tournament - transforming grassroots c

CLEVELAND -- As the Cavaliers await word from Andrew Bynum, two other teams have joined the chase for the free agent centre. Bynum, who didnt play a single second for Philadelphia last season because of knee injuries, is considering a two-year offer from the Cavs, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Cleveland made the offer, which includes a team option in the second year, during his visit to the Cavs facility Monday. Bynum did not work out but the team examined him thoroughly. The person with knowledge of the negotiations spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. Yahoo! Sports first reported Clevelands offer and said it was worth $24 million. While mulling Clevelands deal, Bynum visited the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday and plans to meet Wednesday with the Dallas Mavericks, his agent, David Lee, told the AP on Tuesday night. Lee said there has been no decision made on Clevelands deal. He would not say if the Hawks made Bynum an offer. Bynum lives in Atlanta and could be convinced to stay home. "I dont want to comment about any ongoing negotiations," Lee said. The 25-year-old Bynum had arthroscopic surgery on both knees in March, but the Cavs apparently are confident he will return to the form that made him one of the NBAs best centres and a two-time All-Star. Theyre also counting on him thriving under Cleveland coach Mike Brown, who has returned to the Cavs after being fired three years ago. Brown and Bynum spent one season together with the Los Angeles Lakers and the 7-footer had his best year, averaging 18.7 points and 11.8 rebounds. Over the past four seasons, Bynum has averaged 14.7 points and 9.5 rebounds. Cleveland would like to get an answer from Bynum as soon as possible, but the team did not give him any deadline. The NBAs free-agency moratorium period ends Wednesday. The Cavs have already landed forward Earl Clark and guard Jarrett Jack in free agency and are looking to move up quickly. They would immediately vault into contention in the Eastern Conference with a healthy Bynum paired with All-Star guard Kyrie Irving and a roster that includes forward Tristan Thompson, guard Dion Waiters and forward Anthony Bennett, the No. 1 overall pick in last months draft. Lee has said Bynum will be ready to play by the start of training camp. The Sixers acquired Bynum last summer from the Lakers as part of a four-team trade. But Bynum, who made $16.9 million despite not playing last season, never got healthy enough to get on the floor and the Sixers crumbled. The Cavs would be taking a risk with Bynum that could have huge rewards. He would instantly raise their profile and probably get them back to the playoffs after winning just 66 games combined the past three seasons. In giving him only a two-year deal, they would not be tying up much money which would allow them to stay flexible next summer when several top-tier free agents -- possibly LeBron James -- will be on the market.Cheap Shoes Fake . LOUIS -- Theres no telling how these wacky World Series games will end. China Shoes For Sale . Louis Blues. Shane Hnidy joins Brian Munz for the broadcast on TSN 1290 Radio at 7pm ct. https://www.fakeshoesonline.com/ . After dropping their final six games of December, the Wild opened the new calendar year with four consecutive wins. Following a loss to Colorado on Saturday, Minnesota rebounded the following night to blank Nashville 4-0, but then had the tables turned on them Tuesday. Fake Yeezy . -- Ken Appleby made 32 saves for his first shutout of the season to lead the Oshawa Generals to a 2-0 win over the Belleville Bulls on Wednesday in Ontario Hockey League action. Fake Shoes Outlet . JOHNS, N.Professional sport is far richer than it has ever been, and yet all sports seem united by a desire to generate even more cash. The motivation is the same, whether it is in FIFAs wish to expand the World Cup beyond 32 teams, India playing West Indies in a T20I series in Florida, or in the NFL playing three games in October in London.While cricket attempts to take hold in America, so Americas game attempts to grow in England. This year is the tenth consecutive one in which regular season games in American football have been held in London. What began as an idiosyncratic novelty has gradually become an accepted part of the British sporting calendar. The number of games per season in London has risen from one to three and will rise further, to four in 2018. Even as the number of matches has swelled, it has not been able to keep pace with demand.Of the 15 NFL matches that have been played at Wembley Stadium to date, only one has not been a sell-out. Sky Sports now televises more than 100 live games a year, and the average audience has doubled in the past decade. Meanwhile the BBCs highlights show, which launched last year, now receives a total audience of one million. The BBC also shows four live games every year - the three in London and the Super Bowl, the NFLs annual championship game.Games in London are a deliberate loss leader, Alistair Kirkwood, head of NFL Europe, explained earlier this year. The matches make a loss for the NFL because of the costs of paying for the clubs to relocate for a week, and compensating the home club for losing revenue. But the NFL sees this as a short-term investment and envisages matches in Britain ultimately helping to make all 32 clubs richer through more lucrative sponsorship, merchandise sales and commercial rights.Perhaps the most important part of the NFLs approach to growing the game in England is that it is about more than just monetising Americans who have settled across the pond. It is about developing new fans too.For the last two years, the NFL has organised a fans day in Regents Street, central London, using everything from inflatable tackling dummies, cheerleaders and American food and drink to show off the sport to new fans. About half a million people showed up. Most stumbled across the event rather than sought it out, yet in many ways that is the point. It was designed to increase awareness of the NFL among those who knew and cared little for it.Here there are many lessons for cricket. The raft of high-profile cricket events in the USA in the last year - the Warne-Tendulkar Legends series, the staging of Caribbean Premier League games and the West Indies-India internationals - seem to have been designed squarely to make cash out of the expat market. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But there is a problem when a bunch of 1990s stars slugging it out in a baseball stadium is seen as a substitute for a meaningful development strategy.Getting the NFL shown on free-to-air TV - through the BBC highlights show, which is designed for the non-hardcore fan - is central to the sports approach to Britain. Yet so far there have been no attempts to get cricket on free-to-air TV in the States. Indeed, the India-West Indies T20Is were not shown on any TV channel in the USA at all.Nor has there been a substantive attempt - Courtney Walsh bowling to the mayor of Indianapolis doesnt really count - to make cricket accessible, relevant or even known beyond those who already follow the game. Sadlly, this is in keeping with the history of the sport in the USA.ddddddddddddA lot of focus does tend to go on to the commercial side of things, an ICC source said of those in charge of US cricket two years ago. And when marquee matches have been held in Malaysia, Singapore and even the United Arab Emirates, organisers there too have rarely used them to win new converts to cricket.The most successful sport yet at entering a new market has been basketball in China. It has done so through an enlightened, long-term approach, focusing both on the grassroots and professional game, and the fortuitous emergence of the superstar Yao Ming. The NFLs approach to Britain and elsewhere is being governed by this template.Yet such sophistication has long been absent in crickets approach to growth, which has been impatient and top-down, seldom recognising the importance of engaging children without a national affinity to the sport or the sheer time such expansionism requires before it yields financial rewards.Cricket in the US hasnt developed the same kind of commercial or managerial sophistication as the NBA in China or the NFL in the UK, says Simon Chadwick, a professor of sports enterprise at the University of Salford in England. Cricket needs pitches, players and points of engagement, not just Warne and Tendulkar. The sport needs to give people in the US reasons to watch and reasons to play.The historic failure of those running US cricket is borne out by the terrible participation rates for junior cricketers. There were only 1230 junior cricketers playing in the US in 2014, according to the ICC census. In contrast, there are now 6000 junior players in American football in Britain, plus another 5000 players at universities. This is not just vindication for a decade of matches in London, but also the work that American football has done in establishing itself at grassroots level.Osi Umenyiora, a former NFL star who was born in England, is paid by the NFL to help identify athletes in their late teens and early 20s who could take their skills to American football. While the ICC has taken some important steps to reform American cricket over the last two years - like suspending USACA, whose leadership stymied US cricket for many years, and creating an ICC Americas team to compete in the Caribbean domestic 50-over tournament - transforming grassroots cricket and ending the exclusivity surrounding the sport will take many years.The most important lesson that cricket can learn from this NFL story is that other sports are coming into crickets traditional territories - from the NFL in Britain, to European club football in India - while making a concerted effort to grow in the most lucrative untapped sports market of them all: China.There comes a point when the growth of sports is a zero-sum game. Someone choosing to watch the NFL in Britain or the Premier League in India is doing so instead of watching cricket at that time. Other sports increased popularity could thereby undermine the commercial value of cricket.This is why crickets approach, in the US and beyond, must be about long-term development more than short-term profits. Expanding the sports global footprint is ultimately an insurance policy, a way of reducing a financial over-dependence on India and guarding against a drop in interest in crickets traditional powerhouses. ' ' '