The Infront Sports & Media agency has agreed a three-year deal to become the international media rights partner of annual invitational ice hockey competition the Spengler Cup.
Infront will be responsible for the media rights distribution for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions of the tournament, which is hosted by Swiss National League A team HC Davos.
The agency will oversee the distribution of all international media rights, excluding the United States and Canada, and has already struck deals in a number of key ice hockey territories.
New Russian sports television platform Match TV and Russian pay-television broadcaster NTV Plus have signed agreements with Infront for the tournament.
German sports broadcaster Sport1 has also signed up, as has Sport1 in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – which is part of the AMC Networks International – Central Europe division of US entertainment company AMC Networks. Danish commercial broadcaster TV2 completes the list of partners already signed by Infront.
Swiss public-service broadcaster SRG will handle the production of the tournament and provide HD coverage of each game.
Fredi Pargätzi, president of the Spengler Cup organising committee, said: “We have chosen Infront as our partner due to its profound expertise and network in ice hockey, having been involved with the sport for many years. The company has an impressive track record of building worldwide audiences for major ice hockey events – know-how which will be highly beneficial for the Spengler Cup. We are convinced that Infront will be the right partner to take our tournament’s international reach to the next level.”
The 2015 Spengler Cup begins on December 26 and will run through until December 31. The six-team tournament this year features Germany’s Adler Mannheim (pictured), Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg (Russia), HC Davos (Switzerland), HC Lugano (Switzerland), Jokerit Helsinki (Finland) and Team Canada, the European division of the current world champion.