World Archery live on SBS Korea through 2017
Four more years of live international archery on Korean national television network SBS confirmed in Seoul
SBS now owns exclusive rights to live or delayed live broadcasts of Archery World Cup stages, Finals and world championships for the next four years in Korea. The country is a premier market for archery, and currently holds top spots in both the recurve men’s and women’s world rankings.
The deal also includes images from the Indoor Archery World Cup, which has crowned a Korean recurve women’s winner ever since a team from the country entered the tour two years ago.
The network will air live archery on its SBS and SBS Sports channels, as well as distributing the Korean broadcast on its internet and mobile platforms. It will also produce appropriate news, highlights and editorial features to accompany its live programming.
Last year’s Archery World Cup Final in Paris which saw top Korean recurve archers Yun Ok Hee and Oh Jin Hyek win individual and mixed team titles, was broadcast to more than 13.5 million homes on SBS Sports networks.
Traditionally highly-successful in recurve competition, having won more Olympic archery medals than any other nation, Korea recently started taking large compound archery contingents to world cup stages. In 2014, two Korean compound athletes qualified for the Final in Paris.
With another four years of archery on Korean television, the growing number of international archery fans in the Asian country will follow their compound athletes’ progress with interest – and keep a keen eye on Ki Bo Bae and Oh Jin Hyek as they prepare to defend their Olympic Champion titles at Rio 2016.
SBS has been the official broadcaster of World Archery in Korea since 2010. The company joined production of archery at the London 2012 Olympics, contributing to the most successful and widely-broadcast Games in the sport’s history. This new agreement has been made with the intermediary of Hanyang University in Seoul.
World Archery Secretary General Tom DIELEN said: "Korea has produced some of archery’s most famous names. The country has a rich history in the sport, an excellent current international team and some of archery’s most captivated fans. It is great news that those fans will be able to follow the international archery success Korea continues to achieve through Rio and beyond. I would to thank everyone who has made this new deal possible."
Head of SBS Sports, YOO-SERK KIM said: "Korean archers have been setting the benchmark at international archery events, picking up as many medals as ever on the Archery World Cup and at world championships. What is more, current Korean team members are winning with the elite athlete personalities that sport fans worldwide engage with."