Finnish Ski Association Renew Infront Rights for FIS Nordic Ski World Cup

The Finnish Ski Association and Infront Sports & Media have extended their partnership to include the worldwide media rights to all FIS Nordic Ski World Cup events that take place in Finland.

The contract starts from the 2013/14 season for five years up to 2017/18 and covers the FIS Ski Jumping, sick Cross-Country and Nordic Combined World Cup events in the country – a total of seven throughout each winter season. Furthermore, Infront is to distribute the media rights for the annual Finnish Nordic Ski Championships as well as the popular “Suomen Cup”. In addition to media rights, as another important element of the new agreement, Infront will now also handle the full media production for all FIS World Cup events in Finland including national level races.

Infront is a key player in international skiing and has helped to continuously increase the reach of the FIS World Cup events. As partner to most national skiing federations that host FIS World Cup events in the Alpine, Nordic, Freestyle and Snowboard disciplines, the sports marketing company handles the media rights to more than 90 per cent of the series on a collective basis. As a result, it is able to offer broadcasters around the world the very best of international skiing from one central source.

The Finnish Ski Association has already collaborated successfully with Infront in the past. The company handles the media and marketing rights to the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup event in Levi as well as the media rights to the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup races and the sponsorship packages to the FIS Nordic Ski World Cup events. This role has now been extended with the newly acquired media rights.

Matti Sundberg, President of the Finnish Ski Association, said: “After intensive negotiations throughout the past months, we have now reached a historic agreement – confiding the media rights for our prestigious Nordic events to the most experienced company in the field of international skiing. Infront is in a position to boost our Nordic events in a sustainable way and on a global scale.”

Bruno Marty, Infront’s Executive Director Winter Sports, commented: “The Nordic events in Finland are among the highlights of the FIS Nordic World Cup season and are highly appealing media content. With the media rights to the Finnish events complementing our portfolio, we are now able to offer almost the entire FIS Alpine and Nordic World Cup series on a collective basis – to the benefit of not only the broadcasters, but also the individual events, each reaching maximum exposure.”

All marketing rights of the Finnish Ski Federation will be handled by the Infront Finland subsidiary, whereas the broadcast rights will be distributed in close collaboration with Infront Italy – the Infront Group’s central hub for all media related operations in skiing.