The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association this weekend announced it has acquired the media rights to the '15 and '17 FIS Alpine and Nordic Ski World Championships, including the '15 Alpine Ski World Championships in Vail/Beaver Creek. The NGB is the first in any country to acquire those rights. Typically, they are sold directly to broadcasters. USSA cut a mid-six figure deal with the European Broadcast Union to acquire rights to the four events. It plans to package that programming with the 25 World Cup competitions, which include alpine, freestyle and Grand Prix events, in an overall rights package that it plans to take to market this year. It currently is in negotiations with NBC Sports, which has an exclusive negotiating window with USSA that runs through the end of this year. USSA CMO Mike Jaquet said, “This is a huge step, but not the final step in us acquiring available rights out there and being in the rights package business and just the television business. I saw we were in the time-buy business and events business. In order to break out of the time buy model, we needed to bring in more and better rights that we could take to a domestic television partner that was the ultimate rights package for the ski and snowboarding.” Universal Sports previously owned the rights to the FIS World Championships.
