The International Hockey Federation (FIH), the world’s governing body for the sport of hockey, and Nagra have signed a ten-year partnership. 

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Nagra: Says the new platform will be the “home of hockey”

It brings together the FIH and Nagra’s digital media solutions to deliver what Nagra describes as a ground-breaking fan engagement service. The new platform will, says the company, be the “home of hockey”, creating a central community for the 30m players, fans, and officials worldwide. Nagra, the digital TV division of the Kudelski Group, believes it will also benefit the global growth of the sport through new awareness, expanded fan engagement, and new sources of revenue for the FIH.

Deployed and operated by Nagra as a “sports-as-a-service” offering, the multi-faceted digital platform will be developed for web, mobile and smart TVs. It will include live matches, replays, highlights, videos, archives, news, articles, live scores, results, and statistics, as well as social sharing functionality where fans and participants can capture and share instant moments online. The new service will be launched simultaneously with the resumption of live international matches. In addition, the platform will provide the FIH, continental federations, national associations and clubs with a centralised management service for their millions of participants and fans.

Thierry Weil, CEO for FIH, said: “With more than 30 million participants, the International Hockey Federation has always had great ambition for the worldwide promotion and development of its sport. Improving our digital engagement for the whole hockey community, and primarily our fans and athletes, has been one of our key objectives.

“We are thrilled – especially in this challenging period – to engage in a long-term partnership with a global technology leader to achieve our goals,” he continued. “I want to thank Nagra for their commitment and trust. We view this as a game-changing agreement that takes our digital development to the next level.”

Jean-Luc Jezouin, SVP, sales development for Nagra, said: “This is the start of a wider journey that goes beyond just sports streaming. With this partnership, we are taking field hockey into a realm of global digital transformation and harnessing the power of player participation as well as fandom. Nagra cloud-based video content management technologies and services and drive for innovative business transformation will enable the FIH to deliver a new level of engagement for the sport and provide hockey fans with an unmatched experience.”