SolOceans

More than forty hours of media exposure are already scheduled on Eurosport Group international platform during the six months of the SolOceans (October 2009 - March 2010). "First of all, Eurosport is the number one sport platform in Europe", explained Laurent-Eric Lay, "We cover 59 countries in twenty languages and reach 250 millions TV viewers. We are also broadcast in ten countries of the Asia-Pacific Region with Eurosport World. Eurosportnews broadcasts sportive information worldwide and Yahoo! Eurosport is the first European sports Internet portal, available in eight languages and visited by more than one million visitors per day."

"Our plan for the SolOceans is first constituted by the Live coverage of the start in Caen and Wellington. A daily follow-up will be broadcasted on Eurosport, Eurosportnews and Yahoo! Eurosport. A weekly magazine will be inserted in the "Wednesday Selection". A monthly summary will complete this plan with at the beginning of this plan a special presentation magazine, and at the end a special summary magazine. Moreover, a website dedicated to the SolOceans will be available on Yahoo! Eurosport".

Laurent-Eric Le Lay added: "With this multimedia Platform, we are guaranteeing to the sponsors and yacht-owners engaged in the SolOceans 2009-2010 a media exposure which is, in reality, only the first piece of a worldwide edifice thanks to our agreement that our subsidiary Eurosport Events - 34% shareholder of SailingOne - will set up with our counterparts of the other major international TV networks and national TV of the countries of origin of the solo sailors".

This press conference at the TF1 headquarter, which holds 100% of Eurosport Group, was the occasion to honour the long term professional complicity between Yvan Griboval (SailingOne) and Bruno Lalande (TNS Sport) and to officialise the partnership between the SolOceans and TNS Sport, number one for marketing information in Europe, listed on the London Stock Exchange, which evaluate the effectiveness of the sport business (actions) around the world. TNS Sport studies enable to validate, adjust and to reorient the strategies in order to optimize the sponsoring investments. It will be a great tool to control the media exposure guaranteed by the SolOceans, in order to evaluate its impact, and most of all, to increase the value of the media exposure offered by sponsorship to the partners of the event and to the competitors’ teams.

"This plan on Eurosport platform and this way to conceive and to guarantee to the partners of the SolOceans an important media exposure, position this offer as the best investment/media exposure ratio in the international sailing world...and that, 17 months before the start", explained Bruno Lalande enthusiastically.

"Step by step, we realize that what we have announced on 15 June 2006, when we officially launched the SolOceans in the presence of Jean-Pierre Champion, President of the French Sailing Federation, from its Paris’ headquarter", explained Yvan Griboval. "Guaranteeing by contract a media exposure to the partners of the events, but also to the yacht-owners and sponsors of the Veolia Oceans® one-design engaged is a world premiere in terms of oceanic sailing".

"Never ever such a reasoning has been done before, a fortiori 520 days before the start of the first edition of this competition which will put competitors and yacht-owners on equal footing, in sportive terms for the first and in media exposure terms for the seconds", explained Yvan Griboval. "We have our hand on all the production aspects and now on the TV broadcast of the official signal which will supply TV worldwide. In those conditions, emotion will prevail over the sportive aspect. A round-the-world tour is in a fact a human adventure before being a competition. It’s our role to give this importance to the human aspect, to the adventure of those sailors - women and men - sailing around the world on equal footing and to transmit the pure emotion of the SolOceans to a wide public worldwide".