The German Athletics Association (DLV) has agreed a four-year extension to its rights deal with public-service broadcasters ARD and ZDF.
The new agreement brokered by the DLV’s marketing arm, Deutsche Leichtathletik-Marketing, and SportA, the sports-rights agency that represents ARD and ZDF, will run until the end of 2024. The existing contract agreed in May 2016 was due to expire at the end of 2020.
The focal point of ARD and ZDF’s DLV event coverage will continue to be the annual German Athletics Championships, which this year take place on July 21-22 in the city of Nuremberg. Berlin is also set to host the European Athletics Championships this year from August 6-12 as part of the inaugural European Championships multi-sport event.
DLV president Jürgen Kessing said: “The extension of our TV contract is a particularly valuable sign for the sport of athletics, because it ensures that the core sport of the Olympic Games continues to play a significant role for the public broadcasters despite digital challenges.”
DLM managing director Frank Lebert added: “In future the media partnership will allow for greater integration of social media activities among all contracting parties and therefore also extended access to younger target groups.”