Premier League names Discovery’s Dinnage as new CEO
LONDON — The English Premier League hired broadcasting executive
Susanna Dinnage as chief executive Tuesday, making her the most powerful female executive in global sports.
Dinnage will leave her role as global president of Discovery’s Animal Planet brand early next year to succeed Richard Scudamore running the world’s richest soccer competition.
Scudamore was CEO from 1999 to 2014 when he was promoted to executive chairman. The new structure will see the league have a separate CEO and non-executive chairman again, but the latter position has yet to be filled
The appointment of Dinnage highlights the league’s focus on broadcasting, as most of its revenue comes from selling television rights. She started her career at MTV Networks and spent the last decade at Discovery.
Scudamore has overseen the value of the Premier League’s broadcasting rights soaring 12-fold to more than 8 billion pounds ($10 billion), with Comcast-owned British pay-TV operator Sky the league’s biggest TV partner.
In other soccer news:
• Alex Morgan scored late in the first half and the U.S. women’s national team wrapped up the year with a 1-0 victory over Scotland in Glasgow.
The U.S. team is undefeated this year with 19 wins and two ties. The Americans have an unbeaten streak of 28 games (25 wins, three ties) dating to a 1-0 loss to Australia in the Tournament of Nations last year. It was also the team’s 12th shutout of the year.
The U.S. team is the defending World Cup champion and it qualified for next year’s tournament in France at the CONCACAF women’s championship last month.
TENNIS Federer shines at ATP Finals
Roger Federer produced an improved performance to get his campaign for a seventh ATP Finals title back on track with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Dominic Thiem in London. Having lost his opening round-robin match to Kei Nishikori, Federer will likely need to defeat Kevin Anderson on Thursday to improve his 14-1 record of reaching the semifinals at the season-ending tournament.
Anderson thrashed Nishikori 6-0, 6-1 to move to 2-0 earlier, with the lopsided scoreline all but assuring the South African debutant’s place in the last four.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL Texas Tech men improve to 3-0
Jarrett Culver scored 21 points, Norense Odiase grabbed a career-best 13 rebounds, and Texas Tech shrugged off Southeastern Louisiana for a 59-40 victory in Lubbock to improve to 3-0.
In other games: • Grant Williams scored 22 points, and No. 5 Tennessee used its stingy defense to beat cold-shooting Georgia Tech 66-53 in Knoxville, Tenn., on its
way to reaching 3-0. • Skylar Mays scored 19 points, transfer Kavell Bigby-Williams added a career-high 14, and No. 22 LSU beat Memphis 85-76 in Baton Rouge, La., improving to 3-0.
• Ebuka Izundu had career highs with 22 points and 17 rebounds as Miami defeated Stephen F. Austin 96-58 in Coral Gables, Fla.
Karl Nicholas scored 15 points to lead SFA (2-1).
OLYMPICS ‘Garlic Girls’ say they were abused
The darlings of South Korea’s Winter Olympics are back in the headlines eight months after their stirring run to a curling silver medal in Pyeongchang.
South Korea’s sports ministry announced a joint investigation with the national Olympic committee into allegations by the so-called Garlic Girls of abuse.
The women, from a remote province famous for its garlic, captured hearts in a country that hardly knew curling before and became sought-after models for commercials and inspired countless online memes and catchphrases.
In the letter, Kim Eunjung, Kim Seon-yeong, Kim Yeong-ae, Kim Chohee and Kim Yeong-mi accused former Korean Curling Federation (KCF) vice-president Kim Kyong-doo of verbal abuse and team coaches of giving unreasonable orders and subjecting their private lives to excessive control.