LONDON — Nationalized mortgage lender Northern Rock PLC said Monday it has signed a new four-year sponsorship deal with Newcastle United football club, worth up to 10 million pounds ($16 million).

The deal extends Northern Rock's relationship with its hometown club as both target renewal - the bank is on the hunt for a buyer to return to the private sector while League Championship leader Newcastle is closing in on promotion to the Premier League after a year in the second tier.

The total value of the contract will vary between 1.5 million pounds and 10 million pounds, depending on Newcastle's performance on the pitch.

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The partnership is the highest-profile commercial link between betting and a sport that has seen investigations of suspicious wagering as recently as last week. A portion of each bet made with Betfair Australia will go to Tennis Australia, the non-profit federation that runs the two-week event beginning on January 18.

“The key to managing integrity is giving the relevant authorities complete access. Everything is out in the open,” said Betfair CEO Andrew Twaits.

Lotus to reveal all in the UK

The IOC has targeted $1 billion in revenues from its TOP sponsors programme for Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

The IOC currently has nine major sponsors worth $883 million across the two events, a slight increase on the $866 million it brought in with the sponsorship programme for the 2006 Turin and 2008 Beijing two-Game package.

Henri-Lloyd is to continue its involvement in Formula One following the sale of Brawn GP to Mercedes-Benz.

Henri-Lloyd will continue its sponsorship agreement with the new team, which was renamed Mercedes GP Petronas following the take-over. The firm signed a three-year deal with Brawn in 2009 to provide clothing and footwear, and announced today that it has agreed to continue with its licence to produce its official merchandise range.

A new merchandise collection will also be launched to mark the start of the season, comprising of around 40 items, including team and driver caps for Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg plus technical jackets, clothing and accessories.

Graham Allen, Henri Lloyd commercial director said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Mercedes GP Petronas for the 2010 Formula One season and have been working closely to ensure we provide clothing at the highest levels of fabric technology that provide the ultimate comfort and durability needed in all conditions.”

Lego's revolution will be tweeted--just check out LEGO CL!CK, the company's new social networking Web site.

Now, even though anyone who's every spent time with the bricks knows they don't actually go "click" when you put them together, it's a pretty cool site. A little sparse for now in terms of content, but the plan is this: players and thinkers from all over come here to share ideas (Lego-related or not) in the form of tweets, videos, photos, and blog posts. The animations are fun enough on their own, but here's hoping the content gets that way too.

Companies jumping into the social networking kiddie pool are in the millions, but Lego's story is interesting because its audience is so singular and so diverse at the same time. People who drink Coke won't necessarily call themselves Coke-drinkers, but chances are if you've played with Legos even once, you identify with what makes the product great--and you'll play with it again. Lego fans are lifers. And, Lego hopes, they'll all find their way to this site.

After the company hit bottom in 2004, in the red by $344 million, it pulled itself up mainly by cashing in on lucrative Hollywood tie-ins (Indiana Jones, Star Wars...), but even though it saved Lego, replicating movie sets doesn't scratch the same itch as building your own spaceships. So it's nice to see Lego tapping back into that idea, and courting crowds beyond the Star Wars demographic. So now we have architectural Legos, Muji Legos, Lego electronics, even an iPhone app that turns photos into Lego-brick mosaics.

DETROIT CAR SHOW - January 2010

A Fiat classic - in waiting.

One of the most intimate and cool cars of the last few years, the Fiat 500 has now been launched / showcased in the US as an electric car. It positively took the thunder from the big boys and will surely be the next chapter in Fiat's resurgence.

We look forward to seeing them on the road soon as a true classic in the electric car market.

Take this with a healthy dose of skepticism, but the Korea Times is reporting--with extreme confidence--that the fourth gen iPhone will be on sale in April / May, with a pile of new features.

Apple has been working on the next-gen iPhone for ages due to natural product development cycles, in the form of iPhone v4 browser identity codes have even turned up in some Web site logs. But apart from lots of speculation, nothing concrete--as you would  expect from Apple's rigid security practices.