WORLD CLASS ICE HOCKEY

Every 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 World Champion of the sport. It is the biggest annual winter sport event worldwide and it goes from strength to strength every year.

"Infront has the IIHF World Championships in its hand. For 28 years, the company is the marketing agency and this means a complete menu of services, from marketing of sponsorship packages to distribution of the television signal. Given the increasing number of users of the dedicated online broadcast service, one can understand the satisfaction of Infront’s Management on the IIHF World Championship in Switzerland."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 May 2009

A unique relationship
Since 1981, Infront is the exclusive marketing partner to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), representing all major commercial rights. This unique and very special relationship generates many benefits, including the opportunity to introduce innovations and improvements on a consistent basis.

The biggest annual winter sports event


Exciting future
Looking forward to 2010, the IIHF World Championship in Germany has an exciting record in its sights. The opening game on 7 May 2010 will take place in the Veltins-Arena of Gelsenkirchen, home of the football (soccer) Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04. The stadium will be transferred to a giant ice hockey arena with an overall capacity enhanced to almost 76,000 places. A full stadium would represent a new spectator world record for ice hockey.

More coverage in more countries
The 2009 IIHF World Championship in Switzerland saw a classic final between Russia and Canada, pitching the two greatest ice hockey nations against each other for the second year in succession. Russia defeated Canada 2-1 to win gold for the second year in a row.

The fact that the 2009 event took place in Europe, where most teams were in the right time zone for their fans, helped ensure very high levels of coverage. There were a record number of over 200 broadcast partners in more than 100 territories, as well as the third highest cumulative audience figure in the history of the event, at 647.4 million. The 2009 IIHF World Championship was not only available in the core ice hockey markets but, from Andorra to Zimbabwe, the event was seen around the globe – accumulating over 2,500 hours of worldwide coverage.

Television quality enhanced
The IIHF and Infront are working together to provide broadcasters with a quality of pictures and level of support services that match the highest standards in sport today. In 2010, all games will be again produced in high definition television (HDTV) quality. The production used 20 cameras in each arena and for each game, including in goal and overhead centre circle cameras — giving more insights to this high-speed sport and thus making it more attractive to a wider following of viewers.

Infront represents all forms of electronic media rights to the event on a worldwide basis, including TV and new media, offering live, delayed and highlights coverage.

All games available online
The dedicated online broadcast service of the event has now been fully integrated into the official federation website, www.iihf.com. It will be produced by Infront Advanced Media Solutions, a subsidiary of Infront. It means that fans throughout the world can view live and on demand every game of the IIHF World Championship. The games are available as high-quality video stream. Access is geo-blocked in a few countries where conflicting media license agreements are in place.

3D – income for sports, fun for spectators
Infront and HBS produced trial stereoscopic live coverage of the 2008 IIHF World Championship; the first time that world-class ice hockey has been produced in 3D. For fans, it’s the next best thing to being in the stadium and expands horizons of sport.

The technical challenges faced by live 3D coverage are now being overcome by integrating the 3D operation into a standard host broadcast. This creates new rights and revenue streams for broadcasters, rights holders and sponsors.