In Mexico, NFL has untapped market
Tony Parrish, the 49ers defensive back, spent three days in Mexico during the summer promoting his team’s game Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals in Mexico City. He found he didn’t have to do much promoting.
The NFL estimates there are 20 million football fans in Mexico, making it the largest fan base outside the United States. Reporters from more than 150 news outlets attended Parrish’s news conferences. At youth camps, he met some of the 250,000 players involved with organized football.
At some point, it dawned on him that he wasn’t there as a novelty.
“They don’t just want a game,'’ Parrish said of the fans. “They want a team.'’
That seems improbable, but Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has indicated that the NFL’s next round of expansion could include an international franchise, and, as Sunday’s game at Azteca Stadium underscores, there is an enormous fan base in Mexico.
The 49ers-Cardinals matchup marks the first regular-season NFL game to be played outside the United States. The league has staged 55 exhibition contests abroad, including seven in Mexico. Three of the games in Mexico had crowds of more than 100,000.
Sunday’s game won’t approach that total. Peter Abitante, the NFL’s senior director of international public affairs, said capacity has been reduced to 85,000 at Azteca Stadium because of modifications, including a new scoreboard, handicap seating and improved sight lines in the lower bowl.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 65,000 tickets had been sold at prices ranging from $23 to $78. Abitante said he expected a sellout, calling Mexico “a walk-up culture.'’ A capacity crowd would be about triple what the Cardinals usually draw at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe.
More: mercurynews.com
Mexico bank chief backsoil windfalls fund initiative
Mexico's central bank governor has thrown his weight behind an initiative to use windfall oil revenues to buttress economic stability.
Guillermo Ortiz told the Financial Times this week that plans promoted by President Vicente Fox to set up a stabilisation fund along the lines of an existing - and highly successful - Chilean model would significantly reduce uncertainty ahead of Mexico's presidential election next July.
"It would be an important piece of legislation to have in place particularly with an election and would go a long way to reducing the uncertainty and risks associated with a
Corona Market: Guadalajara
We are in process of collecting information about this sight....
Blast Destroys Mexico Fireworks Market
Fire, Explosions Destroy Mexico's Top Fireworks Market Just Before Independence Day
A fire engulfed Mexico's most famous fireworks market Thursday, setting off a chain of explosions in a town northeast of the nation's capital that destroyed hundreds of open-air stands just ahead of Independence Day celebrations.
There were no reports of deaths and only three serious injuries reported by late afternoon, Mexico State Civil Defense Director Roberto Vazquez told The Associated Press.
He said hundreds were treated for cuts and bruises or shock after the explosions at the marketplace in Tultepec, a few miles from Mexico City.
elipe
Mexico's Ortiz Says Market `Correction Is Healthy'
Mexican Central Bank Governor Guillermo Ortiz described this week's decline in emerging market bonds and currencies as a ``healthy correction.''
``The markets can't always be going in only one direction,'' Ortiz told reporters after speaking at a conference on competitiveness in Mexico City today. ``It's healthy that there are corrections.''
Mexico's currency slipped 2.7 percent against the dollar in the last five days to 10.7675 pesos, its weakest level since Dec. 28, from 10.4753 pesos. Mexico's benchmark stock index fell 345.46, or 1.9 percent, to 18,205.61 as of 2:11 p.m. New York time
Huge firework blast rattles Mexican
A chain of explosions ripped through a sprawling market selling fireworks for Mexico's independence celebrations on Thursday, sending a huge column of smoke sky-high but causing only a handful of serious injuries.
Hundreds of blasts lasting for two hours reduced the market in the town of Tultepec, north-west of Mexico City, to a charred ruin. A large-scale tragedy was avoided only because stall owners ran for their lives as the explosions began.
Huddled with her children on the edge of a smoldering mass of twisted metal and smoldering wood the size of a football pitch and reeking
Telecom Axtel eyes Mexico, U.S. market listing
Mexico's Axtel, a local and long distance phone company founded a decade ago to battle for clients in a market dominated by ex-monopoly Telmex, plans to list its shares in Mexico and the United States.
In a statement late Monday, Axtel gave no timetable for its initial public offering on the Mexican Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, via American Depositary Receipts.
Axtel, based in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, operates in 12 cities and also offers Internet and data transmission services.
Mexico's government opened the long distance market to competition in 1997, luring
NFL looks for big play in Mexico
The NFL is the monolith of professional sports leagues, so powerful in its hold over fans and sponsors that it's hard to imagine that it could grow in popularity.
Yet that's the plan, and a chief target is Mexico and the burgeoning Hispanic market in the United States.
Like most large, powerful entities, the NFL isn't the most nimble of organizations. It admittedly has been a bit slow off the ball in selling itself to Mexico and Hispanic markets.
The NFL sees those markets as vital to continuing the phenomenal growth the league has enjoyed over the
Mexico imposes sanctions on US in antidumping row
The Mexican authorities have imposed trade sanctions against certain US products in their antidumping dispute, the Mexican trade representative said.
Mexico has decided to impose an additional duty of between 9-30 pct on selected imports from the US, he said, adding that the measure entered into force on Aug 18.
The dispute with the US concerns the Byrd Amendment, which allows the US government to redistribute anti-dumping duties to US companies that allege dumping, or the selling of goods abroad at less than the market price in the domestic market.
Source: forbes.com
Mexico Wins With Lower House Approval of Securities Market Law Initiative
Grupo Salinas, a group of dynamic, fast growing and technologically advanced companies deeply committed to the modernization of Mexico, announced today that it welcomes the approval of the initiative to enact a new Mexican Securities Law by the Chamber of Deputies. Grupo Salinas stated that Mexico wins with the approval, as the legislation is expected to enhance transparency and accountability of Mexican
corporations. This translates into increased confidence to invest in Mexico, which generates larger capital inflows to the securities market. The initiative aims to protect minority rights, a measure that
Since easing of trade barriers, Mexico cashing in
Like big goose eggs the color of money, avocados slide down the conveyor belt at Gerardo Perez's packing plant to be sorted, boxed, then loaded onto trucks for the caravan north to the U.S. market.
"Business has never been so good," said Perez, co-owner of Avocado Export Co., a modern low-rise packing house dwarfed by surrounding fruit trees.
Perez's crop is but a trickle in a river of avocados flooding the United States from Mexico, where exports have more than doubled in volume this year over last as growers finally attain unimpeded entree to
