The number of broadcast hours committed by rights-holding broadcasters to the Hyundai Archery World Cup has again shown a year-on-year increase.
Citing figures from an independent study undertaken by IRIS, World Archery has reported over 900 hours of live, delayed and highlights coverage for the 2019 season, which concluded with the World Cup Final in Moscow in September.
The results of the study have been unveiled here at the Sportel trade fair in Monaco and focus on countries and regions with rights agreements in place, including China, Korea, pan-Europe, Russia, India, pan-Asia, Mexico and USA.
Over 900 hours of coverage from the World Cup was shown by broadcasters in 2019. The five-leg World Cup series also reached 44 million viewers on television, according to the study.
Last year, the Lausanne-based international federation announced that the 2018 series had attracted live, delayed and highlights footage totalling over 600 hours, close to “doubling the amount across the previous season.”
World Archery has now said that, over the past three years, engagement with the sport’s international circuit on television “has increased by a factor of four.”
Eurosport delivered a significant portion of the World Cup series’ exposure through its pan-European rights agreement. NBC Sports holds the rights in the US market after signing a four-year agreement in 2017 and with coverage split across the Olympic Channel’s linear and online platforms, along with the NBC Sports network.
World Archery’s other broadcasters for the 2019 season included CCTV (China), Sony ESPN (India), KBS (Korea), Eleven Sports (Taiwan), Claro Sports (Latin America) and Match TV (Russia).
The rights are distributed by a combination of World Archery itself and Broadreach Media, the boutique media rights agency.
The lion’s share of the rights deals in place also cover the 2020 season. Increased coverage in Korea was secured last year as KBS signed a three-year contract (replacing commercial free-to-air broadcaster SBS).
There was also new highlights programming produced from World Archery’s Youth and Para Championships during the 2019 season.
The host broadcast of the World Cup events is handled by QTV Sports, the UK-based multi-media production company, which came on board ahead of the 2018 season (replacing the Swiss production firm Hit The Roof).
On the latest figures, World Archery added: “Only the top 32 athletes qualified for the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in Moscow, Russia on September 6 to 7, which garnered season-highs in coverage (240 hours) and viewership (23 million) in key markets.
“The 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships in ’s-Hertogenbosch were also a broadcast success. More than 265 hours of coverage reaching 77 million people were generated across partner channels for the main qualification tournament for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.”
World Archery president Ugur Erdener said: “World Archery prides itself on offering a consistent, quality product for its broadcast partners. We’ve developed our products to make them accessible, relevant and valuable for both linear and digital platforms in this evolving landscape.”
“This Olympic cycle has seen archery make steady and sustainable progress as a broadcast sport. We’re looking forward to converting that availability into a host of new fans in the lead-up to Tokyo 2020.”