Niefinansowy Raport Polsatu za rok 2017

Sports have a special place in the operations of Cyfrowy Polsat Group. It is not only that we show top class sports to our viewers but above all for many years we have been consistently supporting athletes, both amateurs as well as world champions. For years Polsat has been supporting Polish sport and investing money in its development. We have spent over a billion zloty since the year 2000 for purchase of licenses, TV production, broadcasting and promotion of various sports events. Polsat channels are the leaders in the ranking of favorite sports programs. We promote the success of athletes by broadcasting and re-broadcasting sports events as well as by providing information from these events in our news and current affairs programs. No other station in the history of Polish TV has devoted so much air-time to coverage of sports events and the success of Polish athletes.

Volleyball is unquestionably the queen of sports for us. Since a very long time our TV channels have been showing all major volleyball tournaments – from league matches and European cup tournaments to the matches played by our national teams. Thanks to such an extensive exposure in TV, Polish volleyball – both the clubs and the Polish volleyball association – have made a major quality improvement. New arenas and training courts have been built, serious sponsors have started supporting the sport, numbers of spectators at the matches have increased and world class stars have been attracted to the Polish league. Polish clubs have gained recognition in Europe. The crowning of all these efforts are more than 10 medals from various volleyball championship events in the years 2006-2017 that were broadcasted via Cyfrowy Polsat Group‘s channels. Cyfrowy Polsat Group vastly contributed to the organization of the FIVB World Championship in Poland in the year 2014 which ended with the Polish team winning the gold medal. Also in 2017 we covered, in our channels, the Lotto Eurovolley Poland 2017 European championship in men’s volleyball which was played in Poland. Plus mobile network, which is a member of our Group, sponsored both of these events. Our professionalism, both in the field of TV production and technology as well as the favorable cooperation with FIVB, resulted in the FIVB World League finals being hosted three times by Poland (in the years 2007, 2011 and 2016). The event was not only spectacular from sports point of view but it was also a fine promotion of Poland around the world. Men’s and women’s national teams are at the same time also supported by Plus who has been the strategic sponsor of both national teams for 20 years now. According to Pentagon Research, the value of Plus brand exposure during all the volleyball matches in 2016 was PLN 131 million.

Plus also sponsors all the youth national teams which are members of the Polish Volleyball Association (PZPS). Thanks to the company’s involvement, as well as financial stability and joint cooperation of the parties, Polish volleyball players have been able to achieve spectacular success at numerous events, including the gold medal of the Women’s European Championship in 2005, the gold medal of the Men’s European Championship in 2009, the silver medal of the Men’s World Championship 2006, the gold medal of the Men’s World Championship 2014 (the most valuable trophy which was won during the World Championship event held in Poland) and the gold medal of the U-21 World Championship in 2017. Cooperation with the Polish volleyball league is the natural continuation of the project. Plus is the titular sponsor of men’s and women’s leagues. Our involvement in volleyball in the years 2015-2016 was exploited by us as a platform for communicating the products and the services offered by our Plus network.

However, volleyball is not everything that the fans like. While thinking about our viewers, we have been consistently betting on football in the best quality demonstrated by our national team. It were the Polsat channels where fans could watch the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cup matches, or the finals of UEFA Euro tournaments in 2008 and 2016.

In the coming years the viewers of Polsat channels will experience awesome football thrills. We will be showing the Euro 2020 qualifiers and the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers, as well as two seasons of the Nations League, organized by the UEFA European federation, i.e. 2018/2019 and 2020/2021. The fans will be able to enjoy the matches of such football powerhouses as Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy or England. The matches of the Polish national team will be rebroadcasted by us in maximum four hours after the final whistle. All in all up until 2022 we will broadcast nearly a thousand matches in the both qualifying cycles and in the Nations League.

Thrilling time will begin in August 2018. Viewers are invited to a true football feast – during the coming three years (until 2021) our channels will show over 1000 Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches. Cyfrowy Polsat Group acquired – for the Polish fans – exclusive rights to show the CL and the EL matches in all distribution channels, including in TV, the Internet and on mobile devices. Cyfrowy Polsat will be the only satellite TV platform in Poland to show all the matches.

During recent years we supported, in terms of TV production and organizationally, such events as the 2016 EHF European Championship in Handball, which took place in four Polish cities. A record number of 400 thousand spectators watched the matches from the stands while international coverage of the tournament was watched by over 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. Handball has been present in our TV channels since the very moment when Polsat Sport TV channel was launched.

In our TV channels we also regularly broadcast coverage of basketball and rugby matches, Polish boxing matches, biathlon races, speed skating events and tennis.

Thanks to Polsat TV, Polish viewers have the opportunity of watching the most important sports events which are followed by hundreds of millions of people around the world. We show the most popular and the most thrilling competitions and sports stars. Broadcasting of major events also means popularization of numerous disciplines of sport, which often stimulates people of all ages to practice a given sport. On the one hand it encourages children and teenagers to go outdoors and get interested in sports, and on the other it often helps adults in deciding to devote at least part of their leisure time to sports.

Polsat, as well as our sports and news channels willingly support activities which promote physical education by promoting such activities in the media and in the TV channels. Both, the news programs and the programs dealing with sports inform of mass sports events while encouraging viewers to participate in them. By presenting sports stars, who also willingly join such initiatives, we promote active leisure and tourism. We also promote mass running or cross-country skiing events while also supporting hockey, football and tennis tournaments for children.

The Group’s TV channels also promote tourism and leisure, with particular stress being put on travel in Poland. An important role is played by the actions which we carry out together with our partners during summer and winter vacations.