InfrontRingier Sports & Entertainment Switzerland is set to launch this year’s Tour de Suisse – acting as the new event organiser and marketing partner as part of a major partnership with Swiss Cycling. According to InfrontRingier, which took over the promotion and commercialisation of the race from IMG at the conclusion of last year's event, coverage of the 2015 Tour de Suisse will be shown in 110 countries and territories. LeTV got the right to broadcast the event in China.
Starting on 13 June through till 21 June, this year’s Tour de Suisse is the first time that InfrontRingier will handle full event operations. Approximately 300 people will be working on the ground across the nine stages of the event to ensure its success and appeal to an anticipated 1 million spectators, as well as to TV viewers in approximately 110 countries and territories.
The challenging Tour de Suisse course, which runs right across Switzerland and takes a detour into Austria, is stretched over nine stages. Introducing a new hub format, the start and finishing weekends will be centered around one region each, increasing awareness and appeal amongst spectators. The individual stages at both weekends will be carried out as circuits within the respective hub regions of Zug and Berne.
The broad activation program around the series is also beneficial to the sponsors involved – providing extended engagement opportunities and broadening target groups. InfrontRingier has also streamlined the sponsorship platform to create greater impact and visibility for key partners – including long-term Presenter Vaudoise, and new brands like Official Partners traser (watches – as Timekeeper) and Sölden (tourist area) as well as Co-Partners Assos (apparel) and Hirslanden (private hospital group).
Exposure is further boosted by broadcast coverage into approximately 110 countries and territories on six continents, Except for China (LeTV), Australia (Fox), Brazil (ESPN), the United Arab Emirates (BeIN Sport) and the USA (Universal) would also broadcast the event. The media rights have been marketed by Infront Sports & Media, the international sports marketing company and joint venture partner for InfrontRingier. The TV signal is produced by Swiss public service broadcaster SRG SSR with the operation featuring several mobile cameras on motorbikes and helicopters. In Switzerland, the channel will provide 90 minutes of live coverage each day.