Supponor

James Gambrell, CEO, Supponor said:

“We are extremely proud that Supponor AIR® has been awarded the prestigious title of Sports Technology of the Year at the Sports Business Awards. This accolade really underlines the impact that our disruptive technology is having in creating more flexible, sustainable, and cost-effective sponsorship advertising in live sports broadcasting, while generating greater commercial opportunities for rights holders. It is a great honour to receive this award alongside so many other innovative sports technology companies, and in front of our industry friends and colleagues.”

The partnership, which sees virtual advertising used on the LED perimeter boards on the long-side of the court, is a milestone moment for the sports industry. It marks the first virtual advertising deployment in handball and also the first ever Supponor VRT adoption during a women’s event.

The implementation of this technology has allowed Coolbet, an EHF EURO Official Partner, to target key handball audiences during select number of matches in the main round & final round.

“Coolbet has always been driven by technology”

“The virtual advertising solution offered by Infront and EHF maintains the quality we expect as a partner of the event, easily matching the detail of in-venue LED boards. It was vital for us to ensure we could target our key handball audience during various national team matches and we’re proud to be part of this evolution in sports marketing.”

Endre Nesset, CEO of Coolbet

“The EHF is very proud to be a pioneer in this space,”

“Adopting virtual LED replacement technology for the first time during a women’s sports event and in handball is a landmark moment. Our partnership with Infront and their supplier Supponor demonstrates the increasing commercial value of women’s sports. We are looking forward to continuing such collaborations with market leading partners in their respective fields to expand the commercial potential of our prestigious handball events.”

Martin Hausleitner, Secretary General of the European Handball Federation.

“This is not the first time Infront and Supponor have partnered, this latest project follows our successful collaboration during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in May this year,”

“When the opportunity arose for us to deploy virtual advertising at the 2022 Women’s EHF EURO, not only was it logical to expand our partnership with Supponor but it also provided an opportunity to expand the commercial options available for sponsors and further enhance our approach to innovation within our partnership with EHF. We are excited to be able to accommodate our partner Coolbet whilst also exploring more options to add value for EHF.”

James Chubb, Head of Handball at Infront.

The plan is to continue to deploy virtual advertising technology for future EHF events, opening up more opportunities for a tailored approach for sponsors looking to target specific markets, with customized messaging.

At Supponor we’re incredibly proud to expand our collaboration with Infront as one of the world’s leading sports marketing agencies, and to add the prestigious EHF to our client portfolio”

“Adding handball as a new vertical is an amazing opportunity, alongside the inaugural deployment of VRT at a major women’s sport event. We are committed as a business to continuing providing our services to enhance women’s sports, handball, and indoor sports in general globally. Our innovative VRT platform, Supponor AIR®, has so far enabled us to scale significantly as a business in the past 24 months. Thanks to the strategic partnerships with world leading sports rights holders, and through the transition to purely software based VRT, often operated completely remotely.”

Massimo Magrì, Managing Director, Europe, Supponor.

Supponor has partnered with the NHL, the premier North American professional hockey league, to develop the DED technology solution, powered by its next-generation Supponor AIR® technology platform, using remote, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based keying technology to augment dasherboard advertising during live game broadcasts by placing dynamic graphics over the camera-visible fully branded arena dasherboards. DED graphics can be displayed during games in a market-specific way, wherever and however the game feed is broadcast, resulting in dynamic and targeted branding and promotional messaging that was not previously achievable.

“Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards will revolutionize the way properties and broadcasters interact with brands across the world, not only in the NHL, but in all sports”

“This has been a significant undertaking for the League, which has included years of developing, testing and readying the technology for League-wide implementation. We are thrilled to partner with Supponor to bring this game-changing technology to life this season and provide increased opportunity and value to our business partners.”

Keith Wachtel, NHL Chief Business Officer and Senior Executive Vice President

“Our long-term collaboration with the NHL has achieved a historic league-wide signage solution. With up to 15 concurrent games in one night and 40 game broadcasts per week during the NHL regular season, it is an ambitious large-scale deployment”

“Working closely with the NHL to develop, test and implement Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards has been the most complex implementation of Supponor’s AIR®, our AI enabled fully software-based virtual signage solution. Our multifaceted platform will support the NHL’s requirements and needs, end-to-end, and will set a new gold standard for other sports. We thank the NHL for their vision, commitment to innovation and collaboration, and we look forward to many more groundbreaking initiatives together shaping the future of sport advertising.”

James B. Gambrell, CEO of Supponor

Supponor’s DED solution for the NHL will allow for never-before-seen dynamic dasherboard branding and messaging featuring URLs, flighted marketing campaigns, co-branded official designations, social media integration, QR codes and more. Additionally, the DED display will be programmable into multiple formats from a single-advertiser full-dasherboard takeover to a split zone format with ten advertisers brands. Among other advantages, the DED system allows for the opportunity for Clubs to provide their corporate partners and advertisers with this valuable exposure in both their home and their away game broadcasts for the first time. Supponor will also manage the League’s Slot Virtual advertising beginning this season and has developed an NHL Content Management System for use by the League and its Clubs to create, approve, manage and report on their playlists for every game broadcast in their markets.

The National Hockey League (NHL®), founded in 1917, consists of 32 Member Clubs. Each team roster reflects the League’s international makeup with players from more than 20 countries represented, all vying for the most cherished and historic trophy in professional sports – the Stanley Cup®. Every year, the NHL entertains more than 670 million fans in-arena and through its partners on national television and radio; more than 191 million followers – league, team and player accounts combined – across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube; and more than 100 million fans online at NHL.com. The League broadcasts games in more than 160 countries and territories through its rightsholders including ESPN, Turner Sports and NHL NetworkMC in the U.S.; Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada; Viaplay in the Nordic Region; and CCTV and Tencent in China; and reaches fans worldwide with games available to stream in every country. Fans are engaged across the League’s digital assets on mobile devices via the free NHL® App; across nine social media platforms; on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio™; and on NHL.com, available in eight languages and featuring unprecedented access to player and team statistics as well as every regular-season and playoff game box score dating back to the League’s inception, powered by SAP. NHL Original Productions and NHL Studios produce compelling original programming featuring unprecedented access to players, coaches and League and team personnel for distribution across the NHL’s social and digital platforms.

The NHL is committed to building healthy and vibrant communities using the sport of hockey to celebrate fans of every race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. The NHL’s Hockey Is For Everyone™ initiative reinforces that the official policy of the sport is one of inclusion on the ice, in locker rooms, boardrooms and stands. The NHL is expanding access and opportunity for people of all backgrounds and abilities to play hockey, fostering more inclusive environments and growing the game through a greater diversity of participants. To date, the NHL has invested more than $100 million in youth hockey and grassroots programs, with a commitment to invest an additional $5 million for diversity and inclusion programs over the next year.

The objective of the new cooperation is to strengthen and expand the Green-and-Whites’ international sponsorship activities. Aided by the fully software-based Supponor AIR® technology, VfL will be able to virtually multiply the advertising capacity of both rows of LED boards at their Volkswagen Arena home, display specific advertisings for target markets and replace domestic displays with ones tailored to an international market.

By simultaneously dispensing the double TV production, CO2 emissions related to production, transport and logistics can be reduced. Thus, another important contribution can be made towards the ‘Race to Zero’ goal, which VfL has set itself.

“The partnership with Supponor is of particular importance to us, as it not only provides considerable support towards our international activities but underlines our innovation aspirations,”

Michael Meeske, VfL Wolfsburg Managing Director

“We are proud to have won VfL Wolfsburg, one of the pioneers in international marketing, as a strategic partner.”

“Together, we are taking the next step by deploying our fully software-based technology. Supponor AIR® creates new opportunities for the club and its partners to reach national and international fans in a more targeted way with considerably less effort. The result is more flexible, efficient marketing opportunities with a significantly reduced carbon footprint as our contribution with the Race to Zero.”

James B. Gambrell, CEO of Supponor.

Having started with the German Supercup and the English Community Shield on July 30, Supponor already kicked off the Football season with two high-class events in Germany and the UK, followed by several UEFA Champions League qualifier games. Throughout the season, the innovative AI-based technology will be represented in a wide scale of markets globally, including Spain, Germany, Italy, France, US, Canada, and Australia. Across these markets, Supponor AIR® will be deployed at league matches for several elite leagues across the globe including Spain’s La Liga, the Bundesliga in Germany, Italy’s Serie A, Ligue 1 in France, and the A-League in Australia; as well as the UEFA club competitions in Europe.

In the German Bundesliga, Supponor kicked-off the 2022-23 season during the season opening match between reigning UEFA Europa League champions Eintracht Frankfurt and German national record-holding champions FC Bayern München on August 5^th. This was followed by the top match between Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen a day later. These two games marked the two first matches where Supponor AIR® was commercially deployed in a year which is expected to see the total live produced events by Supponor in Germany at least double compared to Bundesliga season 2021-22.

“We’re looking forward to the start of the 2022-23 season with great excitement. We are proud to support our partner clubs, leagues, and sports federations      by providing flexible, sustainable, and cost-effective virtual advertising solutions through our innovative Supponor AIR® technology. With Supponor AIR® we are enhancing the value of marketing rights significantly and offering new commercial opportunities to rights holders in live sports”

James B. Gambrell, CEO Supponor

Supponor AIR® makes virtual advertising easily accessible to sports clubs, leagues, or federations, due to remote production capabilities, significantly lower deployment costs, increased flexibility, multiple supported applications, and more sustainable practices.

Thus, Supponor is able to serve as a host of a wide variety of sports, including football, ice hockey, rugby, basketball, and many more.

This unrivalled achievement has been possible due to Supponor’s successful launch of its next-generation software-based virtual advertising platform, Supponor AIR^®. This ground-breaking solution makes virtual advertising accessible to any sports club, league, or federation, due to remote production capabilities, significantly lower deployment costs, increased flexibility, multiple supported applications and more sustainable practices. Building on the remarkable achievement of over 1,000 commercial games this season, Supponor is looking to make history again by more than doubling the number of games next season.

Supponor AIR^® has been primarily developed for remote operation, while also having the flexibility to be operated on-site. Commercially and technically proven, Supponor AIR^® provides rights holders with a flexible and powerful marketing tool to enhance their commercial inventory and provide their sponsors and brand partners with value-enhancing targeted and global reach into local markets, allowing them to continue positioning themselves at the forefront of technical innovation.

These advantages have seen a host of large-scale commercial successes, with the most recent seeing Supponor AIR^® receive historic German league-wide approval from the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), giving it a quality stamp as the first and currently the only fully software-based virtual advertising solution available to all Bundesliga clubs. This allowed Supponor, SPORTFIVE, the global sports business agency, and Bundesliga team Borussia Dortmund, to undertake the first commercial deployment of Supponor AIR^® in Germany during the Borussia Dortmund vs RB Leipzig match on April 2nd. Following this, Supponor AIR^® was adopted by history-making Bundesliga champions FC Bayern Munich, who achieved a record-breaking tenth consecutive title in Germany this season, starting with their home game against FC Augsburg on April 9th.

Alongside Germany, Supponor is also commercially deploying Supponor AIR^® in Lega Serie A in Italy, La Liga in Spain, Ligue 1 in France, the A-Leagues in Australia and for several top-tier European club competitions, among many more. Supponor is also serving a host of other sports with its innovative software-based virtual advertising, including ice hockey (3ICE) and several rugby partnerships.

“We are extremely proud to have launched Supponor AIR^® as it is, arguably, the most disruptive technology solution in sports”

“We are proud that clubs and sports federations can see the clear benefits of Supponor AIR^® in creating more flexible, sustainable, and cost-effective sponsorship advertising in live sports broadcasting; but also, to the value of their media and marketing rights, generating commercial opportunities and attracting brand partners and sponsors. Now from over 1,000 commercial games – we are on target to more than double that figure with Supponor AIR^® next season.”

James B. Gambrell, CEO at Supponor