Barcelona's right to claim 'best in history' tag, says Murray

For those not in the know about Aussie sports broadcasters, Les Murray is the long-time champion of soccer/football in this country. His insightful comments and ability to break down the game for hardcore fans and newcomers alike has made him one of our favourites.

His new blog post about Barca's claim to being 'best of all time' does show his passion for the current team but as his following history lesson on the past 'best teams' shows, Barcelona does have a decent claim for the title.

Now to the comments section: as always with people commenting on articles like this, there are a mix of fan overload, unverified stats ("FC Barcelona is unique in football history with 65 to 70% possesion (sic) against any football team") and English football supporters who have stumbled onto the wrong site.

Still, the words of praise for Murray amongst all the flag waving proves again the esteem in which he's held.

Positive signs that NBA UK isn't just a Euro marketing tool

So after a few years living in London and occasionally complaining about the poor treatment of UK basketballers, I return home to Australia only to hear that the New Jersey Nets and Toronto Raptors are playing the first regular season game in Britain.

And by the sounds of it, the fans and complete strangers to the game are all going crazy for it. Photo and comments on NBA UK's Facebook page attest to that.

Still, the Nets and the Raptors? When Heat play Lakers or Celtics play the Bulls, then we can get really excited. I know the NBA has domestic ticket sales in mind versus the huge cost of flying the entire showcase to the UK but if they really want the European fanbase to build, bringing in big-ticket teams is the only way to go.

Just look at some of the votes cast on Fan Night. Last time I checked, Wolves v Bucks received only 2% of the votes from fans as their favourite lineup of the night. But those two teams are more likely to play in a London showdown than the league leaders.

So many sports stories, so little time etc.

It's funny that now I've moved further into sports marketing and sponsorship than in the last two years, I've had less time and inclination to write about it.
Partly because some of the stories I could have written about here could have got me fired but mainly due to the limited time I can give over to blogging, with the move back to Australia, settling in, finding work, moving house and all the rest.
Some amazing stories outside my current job are the current hot trend of verbally bashing AFL footballers, with non-sporting types deriding footballers as role models and those in the know supportive of their positive influence on kids.
Then on the US side are the challenges faced by college and pro athletes when using Twitter, as explored extensively in this article.
I attended a forum on sport and social media run the excellent Digital Sport Australia last night and athletes' Twitter tendencies was one of the topics. There was general agreement that athletes should tweet for themselves (rather than designate a publicity-hungry family member or staffer to do it for them) and they should be genuine and honest without using it to overly plug or attack sponsors. Pretty simple really but it seems beyond the ability of some players and celebrity sports stars to do that.
The Digisport people put on a top event so follow the hashtag #dssau for details on upcoming events and sports stories of interest.

Images from the deep - inspiring footage from a marine scientist

I usually blog about land-based sports but will make an exception as an opportunity to show some of the brilliant underwater video work being done by a US colleague Annie Crawley.
She's not an athlete, though her frequent scuba trips would probably qualify her as such, but the footage she brings back from every journey is always stunning and ocean-lovers from surfers and scuba-divers to fishermen couldn't help but be inspired by the images.
I met Annie at a science conference in North Carolina in January 2010 and watched a few of her amazing presentations on her ocean-based education programs. We chatted about her passion for the ocean and, as someone based in London and away from my beloved Pacific Ocean for two years, it revived my inspiration to want to get back in the water.
Her most recent voyage was to the Galapagos Islands. No need to say any more, just watch the video!