The International Handball Federation (IHF) has extended its partnership with sports marketing agency, SportFive, which continues as the official media and marketing partner of the sport.
Until 2031, the collaboration now sees the firm control marketing of the media and marketing rights for all IHF Men’s and Women’s Youth, Junior and Senior World Championships, the IHF Olympic Qualification Tournaments, IHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball World Championships and the IHF Beach Handball Global Tours.
On the expansion, IHF President, Dr Hassan Moustafa, noted: “In the many years of our cooperation, we have come to know SportFive as a trustworthy and excellent partner.
“We are now looking forward to the next level of our partnership and are convinced that SportFive, with its huge experience and vast network, will give handball the worldwide attention that our sport deserves.”
As per the original agreement, Sportfive is already responsible for marketing the global media rights of the championships up until 2025 and the IHF 2024 Olympic Qualification Tournaments.
Previously, the federation had entered into various cooperation agreements with different sports groups for selective rights and this newly announced deal marks ‘a first’ for the IHF.
Robert Müller von Vultejus, Chief Growth Officer at SportFive, recognised a need to ‘push the boundaries’ of handball further across the globe. He concluded: “We are more than proud that the IHF has entrusted us with this exciting new challenge.
“We have set ourselves ambitious goals. Using our innovative marketing we want to lift the world’s most important handball championships to a new level and make handball one of the most popular sports in the world after football.”
Last year, a deal was struck for the rights to the World Men’s Handball Championship in Poland, after failing to come to an agreement before the competition kicked off in Egypt.
The country’s public broadcaster TVP and the Sportfive agency, which holds the international distribution rights, could not agree a deal in time, making Poland the only major market without a contract in place ahead of the major tournament.
The two parties then agreed a broadcast deal, with TVP carrying the semi-finals, final and third-place play-off game on a free-to-air contract, protected in Poland by listed events legislation.
