Financial impact on postponed and cancelled events

It is hard to pin down the financial implications. Some events have been postponed and others have been cancelled and will not be repeated this year. There are a range of factors that will still influence how much of a financial impact COVID-19 will have. One needs to consider the situation in each specific country and how the governments act towards that. Also, whether there is room in the calendar as well as the insurance situation for each specific sport.

Ekstraklasa, the company managing the top-class football competitions in Poland, is selling international broadcasting rights to the league matches, restarted after the pandemic. It has already signed agreements regarding broadcasts in Great Britain and Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Israel. Moreover, the contract regarding Germany, Austria and Switzerland has been expanded to include the broadcasting of up to 10 more matches. Further negotiations with the partners from Europe are ongoing. The Polish league is to be restarted on 29 May.

         Kenan Sofuoglu, Turkish Motorcycle Federation National Team Captain and  AK Party Sakarya deputy and national athlete Toprak Razgatlıoglu raced on May 19 Ataturk Commemoration Youth and Sports Day.     

Eurovision Sport and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) are delighted to announce that they have reached agreement for EBU Members across Europe and North Africa to broadcast exclusive coverage of FIG World Championships in Artistic, Rhythmic and Trampoline Gymnastics for the cycle 2021-2024.

Ekstraklasa S.A. has prepared regulations providing for the rules to organize the games at the time of pandemic. Specific guidelines cover organization of games, marketing, TV production and cooperation with the mass media. The solutions are to ensure the maximum safety to all those working to support the games, and to allow continued maintaining of the existing high standards of broadcasting the games of PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa.

SegevSport is a real-time graphics service provider based in Israel, utilising data to create on-air graphics for sports, election coverage, game shows, news and any other broadcast program requiring graphics driven by data. As they provide a service rather than a product, SegevSport operators travel around the world to work with the local broadcasters for each live event.

In these unprecedented times, with most sports events either cancelled or postponed, broadcasters face a challenge in sourcing sports content for their channels. With record TV audiences, at their peak, why not look beyond usual formats and experiment with new ways to engage with your viewers?

German pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland has announced that it will make its  ‘Konferenz’ coverage of Bundesliga and second-tier 2. Bundesliga matches available on a free-to-air basis for the next two match-weeks. The decision comes after the announcement that all upcoming Bundesliga matches will be taking place without spectators due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The Los Angeles-based Tennis Channel will broadcast complete, live coverage of a three-day men’s tennis event in West Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend, marking the first competition on U.S. soil between ranked players since the professional sport went on hiatus in March.  The UTR Pro Match Series presented by Tennis Channel will take place May 8-10^th and feature two top-10 ranked American players.  Next, a similar women’s event is set for May 22-24 with three top-10 Americans, as Tennis Channel’s 2020 (Re)Open Tour returns live tennis to fans around the world.

Founded in 2019, the International Swimming League (ISL) is an annual professional swimming series that brings international teams together to compete in both individual and relay events across two day matches. The inaugural season (running from October to December 2019) included eight teams across two conferences: four from the United States and four from Europe. Each team competed in a pair of inter-conference matches involving two teams from each conference, one in America and one in Europe, and a ‘derby’ match involving all four teams from its own conference. The top two teams in each conference then met in a Grand final in Las Vegas. For 2020, another two franchises – one from Tokyo and one from Toronto – are being added to the league and the program of matches is being significantly increased from three to ten per team.

front, a Wanda Sports Group company, and the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) have prolonged their existing partnership through to the 2023/24 season. The partnership, which began 15 years ago, includes the exclusive media and marketing rights, as well as merchandising for all German women's and men's national ice hockey teams across all age groups. Management of the project will transfer to Infront Germany after having been previously coordinated by Infront headquarters in Zug, Switzerland.

More than 77,000 participants came together on Sunday, May 3 through the Wings for Life World Run App to raise vital funds and awareness for spinal cord injuries. Once again, people – this time only using the app to take part – from across the globe did their bit to raise much needed money to put towards the latest research. And there were plenty of uplifting moments along the way.

- We already have the results of all the tests. They are very optimistic. In 800 of those tested, only one test result indicated tentatively an active COVID-19 infection, affirmed in two subsequent tests. However, it had no bearings on the club, because the person was neither a player nor a member of the training staff – said Professor Krzysztof Pawlaczyk, member of the Medical Commission of the Polish Football Association and medical expert of the Ekstraklasa. – We succeeded in early tracking that case thanks to ongoing analysis of our medical surveys. The person has not had any contacts with the players. It only shows that our introduction of sports isolation and daily medical questionnaires makes a good sense. The clubs have to strictly adhere to the procedure until the last games of the season - added he.

Five sports that were part of the 2018 edition have already confirmed their participation and the staging of their respective continental championships in the event that will take place Thursday 11^th to Sunday 21^st August 2022: Athletics, Cycling, Gymnastics, Rowing and Triathlon.

Infront, a Wanda Sports Group company and the exclusive media and marketing partner of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), will launch the IIHF Esports Fan Championship on 15 May in cooperation with eSport Studio, one of the leading esports companies in Germany.