01 SCORE BOARD 2012 www.airasia.com/travel360
BIG ON BRANDS
Commercialisation has dug deep into the world of sports, making team spirit a commodity rather than about sportsmanship. But branding is everywhere nowadays and the sports arena is a multi-billion dollar industry. Here are some insights on the industry of sports.
TOP 5 BRANDS WORLDWIDE 2011
brand value USD15 billion
brand value USD11.5 billion
brand value USD5 billion
brand value USD3 billion
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IMAGE: INMAGINE
• 16,000 injuries were reported to have occurred from cheerleading stunts by abcnews.go.com; 52% of which were strains and sprains. The rest include concussions, fractures and other serious stuff.
MOST POPULAR SPORTS OF THE DECADE If you guessed football / soccer, you’re spot on! A poll on mostpopularsports.net at the end of 2011 based on number of fans who follow the sport, with sample data from Alexa rankings (web traffic toolbar that tracks users of top 300 websites like fifa.com, cricinfo.com, nfl. com etc. in over 30 sports categories), pointed to football as the world’s favourite sport. Football is Emperor and here are the rest of the royalty:
WORDS: EFI HAFIZAH HAMZAH
• King of sports – Cricket • Queen of sports – Field Hockey • Prince of Sports – Tennis • Princess of Sports – Volleyball
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“I don’t think the discus will ever attract any interest until they let us start throwing them at one another!” ~ The late Al Oerter, American athlete and four-time Olympic Champion on discus throwing. TRAVEL 3SIXTY˚
• Australian rugby player Ben Czislowski felt the need to get medical help when his four-month headache was not going away. The doctor found an opponent’s tooth in Czislowski’s forehead. • England’s Manchester United remains the world’s most expensive football team, valued at USD1.86 billion as at 2011 according to Forbes. • A 1751 pamphlet that featured an early mention of golf in a poem received 63 bids before it sold on eBay at a staggering USD50, 400 on January 19, 2011. The author, James Arbuckle, devoted a section of the poem to Glasgow Green, with observations on an idyllic gathering of golfers at play in the winter months.
brand value USD2.5 billion
WORLD’S TOP SUPER SPORTS CARS 2011
Bugatti Veyron (French) base price USD2.4 million
McLaren F1 (English) base price USD970,000
SSC Ultimate Aero (American) base price USD654,400
Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo (American) base price USD555,000
Koenigsegg CCX (Swedish) base price USD545,568 Source: ezinemark.com