Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Golf, tennis, cricket and other professional sports already struggling to keep sponsors amid the global recession may lose more than $100 million in backing because of R. Allen Stanford’s alleged fraud.

U.S. regulators yesterday accused the Texan billionaire of a “massive ongoing fraud,” raising the possibility that he might be unable to meet funding commitments for events from the PGA Tour’s Stanford St. Jude Championship to the Sony Ericsson Tennis Open, sports organizers and analysts said.

Stanford accelerated his sports drive over the past two years by funding a $100 million cricket series, backing top golf and tennis events, and signing top athletes such as golf’s Vijay Singh and soccer’s Michael Owen to promote his financial companies. Already, cricket officials from the U.K. and Caribbean have suspended talks with Stanford over sponsorships.

“Originally we entered into these (negotiations) very much with encouragement and support,” Giles Clarke, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, said late yesterday in a BBC interview. England and the West Indies boards “determined that is clearly inappropriate.”

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Stanford and his Houston-based Stanford Group Co., accusing them of securities fraud while selling about $8 billion in certificates of deposit through an Antigua-based affiliate. The SEC obtained an emergency order from the Dallas federal court freezing assets and appointing a receiver to return money to investors.

Julie Hodge, a Stanford spokeswoman, said she had no comment yesterday.

‘Categorically’

As officials raided Stanford’s offices yesterday, sports administrators were absorbing another setback.

The Stanford St. Jude Championship will “categorically” go ahead in Memphis, Tennessee, in June, the PGA Tour said in a statement, while declining to discuss the event’s future beyond 2009. The PGA Tour has shed sponsors including U.S. Bancorp. and AT&T Inc. this year amid the credit crunch.

“Events are reliant increasingly on rich benefactors,” said Nigel Currie, a director of U.K.-based sponsorship adviser Brand Rapport. “The benefactors are going to discover they’re down to their last billion or find themselves in serious financial trouble, like Stanford, so it’s another shutting off of income for certain sports.”

Stanford has endorsements with golfers Singh, Henrik Stenson, David Toms, Camilo Villegas and Morgan Pressel, and backs the AT&T National event hosted by Tiger Woods over the July 4 weekend. Two months ago, Stanford became title sponsor of the LPGA’s $2 million season-ending Tour Championship in Houston in November.

New Developments

“We remain in close contact with our tournament owner and they will continue to update us on any new developments related to this matter,” the LPGA told the golfchannel.com.

The men’s ATP tennis tour lists Stanford as its investment adviser, while Stanford backs the Sony Ericsson Open in Florida next month, a men’s and women’s event with $4.5 million in prize money. Stanford also sponsors the Champions Series for veterans including John McEnroe.

The ATP, which is seeking to replace its main sponsor after Daimler AG unit Mercedes-Benz withdrew, will make a statement today, spokesman Kris Dent said in an interview.

The 58-year-old Stanford also is a major sponsor of polo, yet the Antigua-based billionaire’s passion is cricket.

He has championed the shortest form of the sport -- Twenty20 -- bankrolling an annual $28 million tournament in the Caribbean as well as the $20 million winner-takes-all Stanford Twenty20 for 20 Super Series involving England and his own Stanford Superstars.

Crates of Cash

Stanford announced the series amid fanfare at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London in June, arriving by helicopter and plucking dollar bills from a crate he brought with him to illustrate the amount of money on offer.

The 11 winning players in the Stanford Superstars in November each collected $1 million. The Daily Mail newspaper said he lost $40 million on the event as TV sales disappointed. Stanford in December said in a statement he was reviewing his domestic competition, though he “reaffirmed his desire” to pursue the Twenty20 for 20 Series.

“I really think that’s an unlikely event,” Clarke told the BBC yesterday when asked about the Twenty20 for 20 Series. “I would be extremely surprised (if it took place).”

Stanford has also discussed a four-team tournament in England before this year’s ICC World Twenty20 and a U.K. series to rival India’s Premier League. Clarke, speaking in Antigua where England is playing, told the BBC his board and the West Indies “jointly agreed to suspend all negotiations.”

Payments

The England board had received all its payments for the Stanford Twenty20 for 20 Series, he added.

Stanford signed England and Newcastle United striker Owen to a multiyear contract as its brand ambassador in April. Owen, in a press release at the time, praised Stanford’s “solid track record.” Singh, a three-time golf major winner, said in January 2007 he was pleased to partner “a company that brings such integrity and excellence to its business.”

Rose Romero, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth office, said yesterday the commission was “alleging a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world.”

Stanford, listed last year by Forbes magazine as the world’s 605th-richest man with an estimated net worth of $2 billion, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to employees he’d “fight with every breath to continue to uphold our good name” in the face of the investigations.

Sports-sponsorship spending will have the slowest growth in seven years with companies cutting back because of the recession, according to last month’s IEG Sponsorship Report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Clark in Singapore at gclark@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 18, 2009 12:11 EST