David Beckham's Inter Miami and in sponsorship talks with Qatar

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https://en.as.com/en/2020/01/20/football/1579552180_123416.html

David Beckham's Inter Miami and in sponsorship talks with Qatar

New MLS franchise are close to securing Qatar as their main sponsor for their first season, David Beckham’s team have been negotiating this deal for months

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https://www.postandcourier.com/sports/construction-on-new-charleston-battery-stadium-on-schedule-for-patriots/article_f9ebdaa6-3bb2-11ea-8331-9f24ce337433.html

Construction on new Charleston Battery stadium on schedule for Patriots Point site

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https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/cpl-poised-to-announce-ottawa-expansion-team-atletico-madrid-involvement-expected/

CPL poised to announce Ottawa expansion team, Atlético Madrid involvement expected

Jeff Hunt, an Ottawa businessman who is part owner of the Canadian Football League’s Ottawa Redblacks, has confirmed he is part of a group looking to bring a Canadian Premier League team to the Canadian capital city.

There has been widespread speculation that a LaLiga club, specifically Atlético Madrid, will be involved in the project as well.

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https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/plymouth-argyle-memphis-probable-next-3756672

From Plymouth Argyle to Memphis: The probable next step for midfielder Jose Baxter

The 27-year-old has been out of football since leaving the Pilgrims in November

Midfielder Jose Baxter is set to resume his career in the United States, according to reports.

The 27-year-old has been without a club since his short-term contract at Plymouth Argyle was cut short by mutual consent in November.

Now, Mail Online are reporting that Baxter will sign for Memphis 901, who play in the United Soccer League (USL) Championship.

Baxter’s former Everton team-mate, Tim Howard, is the sporting director of the Tennessee-based team.

Memphis are preparing for their second season in the USL Championship, which starts in March.

They finished 15th out of 18 sides in the Eastern Conference in 2019 when their home crowds averaged around 6,500.

Their opposition included the second teams of Major League Soccer outfits Atlanta United and New York Red Bulls, as well as the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Baxter signed for Argyle last July after being released by Oldham Athletic at the end of the 2018/19 season.

The Green Army saw glimpses of the ability which enabled Baxter to make his Premier League debut for Everton at the age of 16.

However, a calf problem limited his involvement for Argyle to seven starts and five appearances off the bench before his contract was cancelled by mutual consent.

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https://asumetech.com/mls-plans-jersey-exposes-other-occasions-to-mark-25th-season/

MLS plans jersey exposes, other occasions to mark 25th season

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http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2020/01/20/new-stadium-thinking-offer-europes-clubs-revenue-lifeline/

New stadium thinking could offer Europe’s clubs a revenue lifeline

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https://www.prosoccerusa.com/usl/usl-transactions-miami-fc-mls-lawrence-olum-rowdies-monarchs-2020/

USL transactions: Miami FC adds former MLS defender Lawrence Olum

The Tampa Bay Rowdies are getting a loan from Norwich, Memphis 901 FC signed five players and Bob Lilley is reuniting with a former Rhinos captain.

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https://www.newschannel5.com/news/nashville-sports-fans-shifting-from-football-to-futbol

Nashville sports fans shifting from football to fútbol

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http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/inter-miami-david-beckham-qatar-sponsorship-talks-mls

Report: David Beckham’s Inter Miami in Qatar sponsorship talks

New MLS franchise close to securing Gulf state as top-tier sponsor.

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https://floridapolitics.com/archives/316505-david-beckhams-mls-team-in-miami-takes-field-for-first-time

David Beckham’s MLS team in Miami takes field for first time

“Every day we do something, every milestone we hit, everything becomes more real.”

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https://www.mysuncoast.com/2020/01/20/latest-florida-news-sports-business-entertainment-am-est/

Latest Florida news, sports, business and entertainment at 3:20 p.m. EST

INTER MIAMI-FIRST PRACTICE

Beckham's MLS team in Miami takes field for first time

MIAMI SHORES, Fla. (AP) — David Beckham's Inter Miami team finally got to play soccer. The MLS expansion franchise opened its first training camp at Barry University on Monday. It came more than six years after Beckham decided to put a team in Miami. The team begins play for real on March 1. Its home opener is March 14 at a new stadium in Fort Lauderdale.

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https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/man-city/transfer-talk/news/david-silva-in-line-to-move-to-inter-miami_383698.html

Manchester City midfielder David Silva in line to move for Inter Miami?

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https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/soccer/inter-miami/fl-sp-hyde-inter-miami-camp-starts-20200120-dks7tysbxrdmjc7rmt4ipzrsza-story.html

HYDE: 'IT'S REAL,' AS INTER MIAMI HAS FIRST PRACTICE WITH FIRST VIEW OF HOPE | COMMENTARY

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https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/mls/inter-miami/article239371908.html

Inter Miami opens preseason camp with a new Argentine player, six signings to come

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https://www.83degreesmedia.com/features/new-chiller-plant-cools-Water-Street-Tampa-012120.aspx

How to be cool: Water Street Tampa chiller plant sports innovation

Tampa boasts one of the warmest average year-round high temperatures in the continental United States at a balmy 82 degrees Fahrenheit. But the heat won’t keep people away from Water Street Tampa, a WELL-certified community designed for waterfront urban living on 56 acres surrounding Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa.

A new chiller plant on the northwest corner of South Nebraska Avenue and East Cumberland Avenue will help keep folks in the emerging neighborhood cool and comfortable. Yet, the state-of-the-art District Cooling facility does more than keep the insides of nearby homes and businesses at a comfortable temperature. The chiller plant represents a forward-thinking, environmentally friendly leap into the future.

How does the chiller plant work?

The basic science behind modulating indoor temperatures hasn’t changed much since 1902 when 25-year-old engineer William Carrier invented the first modern air conditioner. Most air conditioners use mechanisms that blow air over water-cooled coils and help transfer heat away from indoor areas and subsequently lower temperatures.

In the most basic sense, air conditioners work the same way now as they did in 1927 when Tampa Theatre in downtown Tampa became the city’s first commercial building to use air conditioning. But a lot has changed in perfecting how these cooling systems work, and, now, less than a mile east of Tampa Theatre, some of the most efficient and sustainable air conditioning technology imaginable will help keep the homes and businesses being built in Water Street Tampa cool year-round.

Among the innovations offered by the new District Cooling chiller is its connection to a network of buildings in Water Street Tampa. The large central chiller will efficiently distribute chilled water to the majority of the buildings under construction or planned. This cooled water flows through heat exchangers that absorb heat from buildings before it recirculates to the central plant in the enormous closed-loop system.

Some 8,500 linear feet of insulated steel pipes, some as large as 30 inches in diameter, run as deep as 20 feet underground from the chiller plant throughout the neighborhood.

“We send water out at 39 degrees and it comes back to our plant at 57 degrees,” notes Tampa Bay TRANE VP Stephen Koontz.

The heart of the system, contained within a 12,500-square-foot, three-story-tall building, contains one 1,500-ton TRANE ice-making centrifugal chiller and two 2,500-ton TRANE duplex centrifugal chillers. On top of the roof stand six 1,250-ton Marley cooling tower cells.

“A ton,” Koontz explains, “refers to the amount of ice historically used in an air conditioning system during a 24-hour period,” noting that system of measurement dates back to the early days of air conditioning when 2,000-pound (1-ton) blocks of ice were used in cooling. The more tons involved, the larger and more powerful the air conditioning system.

The ice in the District Cooling plant is stored in 98 Calmac ice-storage tanks lined up in rows three abreast outdoors just to the north of the facility’s main building. Each Calmac ice storage tank has a capacity of several hundred gallons. Helping move the chilled water around the facility and into the distribution pipes throughout the district are 11 system pumps and six 3,000-amp electricity distribution units to help ensure the whole system operates. The chiller plant is tied to two TECO substations, so in the event that the power goes out at one substation, an automatic relay will allow power from the other substation to kick in.

Overall, the chiller plant is immense -- it’s one of the largest of its kind in the Tampa Bay region. The system currently has an 8,000-ton capacity and is providing cooling services for a few buildings in Water Street Tampa, including the recently opened University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute and Taneja College of Pharmacy. And there is still room to expand as the designed community grows in the years ahead.

“We have the capability to add two more 2,500-ton chillers and three more cooling towers,” Koontz says.

Responsible climate control

In the mechanical sense, District Cooling is not much different than other chiller plants in the area.

“Every one of these tall office buildings has a similar plant,” says Koontz.

But that’s where the similarities between ordinary chiller plants and the new one in Water Street Tampa end.

“Water Street planned this well ahead and doing upfront planning and consolidating the cooling equipment all into one plant is a very sustainable way to develop a community,” Koontz says. “We get to use a lot less equipment because we all share it, and the reason we get to do that is because we don’t all need the cooling capacity at the same time.”

Most residents will be using the air conditioners in their condos during the mornings and evenings, but not during the bulk of the day. That’s when usage shifts to businesses and restaurants throughout the community.

“So, the cooling load will shift to where the people go in a given day – to the office in the mid-mornings through afternoons and to the bars and restaurants later in the evenings.” Koontz remarks such a system, which aggregates the cooling needs of an entire network of buildings, can reduce cooling needs by 30% to 40%, making it far more efficient than individual cooling plants for separate buildings.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp says those energy reductions make a big impact at the environmental level.

“We’re saving 180,000 tons of carbon,” she says. “It’s really helping our carbon footprint. This is a wonderful, great step forward.”

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor echoes similar praise for the District Cooling plant, which she says represents the resiliency and sustainability being built into the entire Water Street Tampa.

“We went through a number of research agencies and organizations deeming us as the epicenter for climate change here in the Tampa Bay Area,” Castor says. “I have no doubt that we will be able to mitigate the effects of sea-level change and climate change while reducing the carbon footprint. And I can’t think of a better example right now than this chiller plant and the efficiency of it and everything it does to cool the entire Water Street area while helping create more green space on top of buildings where chillers went before.”

Holistic benefits

The added room for greenspace, community-gathering areas, gardens, and other amenities on the ground and on top of buildings is a major boon for Water Street Tampa and for downtown Tampa.

Upon completion, Water Street Tampa will boast 13 acres of public space, nine million square feet of mixed-use development, pedestrian-oriented streets, and a walkable design aimed at connecting people with the surrounding community. These dynamic innovations are anticipated to help Water Street Tampa become the world’s first WELL-certified neighborhood, a coveted designation bestowed by the International WELL Building Institute and awarded to businesses and developments built around human-centric designs aimed to provide a healthy, well-rounded lifestyle.

The diverse concepts of air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, sound, mind, temperature, materials, and community are at the heart of what the master planners behind the community project embraced when designing Water Street Tampa. And planning for a centralized chiller system as part of the network of community infrastructure helps provide a feasible solution for achieving those goals.

“There are myriad benefits offered to future residents, businesses, and visitors,” says Charlie Rollins, SPP Director of Development and Construction, about the new District Cooling plant. “Chillers are loud, and this one being isolated away from other buildings helps reduce noise and vibrations usually caused by chilling plants. ... It also allows us to offer a more resilient infrastructure.”

Contributing to the list of holistic benefits for the community is the aesthetic design of the chiller plant structure itself. While the building designed by Florida-based Baker Barrios includes 21st-century innovation inside, the outside of the edifice offers a humble nod to the past.

“We wanted to pay homage to the historical architecture of the nearby community of Ybor City, with its old cigar factories,” notes Darren Morse, senior manager of development at SSP. “So, we clad the entire façade of the building in a thin veneer of red brick.”

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https://www.83degreesmedia.com/features/growing-craft-distilleries-in-Tampa-Bay-Area-012120.aspx

Locally owned, locally made: The growing craft spirits scene in Tampa Bay

Inside a small warehouse just off Air Cargo Road near Tampa International Airport, Matt Allen and his partners at Dark Door Spirits are brewing up unique, artisanal spirits like a whiskey blended with an IPA beer from Safety Harbor’s Crooked Thumb craft brewery. And gin infused with lavender and rose hips.

“We’re focused on small-batch, unique products that are very drinkable,” says Allen.

Around the country, small craft spirit distilleries are springing up, and Tampa Bay is no exception. There’s a demand for artisanal rum, vodka, whiskey, and gin, often mixed with unusual extra ingredients like citrus, herbs and spices, even craft beer and coffee.

According to the American Craft Spirits Association, there were just 195 small distillers in the U.S. in 2010. Eight years later, there were 1,835. Craft breweries may be more numerous and get more attention, but craft spirit distilleries represent the next wave of opportunity.

“Both craft breweries and craft distilleries are like the pioneers in experimentation with ingredients and products,” says Matthias Kozuba, VP of Kozuba & Sons in St. Petersburg. “People want something new, fresh, big, and bold that the larger standardized brands aren’t releasing. You go to a liquor store, it’s all the same.”

Florida has a reported 56 craft distilleries. St. Augustine Distillery is one of the largest and best-known in the state. Located in a restored century-old ice plant, its tasting room accommodates thousands of visitors a month. 

Tampa Bay’s craft distilleries are much smaller in size, but they’re ramping up and gaining momentum. Here’s a look at a few of them:

Dark Door Spirits, Tampa

“Be careful, don’t touch the stills,” says Matt Allen, steering a visitor away from the 26-gallon copper tanks that Dark Door Spirits uses to brew its unique blends of gin, vodka, and whiskey. 

They’ve been operating out of a warehouse near the Tampa International Airport. But they’re anticipating their next move, which includes acquiring a 1,000-liter still to increase production and scouting locations for a public face where they can open a tasting room, host tours, and offer sales through a retail shop.

Allen says it hasn’t been easy getting to this point.

“Spirits are a highly regulated business,” he says. Allen is a founding member of the Florida Craft Distillery Association, which has been lobbying to change some of the state and federal laws that make it challenging for small craft distillers to thrive.

“Many of the regulations were enacted during Prohibition and are very outdated,” says Allen. “We’re asking to be licensed in the same way as a restaurant, bar, or brewery.”

Kozuba & Sons, St. Petersburg

The Kozuba family launched their craft distillery in St. Pete’s Warehouse Arts District five years ago. Zbigniew Kozuba and his sons, Matthias and Jacob, had initially opened a distillery in Poland in 2005, but the future didn’t look very promising.

“We were the only privately owned microdistillery and there wasn’t really a market for it at the time,” says Matthias Kozuba. “We had to look for an evacuation route for our business.”

They considered several different European cities, before deciding to relocate to the United States.

“My brother and I spoke English pretty well and we saw the renaissance underway in the American craft distilling industry,” says Kozuba.

After thinking about California and Texas, they narrowed their search to Florida, and then St. Pete.

“We liked the smaller community and loved the vibe of the city right away,” says Kozuba. “We liked seeing all the people out on the streets. It reminded us of a small European city.”??They purchased and renovated an old seafood storage facility, taking Kozuba & Sons fully operational in 2016 with a combination production facility and tasting room. Now there’s a line of vodkas, rye malt whiskeys, and both cranberry and quince cordials.

Last year, they completed the final phase of a capital investment project and are moving forward on a major expansion to add more special event space. 

“An area for special events wasn’t part of our initial business plan, but more and more people want to rent the distillery for special events and weddings. It’s a unique venue and they love seeing the barrels,” says Kozuba. “We’ve also annexed a small building next door and hope to create a Tiki bar as a destination for people to come, relax, have a cocktail and enjoy themselves.”

Tampa Bay Rum Company, Ybor City

During the week, Sam Meyers is a chiropractic physician and owner of Bay Injury & Rehab in St. Petersburg. On the weekends, he’s at the Tampa Bay Rum Company, a craft spirit distillery he founded two years ago in Ybor City.

“A good friend from high school had a successful distillery in Seattle and when I went back for my 20th high school reunion, I spent some time there,” says Meyers. “They were producing whiskey but I felt that rum was a better choice for Tampa Bay. Then I discovered no one had ever trademarked the name Gasparilla Rum. I couldn’t believe that the city with the biggest pirate festival in the world didn’t have a rum named after it.”

He and his partners converted an old motorcycle repair shop near the Columbia Restaurant into a production facility and tasting room for Gasparilla rum with flavors ranging from coconut, key lime, and butterscotch to apple spice.

Last year, they released two new products -- Blunderbuss Cane Vodka and a Gasparilla Reserve barrel-aged rum. Sometime in the future, they also hope to add a craft brewery inside the distillery.

“Our head distiller is a brewmaster by trade and we’ll be producing a Gasparilla craft beer,” says Meyers.

In the meantime, Meyers and his distiller, Brad Bunn, are focused on cooking up their craft spirits from scratch, including driving to South Florida’s sugar cane fields to get the supplies they need.

“We drive to a mill and they load me up with about five tons of molasses,” says Meyers. “Then we get back and transfer it into 250-gallon totes with a pump so we can store and use it inside the distillery.” Definitely a home-grown, locally owned operation.

Florida Cane Distillery, Ybor City

In 2002, Lee Nelson and his wife wanted to bring a wedding gift to friends in Denmark—something that would represent Florida. They couldn’t bring citrus because of customs restrictions, Nelson says. And they didn’t want to bring cigars since not everyone smokes.

“We just had a really difficult time thinking about what would best capture the spirit of Florida and Hillsborough County,” says Nelson. “That got us thinking about starting our own business.”

For years he’d been brewing craft beer at home and was wondering what he could do to take it to the next level. One of those options was to move into distilling craft spirits.

“I started experimenting and bringing some samples to my hockey buddy Pat O’Brien. It was really just an excuse to schedule some drinking time,’’ Nelson jokes. Eventually, the idea of launching a craft spirit business caught on. 

“We said, yes, let’s do this,” says Nelson. Rather than asking for a traditional bank loan, he went online and pitched the idea in a “peer-to-peer” lending approach. “People were giving us anywhere from $15 to $85. It gave us the capital to start the business,” says Nelson. 

In 2012 Florida Cane Distillery officially launched in what Nelson calls a glorified storage unit in Brandon. The next step was to acquire a more permanent location. Like other Tampa Bay craft distillers, he bumped up against restrictive rules and regulations. He also had to confront Tampa zoning laws, which at the time, prohibited a distillery from opening in a commercially zoned area.

The city was very supportive, says Nelson, and within a short time, Florida Cane opened up shop in Ybor City. Today the microdistillery produces more than 32 spirits with some intriguing flavor profiles, including 11 different vodkas (one with jalapeno). There are also three different types of rum, whiskey, gin, and moonshine.

“I feel unbelievably blessed,” says Nelson. “I still have a day job and my partner and co-founder Pat O’Brien is a sales director for a medical device company. But we’re now at the point where we have three full-time people and seven part-time people. We’re constantly collaborating on new unique taste blends. The fun part is in the creating.”?