EHF European Handball Championship to be Streamed Live on www.ehf-euro.com
This service will be available to fans through the dedicated and recently relaunched event website http://www.ehf-euro.com/, provided by the European Handball Federation (EHF) and Infront. There will be 48 matches over 11 days, available live over the Internet, with the exception of the territories of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and France which have been geo-blocked due to conflicting media license agreements.
In effect, the site will enable global viewing of the EHF European Handball Championship for the first time in the history of the event, offering flexible viewing options to fans. The games will be available as high-quality video streams (up to 700k) “live and on demand”, together with various highlights programmes.
Infront Advanced Media Solutions will produce tailor-made new media content for the EHF’s premier event, using experienced editors, commentators and producers to create the dedicated online coverage. The entire platform is being presented in English language.
The new service offers broad range of different subscription options: Single matches for the preliminary and main rounds are EUR 3,50, with an "Early Bird fee" for the first match ordered by each subscriber booking before 14 January 2008 of EUR 1,99. The semi- finals are EUR 6 ("Early Bird fee" EUR 3,99) and the final is priced at EUR 8 (EUR 5,99). There is also a follow your team pass at EUR 15 (EUR 9,99). All 48 matches cost EUR 29 with an “Early Bird fee" for the full Tournament Pass of EUR 19,99.
Sponsors will benefit from the event reaching more consumers and they will take advantage of the several advertising opportunities on the site, increasing awareness of their involvement with handball and tying in with their overall sponsorship. The event website http://www.ehf-euro.com/ is the only site that will have a complete information service on the European handball competition and it is expected to generate considerable interest and use. Users are projected to be 60% male; predominantly between 30 and 49 years old; highly educated and with above average disposable income.
Infront has partnered with several leading online platforms to deliver the coverage of the European Handball Championship, including Eurosport.yahoo.com, Sport1.de and RUV.is.
"We are very excited about this one-of-a-kind initiative," EHF President Tor Lian said. "We believe that using these new Internet platforms is the path to follow in order to reach a larger audience. It gives the fans of handball the freedom to follow the European Championship from anywhere in the world."
Stephan Herth, Executive Director of the Infront Group, said: “This service is another step forward in the provision of live sport over the Internet and it is an area of considerable importance to the Infront Group. In the long term, as media converge, we will have built up considerable expertise and marketing knowledge in the area of high-quality IP exploitation, which will be valuable to our clients.”
The Infront Group is the EHF’s exclusive marketing partner for the bi-annual Men’s and Women´s European Handball Championships.
About Infront Advanced Media Solutions
Infront Advanced Media Solutions is Infront’s dedicated competence centre for the distribution of new media sports rights. This division complements the Group’s innovative menu of services and helps sport to exploit existing media rights more effectively, to a highly targeted viewing audience. A onestop-shop for producing, delivering, protecting and billing new media content, it lets clients expose their events globally. The company produces a variety of new media services, including the official FIS Ski World Cup magazine programme, SerieA.tv, Euroleague.tv and Snowtime Channel (http://www.snowtime.com/), a branded block of programmes and footage dedicated to winter sports. The production and post-production facilities are located in Milan, Italy.
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
Sian Rowland
Corporate Communications Manager
European Handball Federation
Tel: +43-1-801-51 161
Fax: +43-1-801-51 149
rowland@eurohandball.com
http://www.eurohandball.com/