High levels of exposure in crucial European and Asia Pacific regions sustained through TV and online broadcasts of races across six FIS disciplines

Zug, Switzerland/Paris, France, 16 February 2012 – Eurosport, the leading pan-European sports media group, and Infront Sports & Media, the international sports marketing company, have announced the extension of 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.

Comprehensive coverage on TV and Online
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.

Bruno Marty, Executive Director Winter Sports at Infront, says: “Europe has a long-term tradition in skiing and builds – with its many talents and prestigious races across all disciplines – a key market for FIS World Cup competitions. Thanks to the sustained and central approach of the Infront Group in offering an attractive media rights product to Eurosport, the extensive European audience will be connected to the very best of international skiing on a long-term basis.”

Top quality broadcast product
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.

About Eurosport Group
The Eurosport Group is Europe's leading sports entertainment group. Eurosport, the n°1 pan-European TV channel, broadcasts in 20 languages and reaches 129 million homes across 59 countries. Eurosport HD is the high definition simulcast of Eurosport. Eurosport 2 broadcasts to 57 million households in 18 languages across 47 countries. Eurosport 2 HD was launched in August 2009. Eurosport Asia-Pacific reaches 17 countries in the region and launched an HD channel in September 2011. Eurosportnews is the sports news channel transmitted worldwide.

Eurosport.com, Europe's n°1 online sports destination, has up to 17 million unique users per month (comScore) across an international network of sports websites in 11 languages, including Yahoo! co-branded sites in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. The Eurosport.com free mobile applications are available in 10 languages. Eurosport Player, Eurosport's web TV service, provides LIVE and on-demand sports to fans’ PCs in 59 countries and the Player mobile application is available in 14 countries. Eurosport Events is the group's expert division in the management and promotion of international sporting events.

About Infront Sports & Media
Infront Sports & Media, based in Zug, Switzerland, is one of the leading international sports marketing groups in the world. Known for its high standards of delivery, the company covers all aspects of a successful sport event – including distribution of media rights, sponsorship, media production and event operations. As a key player in winter sport, football and other summer sports, Infront enjoys long-lasting partnerships with 120 rights-holders and hundreds of sponsors and media companies. With an experienced and passionate team of 500 staff in 20 offices across 10 countries, the Group helps to annually deliver 3,300 event days of top class sport around the world.


For further information, please contact:
 
Jörg Polzer / Nike Möhle
Corporate Communications
Infront Sports & Media AG
Tel. +41-41-723 15 15
Fax +41-41-723 15 16
press infrontsports.com
www.infrontsports.com
 
Marc Hebert
Press Office
Eurosport
Tel. + 33 1 40 93 80 59
mhebert eurosport.com
www.eurosport.com