Sport of archery catches wind in North Iowa

North Iowa schools are incorporating archery into their physical education classes through the Iowa Archery in the Schools Program.

North Iowa Middle School was the site of a program tournament on March 22 with 44 students from three school districts participating.

“To me it is a stress reliever,” said Jordan Garcia, an eighth grader at Northwood- Kensett.

“I like that it gives kids something to do other than get in trouble and it is fun.”

“It teaches students discipline as well as sportsmanship,” said Juanita Stevens, physical education instructor and archery coach for the North Iowa Middle School. “It builds confidence and upper arm strength. The neat thing about archery is that it is for everyone, even the non-athletic students. You can even apply math and science concepts to this sport when practicing what angles to use for aim.”

Students participating in the tournament were from North Iowa, West Hancock, and Northwood Kensett school districts.

“I think archery is a fun sport,” said Laura Mastin, an eighth grader at North Iowa. “It is not a sport a lot of schools have. I think it is cool that our school offers this opportunity to us.”

“It improves your eye and hand coordination,” said Javier Vasques, a West Hancock participant. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Serving as referee was John Carlson of Lake Mills, president of the Iowa State Archery Association and a board member of Iowa Archery in The Schools Program.

“This program is in over 50 school districts,” said Carlson. “We are currently having P.E instructors apply the sport of archery to their classes.”

Other schools offering the Iowa Archery in the Schools Program include Lake Mills, Forest City, Garner, Belmond and Mason City.

All archery students are eligible to attend the National Archery in the School Program Tournament to be held Saturday in Johnston. Archers will compete to qualify for the the Nationals in Louisville, Ky. in June. Iowa’s first state Archery in the Schools Tournament will be held March 2008 in Des Moines.

When cricket is more than just a sport!

For a country where cricket is viewed as a business, not a sport, and the Indian cricketers as a brand, not a team, it could all end in a painful hangover when the brand does not deliver. India's distressing defeat at the hands of minnows Bangladesh in the Caribbean has not only left a cricket-crazy nation, which dissects every move and every word of cricketers beyond any rationale, thunderstruck, but also has sent sponsors, advertisers and multinationals in a flap.

Market analysts would have us believe that should India fail to reach the Super 8 stage of the World Cup, it would put Rs.3.5 billion worth of ad money and roughly Rs.13.25 billion in sponsorship money at risk. Add to these future sponsorships and sales of consumer durables that are riding high on the World Cup frenzy and it could be even more dreadful news if the men in blue are edged out if it boils down to run rates to qualify.

A day after its heady triumph, Bangladesh mocked at India's 'cash-rich cricketers' and the cricketing authorities for making cricket 'a product, not sport'.

'India sees cricket as business but Bangladesh knows and plays cricket as a sport. The only country that has not invited Bangladesh to play a test series is India, just because Bangladesh is not financially viable as a team. Now, India have to understand that cricket is a game and not a commercial apple!' wrote Tareq Mahmood in Prathom Alo, a leading daily newspaper of Bangladesh.

That cricket mania always grips India before any major tourney is well known. For a showpiece event like the World Cup, the excitement is even more palpable as it does not get any bigger and the game becomes the adhesive that binds people across the country.

But this time around the fixation has gone up several unreasonable notches fuelled by the multitude of TV channels tracking the build-up in minute detail even as they fight for a slice of the viewership pie.

Not a day passes without channels buffeting viewers with deafening cheer campaigns, road shows supporting the Indian team, special prayers, musical performances and interactive cricket programmes that are expected to play out during the six weeks. If that was not enough, people have been pounded by mobile games as well as match updates and cricket clips on mobile phones as companies pitch in to pull in crowds with attractive offers to boost sales.

Capitalizing on cricket frenzy, sportswear brands have launched novel cricket adverts while soft drink companies have introduced gold coloured colas, each vying for that seamless space to increase their brand value. And this time Bollywood too has jumped into the bandwagon, releasing a movie, aptly titled 'Hattrick' - a story of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

While it is now well acknowledged that India is the epicentre of world cricket, boasting of the largest market and widest social base, this mass hysteria does seem out of place when one sport becomes to dominate so much of Indian life.

As celebrated cricket writer Rohit Brijnath fittingly puts it, 'To have a conversation on cricket in India occasionally requires no second person. Most of us can argue vigorously with ourselves, internal debates that suggest a delightful schizophrenia, where we are optimist yet pessimist, believer and sceptic, supporter and critic, all at once.'

Experts reckon the 2007 World Cup alone will attract television advertisements worth $17 million as maximum sponsorships for cricket flow in from India. Of the ICC's sponsorship amount of $550 million earned last year, $300 million came from India.

Perhaps, if it had not been the megabucks that swathes cricket and the advertising blitzkriegs we would not get so worked up if India loses. But then sports promoters and those who manage the game have other ideas, bent on exploiting the brand for all its worth, irrespective of whether the cricketers play for 'mind, body, heart and soul'.

Russia's Sport TV Channel to show 2007 Premier League matches

Russia's Sport state television channel will broadcast the Russian soccer Premier League matches in 2007 under an agreement with NTV-plus commercial TV company, the company's general director said Sunday.

On Tuesday, NTV-plus purchased exclusive rights from the Russian Football Union (RFU) to broadcast live soccer matches for the next four years under a $100 million contract at pay-per-view rates instead of free on state television channels, but the Russian president criticized the deal.

"To increase the social responsibility of our contract, we have agreed with Sport TV Channel on broadcasting Russian soccer matches along with [Public Television] Channel One and regional channels. Currently, we are carrying out work with Sport TV Channel to conclude a relevant sublicense agreement," Dmitry Samokhin said.

Concerned over the deal, President Vladimir Putin earlier asked Dmitry Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister and the head of the state commission on the development of television and radio broadcasting in Russia, to straighten the situation out.

On March 9, Medvedev said that all live matches from the Russian soccer Premier League will be broadcast free this year.

Samokhin said his company's contract with the Russian Football League will remain.

"As we intended before, we are committing a large amount of funds into the development of the Russian soccer and a new quality of television broadcasting, Samokhin said.

Therefore, the Russian soccer Premier League matches will be broadcast under the scheme similar to the arrangement last year, when Channel One, Sport TV Channel and local television companies were involved in the effort," said Anastasia Kazakova, the press secretary for NTV-plus.

Sport TV Channel is part of the All Russia State Television and Radio Company, or VGTRK.

Rugby: Tests may be World Cup seeding

The IRB is expected to unveil plans in Auckland this week to make end of season tours part of a new, two-year compe-tition counting towards World Cup seeding.

After almost seven years of expensive research and debate, Bernard Lapasset, the enigmatic Frenchman who heads the IRB's high performance unit, has come up with a couple of ideas to restore the vibrancy of test rugby.

The prospect of a global season - unifying the Northern and Southern Hemisphere seasons - has been ruled out, leaving only the June and November test windows with which to tinker.

One idea the IRB will put forward on Tuesday is a 10-team competition, played over two years, involving all the game's Tier One countries.

This proposal recognises that traditional competitions such as the Six Nations and Tri Nations are foundation stones that should never be removed and that the stale, mouldy part of the rugby season is the two cross-hemisphere test windows.

Watching European sides venture down here with a host of never-heard-ofs and never-likely-to-hear-of-agains for a one-off test has long lost its appeal. Likewise, there is never any sense of fulfilment from watching development All Black teams gain priceless experience at European grounds while their more experienced brethren enjoy an extended Christmas break.

Because the June window elongates the northern season and the November window reduces the All Blacks pre-season to about three weeks, the rugby in these periods must be meaningful. There has to be a reason for players to front up.

Lapasset has come up with that reason - tests in the new competition will determine World Cup seedings.

Currently the IRB uses the previous World Cup to determine seedings. It's a crazy system that means in 2007, England, ranked seventh after barely winning a game since they bagged the William Webb Ellis, are number one seeds.

So Lapasset's big picture is that New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Argentina play in a structured format where points are allocated. The final points will determine World Cup seedings, providing a major incentive for nations to field their strongest side and take the whole business seriously.

Dovetailing into this proposal is the plan to provide an opportunity for national sides to play midweek fixtures.

Coaches bemoan the lack of opportunities to trial young blood and say they have little choice but to use tests to experiment.

There may be value in scheduling New Zealand to play three tests in the UK in November which will count towards World Cup seedings. That way the All Blacks could take an extended squad and squeeze in mid-week games.

The tricky part in all this is finance. Whatever the IRB say about the need to protect players from excessive demands, the catalyst for the shake-up is a report last year by accountants Deloitte & Touche.

They found that in the 10 years since the game went professional, global revenue had jumped from about £150m to £600m. Costs had risen by largely the same amount, so the sport was barely breaking even. The £600m represented only five per cent of the money soccer was generating.

For rugby to grow in existing countries and new frontiers, it needs money - which can only be generated by attracting external investors. Those investors need something sexy that engages the public.

The great hope is that the new competition will receive serious financial backing. Then the challenge will be for the IRB to share broadcast and sponsorship revenue equitably as well as building a new gate-sharing model.

The message delivered this week will be that rugby sits in view of a brave new world.

But it won't be the first time the IRB have banged on about grand plans. Since 2000 there has been talk about a global season. Coaches, players, medics, administrators, sponsors and broadcasters have been unanimous, for the better part of the last decade, that the season is dangerously long.

There's not only too much rugby, there's too much meaningless rugby and with the athletes on average 10kg heavier and 30 per cent stronger than they were in 2000, the current set-up makes demands that are career-threatening.

The pre-season has disappeared to accommodate the bulging fixture list and players no longer have adequate time to rest, recuperate and prepare.

The IRB have heard all this ad nauseum for the last seven years. But despite acknowledging the validity of the arguments, they have failed to institute change.

It's funny that a few months after a document appeared detailing how the status quo is squeezing the coffers, the IRB get into gear.

It's more funny peculiar than funny ha-ha, but as long as it leads to change, everyone will be laughing.