World Athletics and Japanese technology company Sony have announced a three-year agreement that expires in 2026.
As part of the sponsorship, Sony will support all World Athletics Series events starting from the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow in March. The agreement will also include the World Athletics Championships Tokyo, in September 2025.
The Japan-based technology firm aims to work with creators at the events and ‘leverage the power of technology to generate emotion-filled experiences for sports fans across the globe’, through capturing key moments through film and photographs.
Hiroki Totoki, President, COO and CFO of Sony Group Corporation, stated: “We are delighted to have reached an agreement with World Athletics to sponsor their World Athletics Series events, which are known as the world’s top competitions in athletics.
“Based on our purpose to ‘fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology’, Sony will contribute to the development of sports by leveraging technology to enhance the emotion generated by sports and deliver it to sports fans around the world.”
In addition to using its new ‘cutting edge technology’ such as Alpha mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and versatile interchangeable lens including G Master, the technology giant plans to bring Hawk-Eye to events.
The use of the computer vision system has increased over recent years, being utilised in tennis, cricket, football and rugby. World Athletics hopes that the technology will contribute to fair competition management through its officiating services.
Sebastian Coe, World Athletics President, commented: “We are entering an exciting few years for our sport and I can think of no better partner than Sony to help us capture the excitement, the thrill and the breathtaking performances our sport promises to bring.
“As the No.1 Olympic sport, the eyes of the world will be squarely focused on athletics this year as our athletes compete across our five World Athletics Series events, plus Paris.
“We look forward to the outstanding photographs Sony will capture at our events to immortalise these many moments in our sport’s history.”
