EHF Champions League extends partnership with Eurosport

EHF Marketing and Eurosport Group are proud to announce the signing of a new four-year agreement for the TV rights for the Men’s EHF Champions League on the German market. The deal runs through 2012/13. This agreement represents a renewal of the current partnership between EHF Champions League and Eurosport which dates back to 2006 when both parties signed their first agreement for a period three years.

After a period of negotiations EHF Marketing decided to renew and extend the current partnership with Eurosport, Europe's leading Sports Entertainment Group. The new agreement concerns the TV rights for the Men’s EHF Champions League in Germany. All the German teams' home and away games will be broadcast live on Eurosport Germany. The Eurosport group has also acquired delayed rights on Eurosport 2. As part of the cooperation, EHF Marketing will continue to handle the TV production of the games.

EHF Marketing Managing Director, Peter Vargo, gives an insight to the deal:

“In the past weeks we received various interesting offers, which confirmed the positive development of the Champions League product in Germany. Our decision to renew the partnership was based on a highly successful cooperation with Eurosport in the past.

“We are convinced that our agreement with Eurosport will help EHF Champions League further develop in Germany, a core market for handball.”

Champions League handball is a premium product for Eurosport Germany. For the past 3 years, the competition has been attracting large audiences and market share. This success can be attributed both to the high quality production of the games and to popularity of the sport on the German market.

Eurosport will continue to provide added editorial value to the competition and the Champions League Magazine, an increasingly popular programme on Eurosport, will return for the upcoming seasons.

The regional channel Eurosport Asia Pacific will also continue to broadcast games as non-exclusive right holder.

According to the terms of the agreement, Eurosport has agreed with EHF Marketing to consider the possibility of sublicensing in parallel with the transmission on Eurosport the broadcast rights of the EHF Champions League Final Four, the newly introduced final phase closing the upcoming CL seasons.

EHF Secretary General Michael Wiederer underlines the importance of a strong partnership in one of the core markets of club handball:

“Eurosport has significantly contributed to the development of Champions League handball in Germany and throughout all of Europe. The quality and reputation of the channel and the outstanding broadcast quality have added value to our competition. We are looking forward to the successful continuation of our partnership with Eurosport who has earned our trust by consistently delivering top quality coverage of the games to a great number of handball fans across Europe.”

Chairman and CEO of Eurosport, Laurent-Eric Le Lay comments:

“In the past three years, together with EHF Marketing, we have successfully established the notoriety of the Handball Champions League both in Germany, and internationally thanks to the strength of our media platform including Eurosport 2 and Eurosport in the Asia /Pacific Region. We are very happy to renew our agreement with the EHF and it is a privilege to contribute to the success of this top notch competition. We are delighted to be able to continue to offer fans the handball Champions League for an additional four years. We are looking forward to continuing our successful partnership with EHF Marketing.”

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Contact:

Peter Vargo
Managing Director, EHF Marketing GmbH
Tel: +43-1-801-51-212
e-mail: vargo@ehfmarketing.com

Werner Starz
Director Communication, Marketing & Channel Development
Eurosport Media GmbH
Tel: +49 89 958 29 204
e-mail: wstarz@eurosport.com