Norwegian Skiing Stays Norwegian. At Least When It Comes To Broadcasting

I’d anybody is still watching he international xcskiing in, say, 2025 she/ he would have to flock between channels a lot to find them athletes in lycra onto he snow.

Ans if she/ he is watching livestream on smartphone ( which we reckon would be close to 100% by then) that person would have to have quite a few proprietary apps installed.

Especially if that fan of skiing lives in Norway

Because the Norwegian Ski Association just sold domestic broadcasting rights to all FIS World Cup events staged in the country to the jointly bidding local duo of NRK and TV2.

Last year Infront sold the same rights but for other , non-domestic FIS World Cup races to NENT Group. NRK and TV2 are free-to-air channels, NENT hasn’t made it public how it plans to air crosscountry skiing if it all, but most of the group business is based on paid subscription model.

Confused? Well,you are not alone. The FIS is unique in the world because it allows national federations to sell media rights for the events it holds rather then doing it itself, centralized – like every other international sporting federation. Some organizers entrust sales to a bundler-middleman, Infront – others try to sell individually.

Nobody seem to know how to untie that Gordian knot – all the while looking wistfully at the other sports where revenues went up massively in the last couple of decades e.g. biathlon where the IBU controls all the rights and the television signal production.