From a company news release this morning:

Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:LIVC), a media company built around content and commerce destinations, announced today that it has accepted subscriptions in a non-brokered private placement to a limited group of institutional and accredited investors, and will be issuing 1.63 million Units at USD $0.65 per Unit for gross proceeds of USD $1.06 million. A second tranche for additional proceeds of up to $1 million is expected to close within the next 15 days.

Live Current CEO and Chairman, Geoffrey Hampson, the Company’s President and COO, Jonathan Ehrlich and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Mark Melville, all invested in the round. 

Each Unit consists of one common share of Live Current and a two-year warrant to purchase one-half of a common share at a 20% premium to the Unit price and a three-year warrant to purchase one-half of a common share at a 40% premium to the Unit price. 

Net proceeds from the financing will be used to accelerate the growth of the Company’s Perfume.com business, meet on-going obligations under the BCCI and IPL MOU’s announced in April 2008 and for general working capital purposes.

Mr. Hampson stated, "This financing, in addition to the expected proceeds of the previously announced sale of up to six non-core domain names, is consistent with management's strategy to ensure that sufficient cash resources are available to meet our obligations through the end of 2009 while minimizing dilution for existing investors."

The Economic Times reports:

Anshu Jain, head of global markets at Deutsche Bank, has bought a minority stake in Mumbai Indians, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team owned by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, ET has learnt.

London-based Mr Jain, a keen cricket enthusiast who is often seen at the Lord’s cricket ground enjoying matches, is said to have picked up the stake in his personal capacity. Reliance did not respond to an emailed query asking it to confirm the information, while Deutsche Bank does not comment on personal investments of its executives.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Mr Jain's investment in the Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai Indians was made "some time ago" and was for sheer love of the game. One estimate is that his stake could amount up to 15%.

The franchise for Mumbai Indians, which includes cricketing stars such as Harbhajan Singh, South Africa’s Shaun Pollock and Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya, was won by Mr Ambani for $119.11 million as part of a high-stakes auction in which he outbid liquor baron Vijay Mallya. Mr Mallya later successfully bid for the Bangalore team called Royal Challengers.

Mr Jain, it is now hoped, may take a more active role as a minority investor, and use his contacts to rope in some English players for the Mumbai Indians, the person familiar with the matter said.

Several IPL teams are targeting marquee players such as Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, but so far the English Cricket Board has been reluctant to allow England players to take part in IPL.

Mr Jain’s investment is an expression of his personal love for the game and not because the Mumbai Indians is in need of money, the person familiar with the matter said.

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The Perfume.com Gift Guide includes expert picks from fragrance guru Grant Osborne, founder and editor of Basenotes.net, a fragrance site that's full of great info about perfume and cologne.

The peak holiday shopping season for online retailers kicks off just after US Thanksgiving, on 'Black Friday' and especially 'Cyber Monday'.

BTW, If you have not checked out The Daily Spritz, the blog of Perfume.com lately, it is definitely worth a look.

Live Current will issue a press release about its third quarter 2008 results early Monday morning.

You can access the Q HERE.

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UPDATE, Nov. 17, 8:02 AM Eastern: The press release has been issued. Here is some of Geoff Hampson's quote:

"We continue to believe that selling non-core domain names is the least dilutive form of financing and we are making significant progress on the recently announced initiative to market up to six of our non-core but highly-prized names... We remain bullish on the future and believe that there are several near-term wins on the horizon with enormous long-term strategic value for the Company."

In the third quarter there were several key developments -- e.g. BCCI.tv launch, Karate.com development partnership -- that should have a real positive impact on our future growth.

Televisionpoint.com reports:

The Champions of the first Indian Premier League (IPL), Rajasthan Royals, runners-up Chennai Super Kings and multi starrer Deccan Chargers are seeking to raise money by diluting their stake in these entities as they gear up to make big bucks in the new season.

While some of these teams have already roped in investment bankers or financial and business advisory firms such as KPMG to work out valuations, financial experts and valuers differ widely in their estimates.

On their part, these teams are expecting valuations of $ 250 million, but experts like Sanjiv Agarwal of Ernst and Young say they won't be surprised if some of the multi-starrer teams command valuations two or three times that figure.

Agarwal was part of the E&Y team that had done the valuation for Team India some three years ago. Today, he puts Team India's valuation at $ 5 billion.

The first IPL season was a huge success and some franchises such as Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals even managed to break even or spin profits....

When contacted, KPMG executive director Rajesh Jain refused to put a valuation for any IPL team. But he said value estimates for a team would be done solely on the basis of cash flow. He said quite a number of investors, both domestic and foreign, were looking at acquiring stakes in IPL franchisees for strategic purposes.

The market buzz is that media firms, ADAG, Sahara Group, Future Group and financial entities such as ICICI Venture, Sequoia Capital and India Value Fund are exploring opportunities to join the IPL bandwagon. Names of some international players like Providence, Macquire Bank, DE Shaw, Deutsche Bank, Alcazar, Engelfield are also doing the rounds as possible investors in IPL franchisees.

Time reports:

As retailers brace for penny-pinching shoppers this holiday season, they're hoping their websites can deliver some good news. At the very least, the Internet should outdo the sidewalk in delivering sales growth: holiday forecasts predict zero to 2.2% overall sales gains for November and December, according to respective estimates by Bain & Co. and the National Retail Federation (NRF), the world's largest retail trade association. By comparison, online retail sales are expected to grow 12%, to $44 billion, according to Forrester Research.

Shoppers are migrating to the Web for a variety of reasons. Rising financial anxiety and tight credit availability are making holiday shopping this year an exercise in self-restraint, and the Web offers a quick, clean shot at purchasing 24 hours a day.

This should bode well for the newly launched version of LIVC's Perfume.com.

From an email we sent to Live Current subscribers today:

Live Current Media Inc.'s Global Cricket Ventures JV recently launched the official YouTube Channel of the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI), which is fast becoming a very popular destination. Please see: http://www.youtube.com/user/BCCI

The content posted there today represents just a smidgen of the highly sought-after, exclusive cricket video content that we have rights to through our agreements with the BCCI, IPL and the Champions League Twenty20.

The new BCCI channel is already ranked by YouTube:
#4 - Most Viewed (This Month) Partners - India
#11 - Most Subscribed (All Time) Partners - India
#18 - Most Viewed (This Month) India
#19 - Most Viewed (All Time) Partners - India

Also, further to this week's Globe & Mail article about Live Current, CEO Geoffrey Hampson was online today at the globeandmail.com to answer questions from readers about our cricket business and the company's strategy for growth. The Q&A can be accessed at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081030.onRecord1104/BNStory/breakthrough

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If you are not yet subscribed to receive Live Current email updates, please do so at: http://www.livecurrent.com/subscribe.php

The Wall Street Journal reports:

In the era of the 52-inch plasma television set, marketers at Sprint Nextel Corp. are banking on football fans to seek out a decidedly smaller viewing experience.

For the first time Thursday, a National Football League game -- the Cleveland Browns vs. the Denver Broncos -- will be broadcast on Sprint mobile phones as part of the wireless company's exclusive partnership with the league. That partnership deal is valued at about $500 million over five years.

Over the next seven weeks, Sprint will phone-cast the eight games that are televised solely on the NFL Network, the league's cable channel. For the past three seasons, the NFL has struggled to persuade major cable operators to include its channel in their basic programming packages.

With the NFL Network is available in only about 40% of American households, Sprint executives hope the NFL games can do for their company what the league's Sunday Ticket package has done for satellite-television provider DirecTV Group. Sunday Ticket, which is exclusive to DirecTV, allows dedicated fans to see every NFL game on Sunday afternoons, and has been crucial to DirectTV's growth.

"Live compelling content is a game changer in the mobile industry," said Steve Gaffney, Sprint's director of sports sponsorships.

For the NFL, the Sprint phone-casts are part of a series of experiments with digital media aimed at discerning how fans will consume football in the future. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., conducted similar experiments this summer, showing highlights and a handful of events from the Beijing Olympics on mobile phones.

"We know a lot of fans find themselves displaced, and they are using devices like mobile phones for more tasks," said Brian Rolapp, the NFL's senior vice president of digital media and media strategy. "With 60% of our revenues coming from media, we'd be foolish not to do something like this."

The planned phone-casts are part of Sprint's NFL Mobile Live package, which is available on most Sprint handsets. The package can be purchased for $15 a month, and is also included as part of Sprint's Everything plans that start at $69.99 per month.

Live Current's Global Cricket Ventures (a JV with NetlinkBlue Holding) has the streaming and mobile rights to the Indian Premier League, and it only makes sense that wireless carriers in India and abroad would be interested in offering highly sought-after cricket content to win customers. Data shows that cricket fans are among the most highly engaged sports fans in the world.

The Globe and Mail today has a feature article about Live Current, "Perfect pitch scores a deal for B.C. firm":

Geoffrey Hampson didn't know what to expect when he arrived in the conference room of the Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel in London last February. He and a colleague had flown in to meet India's cricket czar, Lalit Modi, the 45-year-old scion of a billionaire family who'd recently spearheaded the founding of a professional league — a kind of NHL or NBA of cricket.

Mr. Hampson, chief executive officer of Live Current Media, a Vancouver-based website developer, had an hour to persuade Mr. Modi that he should sell the Web rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL) to Mr. Hampson's 30-person firm rather than to one of the global media giants that Mr. Modi had short-listed for bids.

Read the full article HERE.

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UPDATE: Live Current CEO Geoff Hampson will be online at the Globeandmail.com on Friday at 1 p.m. Eastern to take your questions. To submit your question, click HERE.

Moneycontrol.com, India's No. 1 financial portal, has a transcript of a CNBC-TV18 interview with arguably the most powerful person in the cricket world, Lalit Modi, Vice President, Board of Control for Cricket in India and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League. Mr. Modi talks about the exciting growth of the business of cricket spurred by the IPL (and also the Champions League Twenty20). 

You can read the transcript HERE, or watch the TV interview HERE.

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Unless you have not seen any of Live Current's recent press releases, you would know that Global Cricket Ventures, a joint venture between LIVC and NetlinkBlue, has secured the 10-year web, mobile and digital asset rights to the IPL and the 10-year rights to manage and monetize the official Champions League T20 website, which are two of the newest, most exciting and lucrative sporting events in the world.

From a Live Current press release this morning:

Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:LIVC), a media company built around content and commerce destinations, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Palo Alto-based Arbor Advisors, LLC to sell six of its non-core but highly valuable dot-com domain names from the Company’s portfolio of more than 800 domains.

Live Current expects to market the domain names for an aggregate amount of $6 million to $10 million and anticipates negotiating transactions for the sale of some or all of the six domain names within 90 days.

Geoffrey Hampson, Chief Executive Officer, Live Current, stated, "The strategic value of premium top-level domain names has remained strong despite the difficult environment and we believe that it is a prudent time to sell some of our non-core domain names as a non-dilutive form of financing to fund the growth of our health & beauty and sports media businesses. Management also intends to exploit the opportunities afforded it by continuing to develop either directly or through partnerships our remaining highly prized top-level domain names."

Lou Doctor, Managing Director, Arbor Advisors, said, "We are excited to work closely with Live Current Media to find strategic buyers for six of their highly valuable but non-core domain names.  Live Current has a truly world-class portfolio of top-level domain names and even in these turbulent times the demand for such domain names remains strong ." 

This is the first time that the Company has announced that it is putting a group of premium domain names on sale, and the news has attracted a lot of inquiries.

The business of cricket is grabbing headlines again. Just when you think that cricket valuations have shot through the sky, the BCCI comes along and shows there's still more headroom to go. If the domestic IPL media rights were snapped up for close to USD 1 billion, the champions T20 League that will be inaugurated in December has been sold for another USD 900 million to be precise. CNBC-TV18’s Ramya Ramamurthy reports on what will be the most expensive cricket tournament ever

Read the complete article at Moneycontrol.com, a leading Indian financial portal.

We are very happy to report that Global Cricket Ventures (“GCV”), a joint venture between LIVC and NetlinkBlue Holding, has reached an agreement to build, manage and monetize the official website of the Champions League Twenty20 -- one of the most exciting and highly anticpated new sporting events globally -- for a period of 10 years, with revenue to be shared 50/50 between GVC and the League.

Read the press release HERE.

If you take this into account with our agreements with the BCCI and the IPL, with all of our exclusive digital rights for Indian cricket, and the fact that we are developing Cricket.com as the global DestinationHub™ for the world's billion+ passionate cricket fans, we believe there is no other internet media company better positioned to take advantage of the exploding popularity of cricket and T20.

Stay tuned for other exciting cricket (and non-cricket) developments coming soon.

From a Times article today:

All the grounds are reporting high demand for tickets....The credit crunch has also had little effect on corporate sales. “There is overwhelming demand for boxes and other types of hospitality, a waiting list for long-term boxes, and perimeter advertising is already sold out for the whole of 2009,” an MCC spokeswoman said.

And what of India, the most booming growth market for cricket? The eight Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises met in Bangkok last weekend and agreed to increase the cap for purchasing players from $5 million to $7 million. This will apply for the next auction of players in February, but the owners also agreed a one-month trading window from December 15 in which, as one source said, “trading can be done for players with absolutely no budgetary limits”.

The franchise owners have been buoyed by recovering, from television, sponsorship and ticket sales, almost 80 per cent of the money they paid to the Indian board for their teams. The franchises were bought for between $67 and $112 million, but are said to be worth between $250 and $300 million. They will also benefit from sharing the $1 billion of media rights that were recently sold for the Champions League.

There is speculation in India that the Deccan Chronicle Group wants to sell its 80 per cent stake in Deccan Chargers, who came last in this year's IPL, and cash in on the increase in value. Tim Wright, the chief executive of the Chargers, refused to comment but said the IPL had been more successful than anyone had expected. “The franchises did all their financial modelling before anyone knew how big IPL would be,” he said. “It has vastly exceeded expectations.”

Live Current/GVC attended the IPL franchisee meetings in Bangkok which are mentioned in this article.