Lega Basket Serie A, the governing body for Italian basketball’s top division, has finalised a three-year agreement with Infront that affords the agency the title of exclusive marketing, sponsorship and digital rights partner.
Infront is to exclusively sell Lega Basket’s sponsorship rights from 2020-21 to 2022-23 as part of the agreement announced today (Thursday), just two days before the new season tips off.
The agency is to manage sponsors at all Lega Basket Serie A properties, including the regular-season and play-offs, the Coppa Italia ‘Final Eight’, the Super Cup and NextGen Cup. Infront’s remit also includes non-competitive events exclusively managed by Lega Basket.
The advanced negotiations between Lega Basket and Infront over a three-year deal were reported by SportBusiness on August 7.
The deal includes the option to extend for a further three seasons if both parties are happy after the first three seasons.
Additional elements of the agreement include investment in and implementation of a digital strategy to develop the league’s digital channels. This will include post-production content creation of recent matches and archive footage.
Alessandro Giacomini, managing director of Infront Italy, said: “On the social and digital front, we have created a project for the creation of digital content and distribution channels that make the basketball movement increasingly exciting and engaging, so that it can be accessible to an ever wider and more varied audience.”
Umberto Gandini, the Lega Basket president, said: “The agreement with Infront represents a turning point for top basketball and aims to increase and expand the platform of those interested in our championship, strengthening the bond with current and new fans. This is a goal that can only be achieved through medium and long-term planning and through Infront and this strategic partnership I am sure that we will achieve the results we have set ourselves.”
Giacomini said that the deal is of strategic importance for Infront, adding that “our experience working with other international basketball properties including the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), Turkish Basketball Federation (TBF) and National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Italian territory gives us the ability to accelerate the growth of the sport in Italy”.
Infront Italy was appointed just over 12 months ago to exclusively market the NBA’s sponsorship rights in Italy.
Ratification of the Infront contract comes after the Italian basketball league completed its domestic media-rights sales process by agreeing a two-season renewal for its free-to-air rights with Italian public broadcaster Rai. The free-to-air and radio rights acquired by Rai cover the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons and followed on from the sale of the league’s pay-television rights to Discovery-owned pan-European sports broadcaster Eurosport in late August.
An international rights sales offer from SN1 Consulting, the Munich-based consultancy headed by Sascha Kojic, has also been accepted.