Baseball

Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) has selected software from Cognos, an IBM company that provides business intelligence and performance management software, to help analyze player performance statistics. The software will provide hundreds of agents with "self-service" views and reports, and "will also enable the agents to perform ad hoc analysis on different scenarios with nearly immediate answers." (Digital Media Wire, 3/28/08)

Asia Business

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing has closed a second $60million investment round into social networking website Facebook. The investment was made through the Li Ka-Shing Foundation, and boosts Li's holdings in Facebook to $120million. The deal values Facebook at $15billion. (Los Angeles Times, 3/28/08)

Asia Sports

Sports sponsorship growth in Asia rose by 54% in 2007, with net a spending of $643 million, driven in part by the Beijing Olympics, according to IVCast from OgilvyAction. However, there was also a large rise in the sheer number of deals being done in other Asian countries with 2,233 in 2007 versus 1,624 in 2006, showing that the popularity and relevance of sponsorship is growing. The forecast for 2008 is currently showing a small decline of 9.5% reflecting the unknown continuation of deals recorded in 2007. (SportBusiness.com, 3/27/08)

India Entertainment

Reliance Entertainment, the largest player in the Indian film industry, is making an ambitious play in the US entertainment market by quietly buying up cinemas across the U.S. and is poised to launch in April as a coast-to-coast chain. Recently, George Soros paid $100 million for a 5% stake in Reliance, which has 250 screens in 28 North American locations, including Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, San Jose, Los Angeles, Washington state. The company plans to rename the US sites "Big Cinemas" as their renovations are completed, and says most of the sites are close to centers of ex-pat Indian and Asian populations. The company's objective is not to force the pace of crossover by Bollywood movies but to play popular movies from a wider range of sources, including popular Chinese or Korean cinema. The company's expansion into the US entertainment market, which is likely to be followed by moves into other countries, is one of several efforts to diversify into the entertainment industry. With major positions in telecommunications, broadband Internet, video, radio, movie production and post-production, Reliance has also unveiled plans to offer up to 20 TV channels and is weeks away from launching India's fourth satellite TV platform. Overall, the move underlines Indian companies' growing appetite for international properties and influence. (VarietyAsiaOnline, 3/26/08)

The Indian entertainment sector is expected to grow by 18% per year for the next four years, and could be worth $28.6 billion by 2011, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). PwC points to record inward foreign investment of $211 million and increased digitalization, and estimates that Internet advertising will hit $104 million in 2008, and touch $272 million in 2012. Film is expected to expand from $2.37 billion to $4.35 billion by 2012 as movie players discover revenue streams beyond the traditional box office such as television, mobile, Internet, home video, merchandise, music, re-make rights, and several branded entertainment opportunities. TV, where most of the foreign investment has gone, is forecast to grow from $5.59 billion to $14.8 billion by 2012. (VarietyAsiaOnline.com, 3/25/06)

Japan Baseball

The Orix Buffaloes will accept a ruling that effectively allows the Softbank Hawks to sign with RHP Jeremy Powell following a contract dispute between the two Japanese League clubs, a senior Orix official said. Orix said it would back off from its bid to acquire Powell after acting Japanese baseball commissioner Yasuchika Negoro issued a ruling in favor of Softbank. Orix and Softbank both announced the acquisition of Powell in January, claiming the validity of their respective deals. Powell has made clear his intention of joining the Hawks, who offered the more lucrative of the two deals. (JapanBall.com, 3/25/08)

China Entertainment

Nineyou International, a developer and publisher of online games in China, has raised $100 million in private equity funding from Temasek Holdings from Singapore. Shanghai-based Nineyou withdrew plans for a $154 million IPO in Japan last year, after two Korean companies threatened legal action over disputed game licenses. (Digital Media Wire, 3/25/08)

India Business

Tata Motors, India's top carmaker, announced a deal for British luxury automakers Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion. Ford paid for $2.5billion for Jaguar in 1989 and $2.8billion for Land Rover in March 2000. The deal obligates Ford to pay about $600 million into the Jaguar-Land Rover pension fund on closing, so Ford will net only about $1.7 billion. (Los Angeles Times, 3/25/08)

Japan Business

Toshiba is likely to report a loss of about $986 million at its HD DVD business for the year, after deciding to discontinue the format and cede victory to Sony's Blu-ray format. Production line changes and other charges associated with the shuttering will double the loss that Toshiba had previously expected. (Digital Media Wire, 3/19/08)

Wal-Mart said it will buy the remaining 4% of Seiyu, Japan's fifth-biggest retailer by sales, that it doesnt already own as Wal-Mart seeks the flexibility it says it needs to turn around the money-losing supermarket operator. Since entering the Japanese market in 2002, Wal-Mart has been gradually raising its stake in Seiyu, which has about 400 stores nationwide. But Wal-Mart has also struggled to make money in Japan as Japanese still prefer to go to smaller neighborhood stores for everyday food and other needs. In addition, Wal-Mart's "Everyday Low Price" strategy has backfired in Japan, where consumers tend to equate low prices with low quality. Overall, Wal-Mart's track record at its international operations has been uneven. While its business has flourished in Mexico and Latin America, shopping cultures in other regions, such as Asia, have failed to respond to the sales format that proved successful in the US. (Los Angeles Times, 3/19/08)

International Sports

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) said it has agreed sponsorship agreements worth about $709 million, more than 90% of its overall target of $760 million. The figures were released as part of VANOC's latest quarterly report, which also showedd that operating expenses are climbing as venue-construction costs decline. The 2010 Winter Olympics run from 2/12-28/10 in Vancouver, Canada and its surrounding areas. (SportBusiness.com, 3/17/08)

China Business

Youku.com, the China-based video-sharing website, has teamed with social networking site MySpace in hopes of becoming China’s version of YouTube. Launched in December 2006, Youku sees over 100 million daily video views, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. (Digital Media Wire, 3/14/08)

India Entertainment

According to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry of India, foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Indian entertainment sector amounted to $215 million in the nine months from March to December 2007, compared with a mere $44 million 2006. The previous highest year for FDI was 2000-01 with $81.5 million. In recent months, Western entertainment conglomerates have been very active in this area, including Disney's enlarged stake in UTV Software Communications, Viacom's co-investment with the TV 18 Group, Turner Entertainment's commitment to a joint venture with Alva Bros, and most recently NBC Universal's stake in NDTV. (VarietyAsiaOnline.com, 3/14/08)

China Business

According to research from Beijing-based BDA, based on data from the China Internet Network Information Center, China had 210 million internet users at the end of 2007, compared to Nielsen/NetRatings findings of 216 million in the US. BDA said that, based on the pace of growth in China, and now that the first quarter of 2008 is nearly finished, it is safe to assume the country has surpassed the U.S. in total internet users. (Digital Media Wire, 3/13/08)

India Entertainment

In a significant move which is a first for a Bollywood label, Eros International has reached an agreement to have its movie titles distributed in Wal-Mart's 27 Canadian stores. Over time, Eros will make available a large number of titles from its catalogue of over 1300 titles as well as its 30-40 new releases every year and they will be distributed throughout Wal-Mart's entire Canadian network. (VarietyAsiaOnline.com, 3/11/08)

Japan Baseball

A new independent baseball league in Japan is taking shape with four clubs expected to be established ahead of its inauguration scheduled for 2009. The organizers of the new league, located in the Kansai western Japan region, said its inaugural season will have one team each in Wakayama and Osaka prefectures and two in Hyogo with a plan to expand it to eight teams in the future. The Wakayama-based Kyshu Rangers were founded last December ahead of the establishment of the three others slated for April. Each team will have 20 players on its roster and play 72 games in a season. Annual salaries for the players have been set at a uniform 1.8 million yen with bonus payments being considered depending on the league's business performance. Currently, there are two independent professional baseball leagues in Japan. The Shikoku-Kyushu Island League features teams in the two islands in western and southwestern Japan while the BC League accommodates clubs in the Hokuriku area as well as in Nagano and Gunma prefectures. (JapanBall.com, 3/8/08)

Asia Business

Acer, the Taiwanese computer company, overtook Dell to become the world's second largest notebook-computer maker, behind only Hewlett-Packard, after acquiring Gateway last fall. HP controls 20% of the global market, with Acer at 16% and Dell at 14%. Chinese company Lenovo is ranked fourth. (Los Angeles Times, 3/5/08)

Six Flags, the world's largest theme park company, announced it would develop a thrill park in Dubai, UAE as part of a massive entertainment and amusement complex to be known as Dubailand, a 3-billion square foot project that will include restaurants, htoels, Universal Studios Dubailand and DreamWorks Animation Park, and is scheduled for groundbreaking in 2009. This is the first project for Six Flags to be developed outside of the North America. (Los Angeles Times, 3/5/08)