Type Sports & Media Number of employees 900 Founded 2002 Parent organization Wanda Group | Number of locations 35 Website infrontsports.com Headquarters Zug | |
Key people Philippe Blatter (President and CEO) Chairperson David Yang (Infront China) Managing directors Luigi de Siervo (Infront Italy) Founders Günter Netzer, Robert Louis-Dreyfus Subsidiaries Infront Pan-Asia, Infront B2RUN GmbH Profiles | ||
Sabine graf human resources director infront sports media ag
Infront Sports & Media is a sports marketing company based in Zug, Switzerland. The company handles the media and marketing rights for international sports events and federations and also provides sports services - such as advertising, sponsorship and hospitality. It represents all seven Olympic winter sport federations, several summer sport organizations and manages media rights for the FIS World Cup Events. Infront was created in late 2002 through the integration of CWL, Prisma and KirchSportAG. It has 35 offices, which belong to different subsidiaries for geographic regions.
Contents
History
Infront Sports & Media was founded in October 2002 in order to create the television and radio broadcasts for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The company originated from a merger of two existing Swiss-based marketing companies, CWL and Prisma Sports & Media. Infront's origins are in the football business, but in 2005 the company lost a majority of its FIFA business and subsequently diversified. Today the company is divided into Summer and Winter sports properties (in line with the Olympic differentiation) and also has dedicated Football, Endurance and Digital Production and Sports Solutions units. Until 2011 it was owned by a consortium of shareholders. In September 2011 – European private equity firm Bridgepoint reached an agreement to acquire the company.
In February 2015, Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda won an auction to purchase Infront from Bridgepoint for more than €1 billion. In November 2015 it was announced that Infront would be integrated together with the WTC with its Ironman brand under the roof of Wanda Sports.World Triathlon Corporation.
Services
Infront Sports & Media has 900 employees in 35 offices which are operated by several subsidiaries specializing in a geographic region as well as in specialized services. Infront Sports & Media supports media rights distribution, marketing concepts and sponsorship sales for sporting events as well as media production (host broadcasting, post production and archive management). An Infront subsidiary, Host Broadcast Services, produces television and radio signals for the FIFA World Cup. HBS provides a stereo, 5.1, and satellite broadcast feed to organizations that own the rights to the media, typically with 40 minutes of pre-game and 20 minutes of post-game content. Another Infront subsidiary, Omnigon helps sports, media and entertainment providers to develop mobile apps and websites.
Infront also provides hospitality and catering, stadium advertising, event management and other related services.
Notable work
Infront Sports & Media represents all seven Olympic winter sport federations, including the IIHF for ice hockey and the IBU for biathlon. It also manages media and/or marketing rights to most of the FIS World Cup events. In summer sports, Infront started supporting mass participation and endurance sports in 2011, including Ironman events and the UCI World Championships in cycling. It is also a partner for the EHF EURO in handball and the CEV European Championships in Volleyball. In China, Infront represents the Chinese Basketball Association tournament and the national team, Team China Basketball. Infront's HBS subsidiary was awarded the Judge's award at the 2010 International Broadcasting Convention for its work helping FIFA broadcast the World Cup in stereoscopic 3D.
In football, Infront has supported the FIFA World Cup since 2002. It distributes the Asian media rights and manages the host broadcast production. In 2011, Transparency International asked Fifa to be more open about possible conflicts of interest, when it was discovered that the President of Infront was Philippe Blatter, nephew to the President of Fifa, Sepp Blatter. Fifa said Blatter was not involved in awarding the deal to Infront. Infront also works with the German Football Association (DFB), the Italian Lega Serie A and the Indonesian, Indonesia Super League. In 2016 Infront with Omnigon collaborated on several projects including digital services to the Serie A and mobile app development for the German Football Association’s DFB Cup.