Euronews to add sports programming with SportAccord

Marius Vizer, SportAccord and Michael Peters, Euronews

News channel Euronews has signed what it describes as “a historic collaboration” partnership with SportAccord to distribute original sports programming across its network of channels. 

Under the agreement, Euronews will, amongst other things, run a weekly sports-programme, Sports United, starting from January 2015, as well as several special magazine shows, focusing on specific sports. Euronews viewers will also have access to major national, regional and international competitions, from football and gymnastics to beach volleyball and judo.

Each show will be produced in 13 languages and be broadcast to Euronews’ 420 million households in 156 countries, as well as on digital media platforms.

“We are very excited about the mutually beneficial partnership with Euronews. This Partnership will enable premium exposure for SportAccord Members and at the same time raise interest in all sports of the masses. Euronews, the international and multi-lingual news channel offers us the opportunity to highlight the richness of our federations’ activities and to make it accessible to a broad audience,” said Marius Vizer, president of SportAccord.

“Today, it is very complex to buy and trade distribution rights for sport events. We decided to take a more global, high-level approach. SportAccord showed interest in the idea. Furthermore, this agreement came as a natural fit. At Euronews, our editorial team of over 400 journalists from 30 nationalities represents our channel’s diversity. It was natural to us to partner with SportAccord, an organisation that represents a broad, and nearly unlimited diversity of athletes, sports and disciplines,” said Michael Peters, CEO of Euronews.