Nike is not an official World Cup sponsor but, thanks to some creative marketing, that doesn’t stop consumers across the globe from linking the company to the world’s largest soccer tournament. The Nielsen Company analyzed online blogs, message boards and social networking sites and found that the sports shoe and apparel giant was more frequently linked to the World Cup than any of the tournament’s official partners and sponsors.

World Cup sponsors are failing to exploit internet search, new research has found.

A report by digital specialist Tamar claimed that Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, Hyundai and Sony were not linking their activity to online search terms such as “soccer world cup” and “world cup 2010”, or leveraging exclusive Fifa technology online.

Arsenal.com has been named Best Sports Website at the 2009 UK Website of the Year awards. The Gunners’ official club website received the highest average rating for content, design and navigation in the sports category after more than 850,000 votes were cast as UK web users selected their favourite websites in 22 categories.

Assuming that clubs and leagues integrate their social media activities with their overall CRM strategies it could not be long before football clubs – instead of being late adopters of CRM – stand out as thought leaders.

Below is an attempt to outline the proclaimed sports industry specific factors that can work as accelerators for rapid adoption of social media.

This summer’s football World Cup in South Africa not only represents by far the single most concrete commercial opportunity for the egaming industry this year, but also a focal point for the most significant period of development for Europe-facing sports betting platforms since the birth of the online gaming industry.

AC Milan sponsor bwin is launching a promotion offering people the chance to experience a day in the life of a Milan player.

The campaign, which will run online and offline, features two phases.