2008 IIHF World Championship Goes Home to Canada for the IIHF's 100th Anniversary
Zug, Switzerland, 30 April 2008 – The 2008 IIHF World Championship, which starts this week, is taking place in Canada, the home of ice hockey. 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.
The centenary Championship will take place from May 2 to 18, 2008 with games played in the cities of Quebec (Colisée) and Halifax (Metro Center). The participating teams will include the very best from Europe and North America — Belarus, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.
The global media and marketing programme is handled by Infront Sports & Media, the exclusive
commercial partner for the IIHF’s premier event in a relationship which has lasted 27 years, making it one of the longest in sports marketing history.
A comprehensive marketing programme for major brands
The marketing programme has been enhanced with each succeeding year to give the best possible visibility and marketing opportunities for each of the companies taking part. Infront follows a consistent onsite advertising theme, including rink boards, under ice advertising, penalty and team benches, team advertising, product placement, media backdrops and presentation stands. The VIP hospitality programme is exclusive to the Official Sponsors and Official Partners during all 56 games.
The 2007 sponsor group is led by long-term partner Škoda Auto as the Official Main Sponsor for the 16th year in succession. It is now one of the longest commercial partnerships in ice hockey history.
The agreement provides Škoda with a comprehensive package of rights, including, rink board
advertising, centre circle under ice advertising, exclusive car product placement in each arena as well as the provision of the Official Car Service. The sponsorship also includes team sponsorship of the Czech Republic and Slovakian teams.
The Official Sponsors include nine well-known international companies and organisations: AJ (Home and office furniture; Sweden), Bauhaus (Homestores; Germany), Henkel (Branded products, Germany), Intersport (Sports retailing, Switzerland), Konica Minolta (Copies and document solutions, Japan), Nike (Sports apparel, USA/Canada), Soyuz Victan (Beverages, Ukraine), Tissot (Watches/Timing, Switzerland), and Zepter (Home and kitchen ware, Cosmetics, Health Lamps; France).
The event will feature an extensive merchandising programme offering fans the opportunity to
directly share in the excitement of the event through high quality merchandising products on site, at retail and via the official event website (www.iihfworlds2008.com). The programme is being carried out by Infront’s licensing partner Ochsner Hockey and Inline AG.
Extensive Broadcast Coverage
The event is being shown in many formats, including terrestrial and Pay-TV, and IP-TV. Traditional distribution includes agreements for almost 100 territories worldwide and the event will be transmitted by more than 75 broadcasters. Most of these broadcasters will provide live or near-live transmissions, depending on the time zones and broadcaster schedules. In addition, there is a high level of news access interest. News coverage will be available worldwide.
The host broadcast is again being carried out under the supervision of Infront Production and Host Broadcast Services (HBS) and will be implemented by Dream Team Production. This 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. The production will include more than 20 cameras in each arena and for each game. In-goal-cameras, introduced in 2007, will be installed for each of the 56 games. All games taking place in Quebec will be produced in HD quality.
Television audiences expected to rise
Television audiences and spectator totals for the IIHF World Championship are rising year on year. The event is predicted to deliver another success story in terms of reach and exposure around the world building on past successes. Cumulative viewer totals for the previous event in Russia 2007 reached 700 million. The total worldwide broadcast time was 2800 hours, an average of 50 hours per game.
Integrated online broadcast service on IIHF.com
The dedicated online broadcast service of the event – launched in 2007 – has now been fully
integrated into the re-launched official federation website, www.iihf.com. It will be produced by Infront Advanced Media Solutions, a division of Infront Sports & Media, and gives fans throughout the world again the opportunity to view live and on demand every game of the IIHF World Championship.
Fans can chose from two subscription models including single games at 6.95 Euro and the tournament pass option covering all 56 games of the tournament for 39.95 Euros. The games are available as high-quality video stream. Access is only geo-blocked in a few countries where conflicting media license agreements are in place.
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