Pirelli firms up skiing, hockey sponsorships

MILAN (Jan. 6, 2017) — Pirelli Tyre S.p.A. has struck multi-year sponsorship deals with the International Ski Federation (FIS) and International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to sponsor their respective world championships through 2021.

The sponsorship deal with the FIS starts with the 2017 championship in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and includes the events in Are, Sweden, in 2019 and Cortina, Italy, in 2021.

Financial terms were not disclosed for either deal.

The FIS expects 600 athletes from 70 nations to be competing at the St. Moritz event, with an international television audience of more than 1 billion viewers, Pirelli said.

At the same time, Pirelli reconfirmed its commitment to Swiss-Ski (Swiss ski federation) for the seventh consecutive year.

Pirelli's sponsorship deal covers just the biennial World Ski Championships. Otherwise Bridgestone Corp.is the tire industry sponsor of the Audi FIS Ski World Cup during the 2016-17 season, sponsoring 17 European world cup events in seven countries.

Pirelli's association with the IIHF began last year at the world championship finals in Russia and will continue at this year's event that is being hosted jointly by Paris and Cologne, Germany.

Pirelli's commitment will continue into 2021, covering the championships in 2018 in Denmark, in 2019 in Slovakia, in 2020 in Switzerland and 2021 in either Finland or Belarus, both of which are candidates to host that year.

In both the skiing and hockey events, Pirelli signage and colors will be prominent in the backdrop.

The first meet will be held from Feb. 6-19 in Saint Moritz, where there will be competing 600 athletes, from 70 nations, all of which followed by over a billion spectators worldwide.