Having already announced several deals for its prestigious IAAF World Athletics Series rights over the past few weeks, Swedish-based media rights expert IEC in Sports is continuing its wave of positive news, just weeks ahead of the IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships from Doha, Qatar. IEC has signed separate agreements for Doha with ESPN UK, the British arm of the world leading sports broadcaster; Setanta Ireland, the continuing Irish arm of the Setanta Group; and The Telegraph Media Group, UK’s leading broadsheet newspaper.

Under the terms of the agreement, ESPN will televise the event live on ESPN and ESPN HD Saturday and Sunday (13-14 March) plus highlights from all three competition days.  Setanta Ireland will show extensive live coverage from all three days of competition in Doha. The Telegraph will show live, highlights, and clips on its www.dailytelegraph.co.uk and www.dailytelegraph.tv websites, in addition to an extensive series of mobile and print cross promotion across its various media.

Jeroen Oerlemans, Vice President & Channel Manager TV, ESPN Europe, Middle East & Africa said “As Athletics fans and British sports fans begin to look towards the 2012 Olympics in London, they will be thrilled with the addition of live coverage of the World Indoor Championships.  It is a great sporting competition and is in line with our approach to provide a diverse line-up of top sports programming.”

Commenting on the new agreement, Michael O’Rourke co-founder of Setanta Sports said “We are delighted to be co-operating with IAAF and IEC on this prestigious event.  We support IAAF and IEC on their innovative approach to distribution, by making IAAF World Athletics Series rights available to all media companies in UK and Ireland. This is the first time an IAAF Athletics World Championships will be aired on Setanta Ireland and our viewers can look forward to extensive live coverage throughout the competition weekend.” 

Telegraph Media Group (TMG) is pleased to announce that it will be the exclusive digital partner for live coverage of the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha, with live streaming of the events sponsored by Aviva. Offering users the ability to watch this key event live on Telegraph.co.uk/sport is part of the Telegraph’s commitment to the depth of its sports coverage and support of British athletes. This is also a vital step in building its digital offering for sports enthusiasts.

TMG’s partnership with the International Association of Athletics Federations and IEC will enable live coverage from the IAAF World Indoor Championship in Doha, Qatar between March 12-14, 2010 to be streamed on www.telegraph.co.uk/athleticslive. TMG, with its continued investment in digital innovations, has been developing the technology and partnerships to ensure that their online offering has the capacity to support these new opportunities. 

Chei Amlani, Channel Manager, Telegraph Sport said: “We are very excited to be partnering with the IAAF and IEC for the World Indoor Championships. The partnership demonstrates our commitment to covering athletics and this event will be a key part of our sports coverage online in 2010. We are also delighted to announce that Aviva will be our exclusive sponsor of this event."In addition to the live streaming of the games, the Telegraph will continue to provide coverage and analysis of the events in paper and online. 

Jonas Persson, CEO of IEC in Sports, welcomed the deals, saying “This is yet another series of examples where IAAF’s forward thinking approach to commercial strategy has enabled the Federation to help showcase the sport of Athletics. IEC have been and always will be open to looking at more creative methods of distribution to assist our clients. The fact that some broadcasters elect not to put in acceptable commercial terms for certain properties, does not in any way prevent us from making sure our clients’ needs and those of their stakeholders are met”.