The Infront Sports & Media agency has brokered long-term rights deals with broadcasters in Canada, Denmark and Germany for a number of leading ice hockey events.
Infront is the International Ice Hockey Federation’s exclusive media and marketing partner for the body’s annual Ice Hockey World Championship. The agency has sealed rights deals with Canadian pay-television sports broadcasters TSN and RDS, Danish commercial broadcaster TV2 and German sports broadcaster Sport1 for the tournament for the period covering 2018 to 2023.
Under each agreement, the broadcasters will be granted full-length coverage of championship games, as well as highlights and live and delayed transmissions.
TSN and RDS will retain their comprehensive live rights package across their respective television channels and digital platforms.
TV2 will broadcast each of Denmark’s games live on the TV2Sport channel, along with the semi-finals and medal games. Additional games will be broadcast either on TV2Sport or the over-the-top TV2Play platform.
Sport1 will show live coverage of 30 games on its free channel and additional games on its pay-television channel.
TSN and TV2 have also extended rights deals for the Champions Hockey League pan-European club competition for the 2016-17 season. TSN will at least show the semi-finals and final, while TV2 will broadcast all Danish games live, as well as two quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final.
In addition, TV2 and Sport1 have secured rights to the next two editions of annual invitational competition the Spengler Cup. The broadcasters will at least cover the semi-finals, final and any games involving teams from their territories.
The cumulative television audience for the Ice Hockey World Championship last year surpassed one billion for the first time. The 2016 edition is currently ongoing in Russia and concludes on Sunday.