The Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire, the International University Sports Federation, has signed a six-year pan-European rights deal with sports broadcaster Eurosport.
The deal covers FISU’s Summer and Winter Universiades – multi-sport championships open to university athletes from around the world.
The agreement covers the 27th, 28th and 29th Summer Universiades, being held, respectively, in Kazan, Russia in 2013; Gwanju, Korea in 2015; and Taipei, Chinese Taipei in 2017. Also covered are 26th, 27th and 28th Winter Universiades, which take place in Trentino, Italy in 2013; Granada, Spain in 2015 and Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2017.
The Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels will broadcast 60 hours of high-definition coverage of each Summer Universiade and 40 hours of high-definition coverage of each Winter Universiade.
Eurosport will also produce a television show called ‘Campus’ covering World University Championship events – single-sport global championships for university athletes – as well as preparations for the Universiades, and other material.Campus will be a 26-minute show, broadcast on a monthly basis from September 2012 until December 2017.
Eurosport will also create a dedicated university sports section on Eurosport.com which will include the results, news and videos from the Universiades and World University Championships. English and French-language versions of the university sports website will be launched by the end of this month.
Laurent-Eric Le Lay, Eurosport chairman and chief executive, said: “We are delighted to have this opportunity to bring Eurosport’s unrivalled expertise and multi-media credentials to this long-term partnership with FISU, which will enable fans to follow the upcoming athletes of the future.
“We are committed to being the first to showcase the best young rising stars in sport as we do with football for example with the NextGen Series and other international youth competitions.
“We are looking forward to developing a strong relationship with FISU which will give a platform to its highly respected events, commercial partners and key messages.
“Eurosport is committed to ensuring action from the Universiades and its associated events are accessible to sports fans across Europe.”