A leader in international sports marketing
Infront Sports & Media, based in Zug, Switzerland, has grown impressively in recent years and is now one of the leading international sports marketing companies in the world. It has expanded organically and through strategic acquisition, with the objective of building a full-service agency offering a comprehensive menu of specialised services to sport and a diversified portfolio of top sports rights.
It now has more than 500 employees across 24 offices in 10 countries: Austria, China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. The company enjoys successful partnerships with around 130 rights holders and hundreds of commercial partners.
Innovation and high standards of delivery make Infront successful in an increasingly complex and competitive sports marketing landscape. In everything it does — including distribution of media rights, host broadcast, production, event operations, brand development, sponsorship and even online entertainment — it has helped to introduce ground-breaking solutions and services.
Number one in winter sports
Infront is the strongest, most experienced marketing agency in the winter sports arena, representing six out of seven Olympic winter sport federations. This includes a long-term partnership with the IIHF in world ice hockey and a major role in international skiing, where it manages more than 90% of the media and/or marketing rights to FIS World Cup events, including the prestigious International Four Hills Tournament.
Through its close working relationship with the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS), Infront is also involved in the distribution of media and marketing rights of other FIS events.
Partnerships with the FIBT for bobsleigh and skeleton, FIL for luge, the IBU for biathlon and the WCF for curling complete Infront’s winter sports portfolio. As a result Infront is able to offer the very best winter sports opportunities from one central source.
Strong in summer sports
Infront has a unique heritage in football, from its experience in handling the global media rights for the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cups™. It currently manages distribution of the Asian broadcast rights for the 2010/2014 FIFA World Cup™ (in a joint venture with Dentsu). It works with the German Football Federation (DFB), a relationship dating back almost 30 years, as well as with several other European football associations and clubs. It is exclusive media rights advisor to Italy’s Lega Calcio for Serie A and B as well as the TIM Cup.
Infront has successful partnerships with the European Handball Federation (EHF) for the biannual EHF Euro events and the Confédération Européenne de Volleyball (CEV) and it has been appointed as marketing partner of the 2010 FIVB Men’s World Championship in Italy. The group is also a strong player in motor sports through Infront Motor Sports, promoter of the FIM Superbike World Championship.
Leading the way in Asia
Infront has become the leading sports marketing organisation in China, representing China’s top sport, basketball. It has an office in Beijing with 50 staff, offering a combination of international expertise and local market knowledge. The agreement with the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) covers all key aspects of not just the marketing but also the development of the Chinese national teams and the CBA League. Infront has also established a “Gateway China” service, to encourage European-based companies and sports to access the world’s largest emerging market through experienced consultancy advice and assistance with implementation.
Entertainment – transforming sport business
In a fresh strategic direction for the group, Infront has launched Empire of Sports (EoS) — a virtual sporting world on line — in a joint venture with F4, a Paris-based video gaming company. The world’s first true multi-sports gaming world offers a wide range of sports games, such as tennis, basketball, skiing, bobsleigh, fitness, track & field and football. It can accommodate millions of players, who can interact socially, challenge one another in sporting competition and even rise to star status. EoS opens up a completely new frontier for business partners, such as brands, media companies and rights holders —
www.empireofsports.com
World-class services
The Infront Sports Services division focuses the servicing experience and operational expertise gained on Infront’s top events to help other sports. It is event-oriented and provides advice, practical help, resources and access to well-tested systems. It can offer a complete account management solution that can be more cost-effective than recruiting your own team. Services include hospitality and catering through Infront Hospitality Management; ticketing through a partnership with Ticketcorner; accreditation for sponsors and broadcast partners; venue dressing, state-of-the-art advertising and design solutions — in fact, everything that a successful sports event needs to function efficiently.
Host broadcasting - a job for specialists
Host Broadcast Services (HBS), as a dedicated, independent host broadcast specialist, helps sports federations, organising committees and rights holders worldwide to broadcast their events in the most exciting and effective way. It provides the full spectrum of host broadcast services, to a highly developed and technologically advanced standard.
HBS works with international federations including FIFA for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ and UEFA for the UEFA EURO 2008™, national leagues, such as Ligue 1 in France, as well as the organisers of multi-sports games.
HBS has established a dedicated production division to expand the multimedia and production capabilities of the Infront Group and develop new business in the area of sports production. This division focuses mainly on production-led projects, working on shorter time scales with a lighter infrastructure — www.hbs.tv.
New media competence
Infront’s innovative services are completed by a dedicated competence centre for the distribution of new media sports rights. Infront Advanced Media Solutions (IAMS), located in Milan, Italy, is a one-stop-shop for producing, delivering, protecting and billing new media content, to help clients obtain additional exposure for their events. The company produces a variety of tailor-made new media services and broadcast programmes, including magazine programmes for the FIS Ski World Cup, the FIM Superbike World Championship, the Euroleague (Euroleague.tv) and Serie A.
