28 May 2013
To continue the group’s ambitious path to growth, Jean-Thierry Augustin, Eurosport Group’s newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer, strengthens Eurosport’s development division appointing Julien Bergeaud as Development Director, reporting directly to Augustin.
In order to reinforce global coherence across all TV channels and the strength of Eurosport Group’s TV platform and offer, Arnaud Simon, Managing Director of Eurosport France, extends his responsibilities and becomes TV content director, broadcast and programmes.
In addition to his current responsibilities in charge of Eurosport France TV, Simon adds international as well as local versions of the channels to his remit.
Vincent Gérard-Hirne, Technical Director, takes over the responsibility for production and distribution technology for the different language versions of group channels.
Simon and Gérard-Hirne report to François Schmitt, Deputy Managing Director, Eurosport Group, in charge of broadcast and technical means.
The changes are effective immediately.
29 April 2013
Following the appointment of Laurent-Eric Le Lay as Chief Executive Officer of TF1 Publicité, the new leadership has been announced with Philippe Denery as Chairman and Jean-Thierry Augustin as Chief Executive Officer of the Eurosport group promoted from his position of Managing Director, Distribution, Rights Acquisition & Development. Philippe Denery will remain Executive Vice President of TF1 Group Finances.
This organisational change is part of the TF1 group’s ambition to enable Eurosport to continue developing, particularly as part of the partnership agreements signed with Discovery Communications.
28 March 2013
Eurosport has today marked the -100 day countdown to the start of the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan by announcing details of the first ever multi-screen coverage of a Universiade event.
Viewers can follow the competition from Kazan on the move via Eurosport’s online streaming service for mobile, tablet, and connected TV’s, the Eurosport Player – bringing a truly multi-screen experience to a Summer Universiade for the first time.
The leading Pan-European sports entrainment group will broadcast over 120 hours of live TV coverage from the multi-sport event between 6-17 July 2013, as the first activation in the six-year agreement signed with FISU in September 2012 to cover all Summer and Winter Universiades until 2017.
Live coverage of the Summer Universiade in Kazan will be shared across Eurosport and Eurosport 2 with action from up to nine different sports being showcased across the 12 days of broadcast. Evening and afternoon highlights will also be shown from selected events.
Eurosport will also have reporters and film crew on-site in Kazanto report breaking news and record athlete interviews. Results and news reports will also be posted on Eurosoport’s dedicated University sports section on Eurosport.com.
The 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan is expected to host over 10,500 athletes, aged 17-28, from 170 countries who will compete across the 10 compulsory disciplines each host city has to stage – athletics, basketball, fencing, football, gymnastics, judo, aquatics, table tennis and volleyball – alongside optional sports chosen by the local organisers.
Host city Kazan has also opted to include: badminton, beach volleyball, belt wrestling, boxing, chess, canoe sprint, field hockey, rugby 7’s, sambo, sport shooting, synchronised swimming, rowing, weightlifting and wrestling.
Many of the gold medal winning performances at the Summer Universiade events are close in timing/scores to the Olympic Gold medal winning standard and several Olympic Champions first achieved their taste for victory at the SU events.
At the London 2012 Olympic Games, no less than 154 former Universiade medallists – 75 men and 79 women – achieved 174 Olympic medals: 48 gold, 56 silver and 70 bronze, in 21 of the 26 sports.
Eurosport is currently broadcasting a monthly magazine show entitled CAMPUS which is counting down to the Kazan Summer Universiade and profiling four athletes who will be competing. The show also features the latest news from the world of University sports as students work towards qualifying for Kazan.
Eurosport Chairman & CEO Laurent-Eric Le Lay said: “Eurosport has considerable expertise of broadcasting large-scale, international events and the ability to unite million of fans around them. The 2013 Summer Universiade promises to be an inspiring, and highly competitive sporting event, and one that perfectly demonstrates Eurosport’s capacity to deliver an event to the fan, wherever they are on TV, mobile, tablet or PC. I look forward to watching the world-class performances from Kazan in July.”
FISU President Claude-Louis Gallien said: “With Eurosport as a partner FISU will be able to bring the Universiade to the homes of everybody who cannot be present in Kazan. Especially the parents, siblings and friends of our student-athletes will be thrilled. As well as also the FISU Family. Never in FISU history will the Universiade be so extensively covered by broadcasting and available on multi-media platforms for everybody to witness. Our student-athletes will without doubt excel in front of the TV cameras and I’m pretty confident the crews from Eurosport will do the same behind those cameras sharing some exhilarating moments of international university sport with millions of viewers.”
Li Na, 2011 Roland Garros winner and 2013 Australian Open finalist told Eurosport about her experience at the 2001 Beijing Summer Universiade: “The Universiade gives university tennis players a chance to experience world level competition and meet different people. On my side I was pretty excited because I was playing in Beijing, in front of all these local fans and I said to myself ‘ok, that was pretty good tennis!’ I won singles, doubles and mixed doubles! Not bad?”
Notes to editors:
About FISU FISU stands for Federation Internationale du Sport Universitaire (International University Sports Federation), founded in 1949. FISU’s main responsibility is the supervision of both Summer and Winter Universiades as well as the World University Championships. The Universiade is an international sporting and cultural festival which is staged every two years in a different city. The Summer Universiade consists of 13 compulsory sports (Athletics – Basketball – Fencing – Football – Artistic & Rhythmic Gymnastics – Swimming – Diving – Water Polo – Tennis – Table Tennis – Judo – Volleyball) as well as a number of optional sports chosen by the host country. The record figures are 10,622 participants in Shenzhen, China in 2011 and 174 countries in Daegu, Korea in 2003. The Winter Universiade consists of 7 compulsory sports (Alpine Skiing – Nordic Skiing composed of Ski Jump, Cross Country & Combined – Biathlon – Ice Hockey – Short-Track Speed Skating – Figure Skating (including Synchronised Skating) – Curling) and one or two optional sports also chosen by the host country. The Winter Universiade gathered a record 2,511 participants in Torino in 2007 and a record number of 52 countries in Erzurum, Turkey. Around 30 World University Championships are organized every even-numbered year in sports which do not figure on the compulsory Universiade program. More info can be found on www.fisu.net
16 January 2013
South Africa’s leading sports and events city Durban has chosen Eurosport for a European promotional campaign during the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.
The tournament, which kicks off on Saturday 19th January, is being played in stadiums across South Africa as part of the legacy of the 2010 World Cup, with Durban hosting six matches, including one of the semi finals.
Durban Tourism is using the opportunity to promote itself as a business and holiday destination to the millions of European travellers following the tournament via Eurosport’s live coverage of every match.
Durban Tourism is pitching the city as “The warmest place to be” and has scheduled 30-second ad-spots leading up to the tournament as a “Road to..” campaign followed by upweighted commercial activity around thematches played in Durban.
Eurosport’s editorial teams will also be visiting Durban during the tournament to film an edition of its PassSport TM magazine show series. PassSportTM is an original programme which focuses on discovering a city in a unique way. The producers will focus on Durban’s climate, outdoor lifestyle, beach activities, World Cup Moses Mabidha stadium and a range of country escapes only 30 minutes from the City Centre.
Phillip Sithole, Head of Durban Tourism said: “We are delighted to partner with Eurosport during the Africa Cup of Nations 2013 and beyond. The partnership is a strategic fit as Eurosport provides a well established platform in the new markets that Durban has identified to promote and market the destination.
“In combining the strengths of Durban, a world-class City and the warmest place to be, and Eurosport, Europe’s leading sports multimedia platform, we form a powerful alliance to promote and leverage Durban as must-see destination.”
Olivier Fisch, Eurosport’s Global Commercial Director said: “We are excited to kick off our partnership with Durban Tourism around our complete coverage of the Africa Cup of Nations, the perfect event to leverage the city’s many fantastic attributes as a tourist destination.
This opportunity allows Durban Tourism to benefit from Eurosport’s unrivalled expertise in the world of sport and its leadership in reaching millions of travellers in Durban’s identified European markets. Our aim is to showcase engaging and inspiring content about Durban to create memorable standout for South Africa’s most vibrant coastal city.”
9 October 2012
Eurosport has secured a three-year deal to become the exclusive European media partner of the new ATP POWER HORSE CUP from 2013 to 2015.
Eurosport will broadcast extensive LIVE HD coverage on Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels across 59 countries. The deal includes digital rights for all matches and Eurosport will also become the host broadcaster of the tournament. It will be the first time Eurosport is host broadcaster for an ATP event.
Formerly known as the POWER HORSE World Team Cup, the Düsseldorf outdoor clay court tournament is adopting a new format from 2013 by joining the ATP World Tour 250 series.
Held the week before the French Open the tournament is an appropriate addition to Eurosport’s tennis portfolio which includes LIVE coverage of the Roland Garros Grand Slam in Paris.
This exclusive partnership was signed with tournament director Dietloff von Arnim, who said: “We are delighted to continue with the strong tradition of ATP tournaments in Düsseldorf and welcome the arrival of an ATP 250 tournament at Rochusclub. With this new tournament status comes a new name and we are very pleased to retain POWER HORSE as our title sponsor. We are happy and proud to have Eurosport as our host broadcaster for a minimum of the next three years. Our new partnership promises excellent coverage for all tennis fans and sponsors, not only in Germany, but also in all European territories.”
Géraldine Filiol, Eurosport Deputy Managing Director in charge of acquisitions, said: “We are delighted to become the European media partner of the POWER HORSE CUP, especially at such an important moment in the life of the tournament. We will help the new ATP 250 tournament develop by providing extensive coverage to all fans in Europe on our channels Eurosport and Eurosport 2 as well as on internet and mobile through the Eurosport Player”.
ABOUT EUROSPORT GROUP
The Eurosport Group is Europe’s leading sports entertainment group. Eurosport, the n°1 pan-European TV channel, broadcasts in 20 languages and reaches 130 million homes across 59 countries. Eurosport HD is the high definition simulcast of Eurosport. Eurosport 2 broadcasts to 61 million households in 18 languages across 47 countries. Eurosport 2 HD was launched in August 2009. Eurosport Asia-Pacific reaches 17 countries in the region and launched an HD channel in September 2011. Eurosportnews is the sports news channel transmitted worldwide. Eurosport.com, Europe’s n°1 online sports destination, has up to 23 million unique users per month (comScore) across an international network of sports websites in 11 languages, including Yahoo! co-branded sites in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. The Eurosport.com free mobile applications are available in 10 languages. Eurosport Player, Eurosport’s web TV service, provides LIVE and on-demand sports to fans’ PCs in 52 countries and the Player mobile application is available in up to 34 countries. Eurosport Events is the group’s expert division in the management and promotion of international sporting events.
