FURNITURE ROW GETS SPONSORSHIP DEAL WITH BASS PRO SHOPS
charlotte, n.c.» Furniture Row Racing signed a sponsorship agreement with Bass Pro Shops for Martin Truex Jr. on Tuesday.
The sponsorship is for nine races this season and includes the seasonopening Daytona 500. It’s a reunion for Truex and Bass Pro, which sponsored him from 2004-09 and was on his car when he won two Xfinity Series championships.
Truex made the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship last year with Furniture Row, a single-car team based in Denver. He advanced to the final four in the Chase and raced for the title in the finale.
Furniture Row this year moved to Toyota and created a technical alliance with fellow Toyota organization Joe Gibbs Racing.
• NASCAR is expanding its Chase format to include its feeder series.
NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France announced the Xfinity Series and the Camping World Truck Series will begin using a Chase format in 2016, mostly mirroring the playoffstyle setup used to determine the Sprint Cup champion the last two years.
The lower-tier series will feature a seven-race “chase” to decide its champion. The Cup series uses a 10-race format.
All three series will crown a champ at Homestead-Miami Speedway. All three, however, will begin at different tracks: Chicago (Sprint Cup), Kentucky (Xfinity) and New Hampshire (Trucks).
Olympic ticket sales “worrying”
B são paulo» Organizers of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and Paralympics acknowledged they are disappointed with ticket sales.
Organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada said sales for the Olympic Games are “a little lower than usual.” He called the scant interest in the Paralympics “a bit worrying.”
Only about half of the 4.5 million Olympic tickets aimed at the domestic audience have been sold.
The numbers are much worse for the Paralympics, with only 300,000 domestic tickets sold out of 3 million available.
Organizers blame some of the problem on Brazil’s deep recession.
IAAF names Gracia chief
B monaco» Jean Gracia, a former French track federation official, has been appointed as the International Association of Athletics Federations’ interim chief executive officer.
The IAAF said Gracia will also act as interim general secretary until a permanent appointment is made “by the middle of the year.” Gracia will be in charge of day-to-day operations at the IAAF’s headquarters in Monaco.
Title sponsorship changes in PGA
B honolulu» Northern Trust is moving its title sponsorship on the PGA Tour from Los Angeles to New York and will become the opening FedEx Cup playoff event next year, which could create a small domino effect of sponsors.
Barclays has decided not to renew its title sponsorship after 12 years in the New York area, according to two people with knowledge of plans for London-based Barclays. They spoke on condition of anonymity because it had not been announced.
Starting in 2017, the FedEx Cup playoff’s first event will be called The Northern Trust.
Texas: Fantasy sites are gambling
B austin, texas» Texas is the latest state to consider daily fantasy sports sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel an illegal form of gambling.
Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a nonbinding legal opinion that the popular online games run afoul of existing Texas law. The ruling is another blow to daily fantasy sports operators, though it doesn’t force the multibillion-dollar industry to leave Texas.
DraftKings and FanDuel have filed lawsuits in other states where attorneys generals have ruled against their games. Denver Post staff and wire services