IMG executive discusses last-minute deal with NBC

Ski racing enthusiasts in the United States were nearly left out in the cold when it came to viewing the season-opening women’s World Cup GS race from Soelden, Austria.

Coming down to the wire on Friday afternoon, U.S. rights holder NBC and International Management Group, who handles the broadcast rights for the Austrian Ski Federation, were yet to finalize a rights agreement to broadcast the traditional opening races on the Rettenbach Glacier race course.

Fortunately for U.S. based ski racing fans, the deal was finalized and announced on Friday, less than 24 hours before Mikaela Shiffrin kicked out of the gate to open the 2021-22 season. The race was streamed live on NBC’s Peacock. This will also be the case for the men’s race on Sunday and all other Austrian World Cup races this season, including Kitzbuehel.

FIS president Johan Eliasch offered strong comments about the fluid situation on Friday, prior to the deal being officially announced.

“I’m very, very concerned about that – one of my commitments was to centralize the rights management and this is a very good example of why it’s so important that we are in control of our destiny,” Eliasch said, responding to a question from Ski Racing Media.

“It shouldn’t even be a possibility in particular for such a large market for us as the U.S.,” he said.

Christian Solomon, senior vice-president for IMG Media globally and managing director for German, Austrian and Swiss business, shed light on the predicament and down-to-the-wire negotiations, speaking to Ski Racing Media in the Soelden finish area.

“We did a very last minute, even more last minute than it was previously in the last couple of years, simply because the race is very early in the season and then there is a gap to the next race, so it’s always happening last minute,” Solomon said.

“It’s about price, it’s about linear coverage (traditional TV), it’s about requirements from the Austrian Ski Federation – we have to represent their interest,” said the German executive. “They want more coverage in the U.S. and not only behind the paywall, so it’s a complicated discussion but in the end we got there and we are really glad.”

As a second option for ski racing and snow sports fans, the Austrian Ski Federation and IMG have also announced a new digital home for live and on-demand Ski Austria content, which encompasses a wide variety of FIS World Cup ski and snow sports across alpine, freestyle, snowboard, Nordic combined and ski jumping disciplines happening in Austria. Interested viewers can visit to www.skiworldcup.live.

“It’s a co-exclusive deal – we have launched an OTT platform for dark markets, where there is basically no live coverage and since we didn’t have a deal a couple of days ago we decided to go live with this platform for this weekend and also in the U.S.,” Solomon said.

Salomon noted it is a free service globally, although it is geo-blocked in restricted in markets where there are exclusive TV deals.

The IMG representative also confirmed that all Austrian World Cup races are included in the new NBC agreement. He elaborated upon what he believes are some of the inherent challenges with NBC.

“I think NBC and Peacock, they have not decided clearly on their strategy with winter sports content, so last year they moved everything from linear channels, the Olympic Channel to Peacock and they’re still trying to figure out how they want to present the content, which form — and I think this is one of the reasons that this has been delayed once again,” Salomon said.

Eliasch, who was elected as the new FIS president on June 4, believes it is critical that skiing is more strategically marketed and better exposed worldwide with the lofty goal of achieving enhanced visibility similar to Formula 1 racing and professional golf and tennis. He says focus on North America is the place to start.

He vows to centralize the media rights of FIS assets, ideally bring in-house FIS control over broadcast and digital rights to races, ultimately make life easier and provide one-stop shopping for international broadcasters. Eliasch said this need to happen “as soon as possible.”

As Ski Racing reported in 2017, acquiring World Cup broadcast rights is a complicated matter, which requires broadcasters — NBC in this case — to strike deals with several different European rights-holders. 

NBC has also not announced a deal with Infront Sports & Media, which holds most of the rights outside of Austria and Switzerland.

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