Zug / Berne, Switzerland, 17 October 2008 – Infront Sports & Media, the long-term marketing partner of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), has reached an agreement with the Swiss public broadcaster SRG SSR idée suisse covering the broadcast rights for several editions of the IIHF World Championship, the supreme event in ice hockey.

This event takes place every year and the new contract runs until 2011, including the tournaments in Switzerland (Berne / Zurich-Kloten), Germany (Cologne / Mannheim) and Slovakia (Bratislava / Kosice). SRG is a broadcast partner to the IIHF World Championship for 20 years. The relationship with the event dates back to the 1989 tournament in Sweden. SRG covered all events including this year’s IIHF World Championship in Canada.

For the upcoming three tournaments, SRG has exclusive rights to all 56 games. The agreement covers the territory of Switzerland and includes all media rights, including Free-TV, radio, broadband internet and mobile.

Bruno Marty, Infront’s Executive Director Winter Sports, said: “As IIHF's exclusive marketing partner, we are pleased that we have secured the national free-to-air broadcaster to work with us in Switzerland, IIHF's home country – and ours. This will make sure of extensive coverage and audiences for the upcoming events, in particular for the 73. IIHF World Championship in Berne and Zurich-Kloten which will be the biggest sports event of the year 2009 in Switzerland.”

Urs Leutert, Head of Business Unit Sport of SRG SSR, said: “After 11 years the IIHF World Championship once again returns to Switzerland. We are proud of being the rights holder for the 2009 tournament taking place on our home soil. As a long-term partner to the sport, SRG will give ice hockey the media platform it deserves in the Swiss market until 2011.”

About the IIHF World Championship
Each year, in April/May, the 16 best national ice hockey teams in the world come together to play 56 exciting games to establish the new IIHF World Champion. The 2009 IIHF World Championship will be played in Switzerland in the cities of Berne and Zurich-Kloten for 24 April to 10 May. 16 teams

Group A (Zurich-Kloten):     Canada, Slovakia, Belarus, Hungary
Group B (Berne):                 Russia, Switzerland, Germany, France
Group C (Berne):                 Sweden, USA, Latvia, Austria
Group D (Zurich-Kloten):     Finland, Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark

The event will attract a world-wide television audience from the global community of ice hockey fans. The 2008 event in Canada was broadcasted live in 100 countries by over 75 television stations, generating a cumulative audience around 600 million.

Infront is the exclusive commercial partner of the IIHF and offers TV rights (for live, delayed, highlights and news broadcasts as well as radio and new media rights) for the IIHF World Championships and the annual Division 1 Groups A and B.


For further information, please contact:

Jörg Polzer
Manager, Communication & PR
Infront Sports & Media AG
Tel. +41-41-723 15 15
Fax +41-41-723 15 16
press infrontsports.com

www.infrontsports.com

 

Please find below a German language PDF version of this release for download - Eine deutsche Fassung der Pressemitteilung finden Sie nachfolgend als PDF-Download: