Norwegian commercial and pay-television broadcaster TV2 is to show widespread coverage of the country’s top handball and ice hockey leagues with matches produced using automated cameras.
TV2’s new agreements with the Norwegian Handball Federation (NHF) and Norwegian Ice Hockey Federation (NIHF) run until 2030 and were announced today (Thursday).
The deals include a tie-up with a new production company set up by Harald Strømme, Discovery’s former chief executive in Norway and Sweden, and Edvard Tveten, the long-serving general counsel at Discovery Networks Norway.
Through the “strategic partnership” with Strømme and Tveten’s My Game, the production of matches in the men’s and women’s leagues will be handled by automated cameras.
Strømme, who previously headed up rights acquisitions at Discovery’s TVNorge, said that, with automated cameras, production costs can be brought down to a level where thousands of matches can be streamed each season.
The NHF, NIHF or constituent clubs will not have to invest in production equipment, Strømme said, with My Game having entered into an agreement with production giant NEP for the provision of the necessary equipment.
He added: “We will simply make a broad offering that the public has never seen before, and where Norwegian sports clubs get new revenue streams they have never had before.”
TV2’s handball rights agreement with the NHF will run from 2022-23 to 2029-30.
In 2017, the Commercial Sports Media consultancy was appointed to exclusively advise the NIHF and Norsk Topphockey, the league’s media and marketing arm, on its next media-rights tender process.
TV2 went on to renew its rights to Norway’s Get-ligaen in a deal running from 2018-19 to 2023-24.