Media Notes

Sirius, XM Subscribers Will Have Access To Live Play-By-Play Of ManU EPL Games

EPL club Manchester United and Sirius XM Radio announced a multiyear media rights deal that makes Sirius XM the official U.S. radio broadcaster of ManU. Sirius and XM subscribers will have access to live play-by-play coverage of every ManU EPL match and will hear the official club broadcast. The deal includes rights to stream ManU's EPL matches to subscribers via Sirius.com, XMRadio.com and the radio provider's mobile app (Sirius XM Radio).

LET'S TALK ABOUT STATS: The Asian Football Confederation's Asian Cup Qatar '11, beginning this weekend, will be using Stats LLC's SportVU player tracking technology during TV and online broadcasts of the event following a new deal between the AFC, Stats and World Sport Group, the AFC's exclusive marketing and media partner. The SportVU technology tracks every player in real time, yielding a wide variety of location-based statistics such as player run comparisons and player and ball heat maps. Consumer electronics giant Samsung will sponsor the deployment of the enhanced on-air graphics (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).

FINAL FAREWELL: In DC, Leonard Shapiro wrote “after 41 years and more than 7,400 bylines, it’s time to blow a farewell smooch to the newspaper and its Web site that kept me gainfully and so happily employed" since ’69. Shapiro will “head out to the University of Wisconsin to teach a course in sports journalism” (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 12/30).