The Spring Media agency has issued an invitation to tender for broadcast rights to floorball’s Swedish Super League from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
Having come on board just over 12 months ago as a commercial rights adviser to the Swedish Super League Association (FSSL), the floorball clubs body, Spring Media is now taking the rights to market.
A total of over 400 matches per season are on offer from the SSL men’s and women’s leagues.
An existing broadcast agreement with Discovery expires at the end of the 2019-20 season.
Interested broadcasters have been handed a deadline of March 11 to submit their bids.
Spring Media said today (Wednesday): “Floorball is one of the most popular sports in Sweden and the SSL has a large and young fanbase. Spring Media anticipates a competitive process taking into consideration the strong position of the SSL in Sweden, and the fact that other major domestic leagues are tied up in long-term agreements.”
Spring Media was hired to provide commercial advisory services in the areas of media rights sales, broadcast production, and betting-related sponsorship rights. The agency already represents the media rights of Sweden’s top-tier bandy league and Swedish women’s football’s Damallsvenskan.
Ahead of Spring Media’s appointment, the FSSL became embroiled in a dispute with the Swedish Floorball Federation (SIBF) over the future of the sport’s top division and threatened to launch its own breakaway league.
However, a resolution to the conflict was announced in December as the FSSL and the national federation reached an agreement over the commercial rights. The agreement is effective from July 1, 2020 and runs for five years.
The rights to the SSL, its brand and the league are owned by the SIBF but the clubs body has been granted the full rights and sublicensing rights to the SSL brand and all associated broadcast rights.
Speaking at the start of last year, FSSL representative Anders Murman told Sweden’s UNT newspaper that a new league could generate SEK10m (€940,000/$1m) in revenues in its first season. This compares, Murman said, to the total of SEK3.9m that has been shared between the 28 men’s and women’s teams.
Interested broadcasters have been ask to request the tender documents from Spring Media partner Torsten Billing (torsten.billing@springmedia.se).