Be a Sport - A Round Up of the UK's Best Sporting Venues

No one can deny that the 80,000-seater Olympic Stadium and the award-winning Velodrome are impressive, but while the spotlight shines on London we take a look at the best arenas that the rest of the UK has to offer. Away from the likes of Wimbledon and Wembley we guarantee you'll still find plenty of sporting inspiration.

Bridging the gap

With a sporting history as long as it is impressive, Nottingham boasts a wealth of venues to rival the Olympic Park. In addition to Trent Bridge, which regularly welcomes a 15,000-strong crowd to watch international test cricket and former Cricket County Champions Nottinghamshire, the National Water Sports Centre is also located nearby at Holme Pierrepont. Here you'll find a 2km regatta lake and a 700m white water course, as well as an array of water sports, from sailing to kayaking.

A steely determination

If you are a football fanatic taking a short trip across the Pennines to Sheffield will certainly be worthwhile too. As well as encountering another fierce local rivalry between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United, you will also be visiting the home of the world's oldest major football ground, which is still hosting professional games today, (United's Bramall Lane) as well as the oldest football ground itself - Sandygate Road, which is home to Hallam F.C.

Yorkshire terriers

In addition to visiting the sailing, climbing and real snow skiing centres, as well as the football and rugby stadia, Leeds is also a great place to enjoy a flutter on the gee-gees at Wetherby Racecourse. The only National Hunt course in Yorkshire, it is steeped in history and is one of the UK's leading jumping tracks. The city really is one of the best cities for sport in the UK and anyone visiting this West Yorkshire gem is sure to have a great time here.

Sent to Coventry

As one of the six chosen venues to be hosting the London 2012 Olympic Football tournament, it is perhaps no surprise that the City of Coventry Stadium is another of the UK's impressive out-of-London venues too.

As well as being the home of Championship football side Coventry City, it has previously hosted international under-21 football matches, the Heineken Cup semi-finals and the Women's FA Cup Final. Its impressive design has also helped it to win a number of awards - and be chosen as the only London 2012 Olympics football venue in the Midlands.

Steve Alexander has been writing about the best places to visit in the UK. Click here for deals on hotels in Nottingham. For more information on accommodation in Sheffield or for great savings on in Coventry, go to Hotels4u.

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When News Sounds and Fury Propaganda Infiltrates Major Sports Media Venues

Not long ago, I was at Starbucks talking to a graduate student in broadcast journalism. The gentleman I was talking to loved sports, and rather despised the news. We talked quite a bit about the Olympics, and the various commentary along with how that sporting event was being characterized by the mainstream media. He explained to me that all too often the news of sound and fury, and propaganda infiltrates such major sports media venues, where armchair coaches and political pundits chime in on things they know nothing about. Indeed I agree, as probably you do to, but let's talk about this for second shall we?

My acquaintance said that he didn't trust the news, and didn't want to have anything to do with it. He didn't like the business news, nor did he like the TV news which had disaster of the day somewhere around the globe, or all the negative stuff they put on prime time. He wanted to stay away from that during his career, and as an intern he was working hard in the sports venue, and he liked that quite well. He also noted that many of the local TV stations simply cannot afford the staff levels of before. In broadcast journalism he learned how to give an interview, interview himself, and cover a sporting event without any help.

Often he would go to multiple sporting events in the evening, watching one game until half time, and then going to another. He would set up the camera on a tripod, write it up, do the announcements, prepare the highlights, and then deliver it to prime time TV. He did it all, mostly because the TV station has cut their staff to bare-bones due to budget cuts, as fewer and fewer advertisers are paying the big bucks they once were. Many of the advertisers have gone to the Internet, major cable stations, and divided up their remaining advertising and marketing dollars amongst newspaper, radio, TV, and Internet.

When you are working as a sports media personality the competition is tough, and this gives him the advantage because he is younger and is able to work cheaper, and some of the old-timers are retiring. Nevertheless, he is working three times as hard as they ever did, without the support staff to get it done, as now he has to do it all. Because of all this it allows prime time news casters to make comments about sporting events, and they often get the story wrong. That's always been common for news events let's just hope it doesn't continue in the sports venue. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's topic. http://www.worldthinktank.net/ - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance. Currently, Mr. Winslow is working on a non-fiction eBook about the Future of Human Sports.

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