This week’s sports industry reading list

As irregular as it is irresistible, this blog is where you’ll find the best writing on the business of sport and the global sports industry – the mainstream pieces that touch on how sport is run or financed, the trade media features that delve deep into a subject, the analysis from single-sport specialist outlets, and sometimes even comment from an industry blogger or two. To business:

The big three stories of the week

• Google’s new logo isn’t the biggest logo story of the week, as Olympic officials in Japan axe their Tokyo 2020 design amid accusations of plagiarism.

• The major event hosting landscape of the 2020s becomes clearer as Durban is formally awarded the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Los Angeles formally becomes a bidder for the 2024 summer Olympics.

• And over in China, home of the 2022 winter Olympics, the Wanda group, owners of Infront Sports & Media, acquires World Triathlon Corp. and announces it in wonderfully hyperbolic style.

This week’s sports industry must-reads

• The US Open is underway at Flushing Meadows in New York and the long-talked of roof on Arthur Ashe court is finally becoming a reality. This is a good update on progress, featuring some terrific nuggets of information, by Tim Newcomb for Sports Illustrated.

• This is an excellent piece, by Grantland’s Ben Lindbergh, on Major League Baseball’s efforts to secure the domain name Twins.com for its Minnesota franchise.

• Lord president Sebastian Coe of athletics has taken office at the IAAF. His first major newspaper interview, with Owen Gibson of the Guardian, covers a lot of ground and underlines the scale of the task facing the Olympian/administrator/politician/businessman.

• Shane Harmon, one of the architects of New Zealand’s successful hosting of the 2011 Rugby World Cup and now the chief executive of Wellington’s Westpac Stadium, knows his sports industry stuff. His blog post on stadium technology, use of data and the fan experience, following a recent visit to San Francisco, is well worth a read.

• Toronto has a couple of weeks to decide whether it will throw its hat into the ring for the 2024 summer Olympics. And in the aftermath of the recent Pan-American Games (an event once used by Rio as a precursor to what turned out to be a successful summer Olympic bid), Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper produced this thorough examination of whether the event can be deemed a success – it’s written by Verity Stevenson, Oliver Sachgau and Dakshana Bascaramurty.

That’s your lot for now. No doubt there’ll be more sports business, and therefore more writing about the business of sport, in the coming days (if there’s not, we’re in trouble). So be back here, same time (ish) next week, and, in the meantime and if the mood takes you, do get in touch via davidcushnan@gmail.com or @DavidCushnan on Twitter.