Infront Sports & Media, marketing partner for the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships 2009, has announced that all sponsorship packages for the event have been sold.
The event, which takes place every two years, is being staged in the popular resort of Val d’Isère, France, from 2 – 15 February 2009. It will be the 40th in the long history of this event, inaugurated in Mürren, Switzerland, in 1931. Val d’Isère thus joins the elite club of resorts that have organised the "Grand Slam" of skiing events, with 150 FIS World Cup races and four Winter Olympic events under its belt.
The Presenting Sponsor is Audi (cars) and the Main Sponsors are Bauhaus (DIY retail), Deichmann (shoe retail), Generali (insurance), Halti (sports apparel), Intersport (sports retail), Longines (watches/timing), Milka (chocolate) and Rauch (beverages). The championships have been marketed by Infront’s Austrian subsidiary APF, a company with a long and successful association with skiing. APF has acquired the marketing rights to the FIS Alpine and Nordic Ski World Championships 2007 and 2009 from the European Broadcast Union (EBU) in 2001.
Skiing is a popular sport with European sponsors and the 600 hours of television coverage and anticipated cumulative audience of 400 million are attractive to companies who are looking for activation potential in this key market area and image association with a clean, fast, exciting sport.
Sixty nations and 350 athletes will be taking part, in a total of 11 Men’s and Women’s competitions. There are 1,200 volunteers helping with the organisation of the event. In total, 1,500 media representatives are expected, indicating the popularity of this premier winter sports competition.
Bruno Marty, Infront’s Executive Director, Winter Sports, said: “We are more than happy with this result, especially in the current challenging environment, where even quality events and teams are having to work hard to maintain sponsor support. We have secured top brands in all product categories, each of whom will contribute to first class services for spectators and athletes. Credit must be given to our colleagues at APF, who have played such a major role in achieving this result.”
