Businesses

Activity during the past year

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Sportfive is the European leader in the management of sports marketing and media rights, particularly football (soccer) rights.

With its unique positioning and expertise, it offers clubs, federations and sporting events solid experience and proven know-how with the objective of helping them maximize the value of their rights.
IEC In Sports (International Events and Communications in Sports), a company specializing in the management and sale of sporting rights, is primarily active in Olympic disciplines, in particular tennis, athletics, volleyball and gymnastics.
Sportfive has intensified its distribution activities for the television broadcasting rights to the Euro 2008 Championship in Europe, and was awarded the management of these rights for the rest of the world.
Sportfive’s work for the UEFA has helped the federation maximize the value of the championship.
With the October signing of a long-term agreement with the African Football Confederation (AFC), Sportfive became the AFC’s exclusive agent for the 2009-2016 period for all marketing and media rights for the African Cup of Nations, the AFC League of Champions, the Confederation Cup and the Africa Juniors Championship.
Sportfive further consolidated its football rights portfolio in France – a priority for the company to ensure its future development – with the renewal of its contract with Olympique Lyonnais football club for a 10-year period beginning with the delivery of the new stadium in 2010.

Sportfive also renewed and strengthened its contractual ties with numerous European football federations and clubs, including Bayer Leverkusen, Hanover 96, Hamburg SV, AJ Auxerre and Real Madrid (for friendly matches).
Building on the approach developed with Olympique Lyonnais, Sportfive initiated an innovative way of approaching rights-holders in 2007, offering them its “stadium consulting” expertise. Sportfi ve now has a staff dedicated to assisting clubs with the construction of their stadiums, from the design stage to funding arrangements to the new stadium’s commercial operation.
In Germany, where Sportfive developed the “naming” technique, it was successful in changing the name of the Hamburg stadium to “HSH Nordbank Arena.” Sportfive also strengthened its position in rugby in 2007 as an official hospitality agency for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, and broadened its field of activities to new sports such as tennis, serving as the official agency for the French Open (Roland Garros) and the Paris Bercy Tournament. It also ventured into the world of motor sports through the exclusive marketing of partnerships for the Transorientale rally raid.

Organizing and managing sporting events owned by Lagardère Sports is one of the branch’s objectives.

As of the start of 2008, Lagardère Sports owns two ATP tennis tournaments (the Moselle Open and the Catella Swedish Open) and such renowned competitions as the Tour of Germany (cycling) and the Hamburg Triathlon.
The year 2008 will also see the launch of the first event created by Lagardère Sports: the Transorientale. This more than 10,000-kilometre rally raid for cars, trucks and motorbikes will cross Russia, Kazakhstan and China on 12-28 June. The “Transo”, as it is popularly known, is drawing on the expertise of both Sportfive and IEC In Sports.

Lagardère Sports’ objectives for 2008 are in keeping with the strategy outlined when the branch was launched:

• To establish a leadership position by 2012.
• To strengthen existing positions by professionalizing the activity.
• To effectively develop the division’s presence in areas outside of Europe.
• To diversify the portfolio of sports disciplines.
• To gain market share in all segments of the value chain.

Three major efforts are underway to strengthen Lagardère Sports’ positioning:

• Accelerating growth through acquisitions and organic growth projects.
• Incorporating new entities and adapting the organizational structure to market developments.
• Expanding the owned-events strategy with the goal of optimizing the portfolio’s risk level.