The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, motorsport’s world governing body, issued a call for candidates interested in “getting involved as an agent, a promoter or an investor in the promotion of” the World Rally Championship.
The FIA is seeking a partner to fill the space left after it cancelled the North One Sport agency’s contract to be the championship’s global promoter. The FIA terminated North One’s deal in January, just before the start of the 2012 season, accusing the agency of breaching the contract terms. The contract included the global media rights for the championship.
The FIA wants the new partner to sign a multi-year deal. It set a deadline of February 24 for expressions of interest to be submitted. The federation said interested parties’ applications should include information on:
“The technical ability and resources of the candidate; The ability of the candidate to raise and maintain sufficient funding to conduct and/or develop the promotion of the Championship; The candidate’s experience and human resources; The candidate’s experience in the promotion of events (including media production and distribution, sponsorship sales and servicing, stakeholder management, etc.).”
After the written application deadline, the federation will enter a period of talks with candidates running until March 23. The successful applicant will be notified by March 30.
The FIA is under pressure to do a deal as quickly as possible. The second round of this year’s championship began yesterday in Sweden. The federation has instructed rally organisers to organise their own television rights deals this season until a new promoter is found.
Rally Sweden, organiser of the rally currently underway, negotiated its own broadcast deals. The third rally of the season is in Mexico on March 8 to 11. The fourth is in Portugal on March 29 to April 1.
Last week, talks between the federation and pan-European broadcaster Eurosport about the promoter rights collapsed. Eurosport had been the favourite to acquire the rights after stepping in at short notice to produce and distribute coverage of the opening round of this year’s championship in Monte Carlo last month.