Zug, Switzerland, 15 May 2008 – Infront Sports & Media has signed an agreement with Dream Team Production AB for four consecutive IIHF World Championship events. The Swedish outsourcing and production company, based in Stockholm, was contracted as exclusive service provider to the 2010 to 2013 IIHF World Championship and the Division I tournaments during this period of time.

 

The host broadcast of the major IIHF events is carried out under the supervision of Infront Production and Host Broadcast Services (HBS).

Dream Team Production has been involved in the broadcast production of the annual IIHF World Championships since 2004 and will act as host producer for next year’s IIHF World Championship in Switzerland. As a service provider to Infront Production the company will provide the multi-and unilateral broadcast production, including filming and transmitting a high quality signal, as well as supporting broadcasters in their unilateral production, transmission and commentary facilities and services.

 

Event to be fully covered in HDTV

For the upcoming contractual period the Infront Group will further raise the quality of the host broadcast production. The IIHF World Championship will be a major single winter sports event to commit fully to high definition television. All games will be originated in wide-screen 16:9 HDTV with more than 20 cameras in each arena and for each game including in-goal-cameras. Infront and Dream Team will also further develop the world feed including on-screen graphics and other elements to offer both licensees and the fans a superior broadcast product.

 

Infront and the IIHF World Championship – a winning partnership

The IIHF World Championship remains the single largest annual winter sports event, the most recent of which currently takes place in Canada, the home of ice hockey, with the finals being played on Sunday, May 18. 2008 is also the 100th Anniversary of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), so the location is a fitting setting for 100 years of successful ice hockey development.

 

Infront is the exclusive commercial partner of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for television distribution and marketing. The successful relationship between the IIHF and Infront started 27 years ago in 1981 and has contributed considerably to the successful development of the top IIHF events.

 

Traditional broadcast distribution includes agreements for almost 100 territories worldwide and the event will be transmitted by more than 75 broadcasters. The 2007 event in Russia was broadcast to a cumulative audience of more than 700 million in more than 80 countries. The total worldwide broadcast time was 2800 hours, an average of 50 hours per game.

 

The 2009 IIHF World Championship will take place in Switzerland in the cities of Berne and Zurich-Kloten. The 2010 IIHF World Championship will take place in Germany in the cities of Mannheim and Cologne and in 2011 the event will be staged in Slovakia in the cities of Kosice and Bratislava. For 2012 the event has been awarded to Finland and the 2013 IIHF World Championship will be played in Sweden.

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

 

Pa Gullö

Managing Director

Dream Team Production AB

Tel. +46-8-79935-10

Fax +46-8-799-35-01

info@dream-team.tv

www.dream-team.tv