Gossip: PSV keen on Clarke
Dutch club PSV Eindhoven are interested in a move for Ipswich's English winger Jack Clarke, 24, this summer. (Football Insider), externalWant more transfer stories? Read Friday's full gossip columnFollow the gossip column on BBC Sport
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
SailGP rides rising tide with celebrity owners, brands
NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - With new celebrity owners and a bevy of fresh sponsors, SailGP hopes to harness a wave of popularity and take the global sailing championship to the next level as it steers back to New York City to race for a third time this weekend. SailGP announced actors Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds as new owners of Australia's three-time champion team on Thursday, just as the ink was drying on the team's first title sponsor deal with BONDS. Reynolds led beleaguered soccer side Wrexham out of obscurity and into the English second-tier Championship with an injection of marketing wizardry, cash and a popular docu-series that quickly converted legions of American fans. SailGP is hoping for their Wrexham moment, too. "The fact that we can get that sort of involvement in one of the teams is amazing, and they'll have some fun with it too, which is what it's all about," Russell Coutts, the former Olympic champion who co-founded the league, told Reuters. It was the kind of news to which fans have become accustomed, as the operation co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison catches fire with A-listers and snares more big-name brands six years after its launch. Oscar winner Anne Hathaway joined a female-led consortium that acquired the Red Bull Italy SailGP Team last week, while the competition itself named Rolex its title sponsor in November. More than 200,000 ticketholders watched SailGP events last year, as the league reported strong growth in social media engagement, snaring younger fans. The competition expanded to 12 teams for season five, with the addition of Brazil and Italy, and announced its new docuseries last month, part of a new content development push. "We had so many sort of naysayers out there saying this is like another sailing league, it'll be gone in two years, people have tried this and done it before, it never works and SailGP has totally broken down those boundaries," said Tom Slingsby, the CEO and driver for the Australian team. The 2012 Olympic gold medallist, whose team was rebranded as the BONDS Flying Roos, said he could not have imagined five years ago his team signing an iconic brand like BONDS, as they mull potential documentary options with Jackman and Reynolds. "I would have said that's not possible. There's no chance," he said. "But here we are." The leaders in the SailGP standings are not the only winners in the sponsorship race: On Monday, the U.S. SailGP team announced Amazon has signed on as a sponsor, joining existing brands like Tommy Hilfiger and T-Mobile. "You're starting to see really big brands come in and spend money in our sport," said Mike Buckley, the CEO and strategist for the U.S. SailGP team. "We're on everybody's radar now." Buckley put his money where his mouth is in 2023, helping lead a group of investors in the purchase of the U.S. team, locking in early for the league that hopes to become the "F1 of sailing". "Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts had a vision to build a TV product that the average racing fan would spend 90 minutes paying attention to," he said. "And I think they've done just that." The New York Sail Grand Prix is set for June 7-8.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Portman Road becomes boxing arena for Wardley Huni fight
Ipswich Town's Portman Road stadium is being transformed into a boxing arena ahead of a heavyweight Suffolk ground is due to host about 20,000 spectators when hometown hero Fabio Wardley takes on Justis Huni on British fighter is hoping for a better outcome on the pitch than his beloved Tractor Boys, who failed to register a Premier League home win in Promotions said the arena was "coming along nicely" as it shared some pictures, taken on Thursday, ahead of the bout. Wardley was originally supposed to be fighting Jarrell Miller, who pulled out after suffering an injury in have shown the stadium's famous pitch covered in protective plastic boards, with tall metal structures in place where the ring will who is boxing for the WBA interim title, said it was a "dream come true" to battle at the ground, which holds up to 30,000 fans for walks are expected to take place at 21:50 BST. It will be the first time since 1946 that Portman Road has hosted boxing, according to medallist Lewis Richardson, from Colchester, is on the 10-fight undercard, as is Ipswich boxer Jack Williams. Follow East of England news on X, Instagram and Facebook: BBC Beds, Herts & Bucks, BBC Cambridgeshire, BBC Essex, BBC Norfolk, BBC Northamptonshire or BBC Suffolk.
Scottish Sun
2 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
‘I love the chaos' – Why Fabio Wardley's fight with Justis Huni won't even be the biggest night of his month
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) FABIO WARDLEY has the two most important nights of his life inside the next 10 DAYS. Ipswich's 30-year-old former recruitment worker and white-collar boxer headlines Portman Road on Saturday night against tough Australian Justis Huni. 3 Fabio Wardley ahead of fighting Justis Huni Credit: Getty And on June 16 his partner is scheduled to give birth to his first child, a bouncing baby girl. For anyone else, the nail-biting fortnight would be a crippling rollercoaster of emotions impossible to combine. But the Suffolk Puncher - who went on an Oleksandr Usyk sparring trip to Ukraine in 2018 when he barely knew how to throw a jab - is loving the chaos. The class act told SunSport: 'June 2025 is going to be a wild month I talk a lot about, for the rest of my life. READ MORE IN BOXING Wardley vs Huni All the details you need ahead of huge homecoming bout 'I will be an old man in a rocking chair, telling people about it and wondering how we pulled it off. 'Everything has come together at the same time, it might seem a bit hectic but I wouldn't have it any other way. I thrive on it, I love the chaos.' Nine months ago, the 18-0-1 ace got the wonderful news he would be a dad for the first time. And a few weeks later he got the offer of a lifetime, to headline at his boyhood football club, a chance that some Olympic and world champions never get. 3 Wardley and his girlfriend are expecting their first child together Credit: Instagram @fabiowardley CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS It seems like a psychological and logistical nightmare that would be destined for the divorce courts but Team Wardley is way too tight. 'If my little girl is anything like me, then she'll be chilled out and late, which will give me a little bit more time to decompress from the fight,' he grinned. Fabio Wardley faces off with Justis Huni ahead of his homecoming fight 'The flight date has been moved around a few times but my missus has been unbelievable. 'I have just promised to her that, as soon as Saturday night is over, I am all theirs. 'This week, though, is just my week. I need to be totally focused on me and then it's all on them.' Wardley - who cracked 2020 Olympic bronze winner Frazer Clarke's skull in their one-round rematch in October - somehow combines being a brutal boxer with being a lovely bloke and he insists that won't change with another win or a baby. 'I don't know how parenthood will affect me,' he said. 'I do plan to be the fun-dad though. I want mum to do the telling off. 'I think I will always be driven to push myself in everything, though. Everything has come together at the same time, it might seem a bit hectic but I wouldn't have it any other way. I thrive on it, I love the chaos. 'That's something just innate in me. And I am sure I will need to feed and stoke that fire regularly.' One thing Wardley would NEVER do, despite the baffling suggestion from some clumsy pundits, is fight his mentor and pal Dillian Whyte. After following all of Wardley's career, we were stunned to hear the idea even mooted and Wardley floored it. 'You're 100 per cent right, for once.' he laughed. 'From the second it would be announced, everybody who knows the sport and who knows us, would know it would be fake and not something I would ever do, because of the amount of love, respect and admiration I have for Dills. 'People go on about my story, white-collar, coming from nowhere, sparring Usyk. "But none of that is possible without Dillian at the beginning, giving me all of these opportunities. So I would never spit in his face and fight him. 'Even if all the sanctioning bodies called for the fight and somebody was silly enough to put all the money up, I would take a knee in the first round and give him the win.'
