Eurosport Extend Rights Deal with FIS World Cup

Eurosport, the leading pan-European sports media group, have announced they have renewed their media rights agreement for the majority of FIS World Cup events through to 2015/16.

The five year contract, which includes the on-going 2011/12 season, covers the FIS Alpine Skiing, Ski Jumping, Cross Country, Nordic Combined, Snowboard and Freestyle World Cup races where Infront handles the media rights collectively – almost 200 events per season.

The new agreements with Eurosport include TV and digital LIVE rights covered in Europe on Eurosport and Eurosport 2 as well as in Asia and the Pacific region on Eurosport Asia-Pacific. This includes the popular Tour de Ski in Cross-Country Skiing and stages from the prestigious Vierschanzentournee in Ski Jumping. In Europe only, a total of 600 hours will be dedicated to FIS World Cup races each
season on Eurosport’s channels.

Online, the Eurosport Player, Eurosport’s dedicated web TV service, will broadcast LIVE action from all FIS World Cup events acquired from Infront on six online bonus channels, one per discipline, as well as VOD. Eurosport Player is available on PC in 52 countries across Europe. All World Cup events will also be available across 14 European countries with the Eurosport Player mobile apps for iPad and iPhone.

As the media rights partner of most National Ski Associations that host the FIS World Cup events, Infront is developing the FIS properties as a coherent, high-level television entertainment product. In cooperation with the national TV stations serving as host broadcasters, a top quality world feed is produced to FIS TV Standards – developed to suit each discipline individually. 

This is also in line with the FIS objective of raising audience interest in the races and the continuity of the competition – in particular among a younger audience. All races are offered live and/or delayed and increasingly in full HD production quality. In addition, Infront produces and distributes weekly TV magazine programmes
throughout the winter season including the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Report, the Snowboard FIS World Cup Magazine and the Freestyle FIS World Cup Magazine.

by Ismail Uddin