Other website sections

»Sports Market Reports

»Sports Jobs

»Tenders

»Directory

»Conferences

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.”