Sports Briefs

FOOTBALL

Suk hits the crossbar but fails to score in debut game with Porto

Korean striker Suk Hyun-joon made his debut for his new club FC Porto on Thursday, although he failed to score.

In a Group A match against Famalicao in the Portuguese league cup, which is also known as Taca da Liga, Suk featured as striker for the first time. The 24-year-old played the full game, but failed to notch a goal, although his header in the 85th minute hit the bar. Porto lost 1-0.

Suk completed his transfer to 27-time Portuguese league champion Porto last week from Vitoria Setubal after signing a four-and-a-half year deal that includes a buy-out clause worth 30 million euros. Porto reportedly paid a 1.5 million euro transfer fee to Vitoria Setubal.

Suk scored 11 goals in 21 matches in Portugal this season. He is also expected to play in the league match against Martimo on Sunday.

By Joo Kyung-don

Real Madrid is top money-spinning team with Barcelona not far behind

Real Madrid are football’s biggest moneymaker for the 11th straight year, while Bayern Munich dropped to their lowest position in eight years.

Madrid’s revenue of 577 million euros ($628 million) in 2014-15 kept them top of the Football Money League compiled by accountancy firm Deloitte.

The revenue of the world’s top 20 clubs, which are all European and include nine from the English Premier League, grew 8 percent year-to-year to 6.6 billion euros ($7.2 billion).

European and Spanish champions Barcelona regained second place by generating 560.8 million euros ($609 million), displacing Manchester United, who made 395.2 million pounds ($560 million) while still struggling on the pitch in the post-Alex Ferguson era.

French champion Paris Saint-Germain climbed to fourth by generating 480.8 million euros ($522 million), followed by Bayern on 474 million euros ($515 million).

SPORTS BUSINESS

Ronaldo, Messi join social media platform to connect with fans

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have signed up to use a social-media platform called Unscriptd, which aims to connect athletes to fans directly via short videos.

Andre Agassi and former Nike executives are part of the group leading Unscriptd, which is formally being launched Wednesday after a year of testing.

“The truth is, I think there’s an insatiable marketplace out there,’’ Agassi said.

Athletes use their mobile phones to shoot and self-publish videos of up to two minutes that are posted to their feeds on sites such as Facebook and Twitter and collected at the project’s self-titled website.

“We’re not trying to get fans to go somewhere,’’ Agassi said. “We’re coming to them where they are with direct athlete-to-fan engagement.’’

CEO Brent Scrimshaw says Unscriptd allows “athletes to share, in an unfiltered way, not only an insight into their professional world ... (but) also an insight into their personal world.’’

The company says it is working with more than 30 athletes, Olympians Mo Farah and Justin Gatlin, and India test cricket captain Virat Kohli. AP