Media rights agency, IEC in Sports, is delighted to announce a number of important new IAAF deals ahead of the prestigious IAAF Indoor World Championships taking place in Doha next month. The new agreements, all concluded in the past few days, come in Russia, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and the Balkan region.

NTV-PLUS, the popular Russian Pay-TV DTH system, which produces eleven of its own sports channels, became the latest in a long line of Eastern European deals, after it agreed terms with Lagardère Sports-owned IEC in Sports to show next month’s IAAF Indoor World Championships from Doha. NTV-PLUS and IEC in Sports have had a long co-operation together.

Anna Dmitrieva, Head of Sports at NTV-PLUS: “We are glad that the monopoly of state-run TV stations, which automatically got the rights from EBU being its members, has come to its end. It is a well known fact that any interested TV-broadcaster can bid for TV-rights for the Olympic Games from 2014 and beyond. We have always paid special attention to the "Queen of Sports", being a long-term broadcaster of IAAF Golden League and other IAAF events which were available to the entire market. IEC in Sports’ co-operation with IAAF for the distribution of IAAF World Athletics Series of events has finally made our dreams come true! I am sure that we will broadcast the Doha event to the highest possible professional level, enabling Russian fans to enjoy this wonderful sport!" NTV-PLUS will broadcast IAAF Indoor World Championships on three of its sport channels.

Polish telecommunications company Telekomunikacja Polska (TP), owned by France Telecom, has acquired the exclusive media rights in Poland to the IAAF Indoor World Championships 2010 in a deal with IEC in Sports. Under the terms of the agreement TP will utilize its triple play service across tv/internet/mobile, offering its customers live, highlights, news and special features from the event.     

Dominique Lesage, Director of Content at TP commenting on the agreement “We are very happy to expand our coverage of top sports into athletics and the IAAF World Indoor Championships. Polish athletics has been very successful in recent years and our viewers can look forward to extensive coverage from Doha on our free Orange sport Info channel reaching over 20% of Polish households. Thanks to the TP three screens content strategy, the event will be available on tv, internet (www.orange.pl and www.orangesport.pl) and mobile (wap.orange.pl)."

 In Croatia, long-standing EBU member and renowned Athletics broadcaster, HRT, has agreed to a deal for Doha, hot on the heels of more very strong performances from Croatian star, Blanka Vlasic. HRT has been a proud IAAF partner for the last 26 years and has a long relationship with IEC in Sports.

Commenting on the deal HRT Deputy Head of Sport Stjepan Balog said;
"We are very excited to continue our long co-operation with IAAF and its media rights partner IEC in Sports. We intend to broadcast all days of the Indoor World Championships and HRT will follow Blanka Vlasic's every jump in her quest for Gold and possibly a World Record. IEC and HRT have cooperated for a long time and we appreciate IEC's flexibility and understanding of specific market needs"

Pay-TV Broadcaster, Digisport, will air the Doha event in Hungary and Romania, serving more than 3m Households in the region. The signing of the Digisport deal again underlines IEC’s flexible broadcast strategy by IAAF, with the Federation entrusting the Swedish-based agency to provide the most appropriate commercial agreements in each territory.

In addition, broadcast deals for the IAAF World Indoor Championships have also been secured in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro, with cable/satellite sports channel ArenaSport.

Commenting on these new agreements, Jonas Persson, CEO of IEC in Sports, said “It has been another very positive few weeks for us concerning the IAAF business. The market continues to respond well to our creative approach. We have chosen to enter into a number of shorter-term agreements for Doha to test the commercial potential of newer media outlets for IAAF and the sport of athletics. The results have, to date, been very encouraging. We expect further announcements next week.”