Infront Sports & Media

Infront Sports & Media was founded in October 2002 with FIFA as its core business as the company who sold the television and radio broadcasts for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The company originated from a merger of two existing Swiss-based marketing companies, CWL and Prisma Sports & Media. CWL was founded by Cesar Lüthi, who sold the business to the Kirch Group. On 17 February 2003, the transaction for the management-supported buyout by a group of shareholders led by Robert Louis-Dreyfus, former head of Adidas and majority shareholder of Olympique de Marseille, was announced as complete and the new ownership group now in place.

In 2005 the company lost the right to resell the TV and radio rights in Europe, though it retained the ability to sell Asian rights, as part of a division of the rights by FIFA. Infront subsidy HBS won the contract to manage the TV and radio broadcast production. Two months later, the company hired President and CEO Phillippe Blatter, to replace departing chief Oscar Frei. The appointment of Blatter, who is the nephew of Sepp Blatter, the then President of FIFA, was criticized by author Andrew Jennings and Transparency International. During this time as chief executive, Phillippe Blatter was able to grow the company's revenues.

2005 also saw the start of Infront’s partnership with the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, acquiring the FIS World Cup and World Championships rights through the majority shareholding of APF Marketing Services. It further diversified in 2006 through the acquisition of Media Partners whilst also launching Football Media Services alongside Dentsu to sell the FIFA Asian media rights.

In 2007 it acquired DSM Sportwerbung, rebranding it to Infront Germany before expanding to Austria after acquiring APF Marketing Services GmbH.

Until 2011 it was owned by a consortium of shareholders. In September 2011 – European private equity firm Bridgepoint reached an agreement to acquire the company. In February 2015, Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda won an auction to purchase Infront from Bridgepoint for more than €1 billion. In November of that same year, it was announced that Infront would merge with the World Triathlon Corporation (including the latter's Ironman brand) to form the Wanda Sports division.

Services

Infront Sports & Media has 1000 employees in 16 countries. Infront Sports & Media supports media and betting rights distribution, marketing concepts and sponsorship sales for sporting events as well as media production (host broadcasting, post production and archive management). Infront's subsidiary, Host Broadcast Services (HBS), manages television and radio signals for broadcasters at sports events such as the FIFA World Cup.

Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the broadcast rights in Sub-Saharan Africa to Infront for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2014 in Nanjing, China. In 2019 this was extended to include the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and the Olympic Games Paris 2024, as well as the Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020 and Dakar 2022.

In 2023 the IOC announced that Infront was awarded the exclusive broadcast rights in 22 countries in Central and South-East Asia for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina, the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the 2030 Olympic Winter Games and the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia.

The IOC also reached an agreement with Infront to manage the commercialisation of the IOC’s images archive in 2025.