NBC Sports Group has reached an agreement for exclusive multiplatform United States media rights to the FEI World Equestrian Games™ Tryon 2018 on September 11 – 23. The agreement includes an unprecedented amount of national equestrian sport coverage. The FEI World Equestrian Games™ return to the United States for the second time in eight years and will be held at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, NC.
The FEI World Equestrian Games™, one of the biggest events on the global sporting calendar, is held every four years in the middle of the Olympic cycle, combining eight World Championships at one event. The eight equestrian disciplines – Jumping, Dressage, Para-Equestrian Dressage, Eventing, Driving, Endurance, Vaulting and Reining – will all be contested. An anticipated 1,000 athletes, 1,500 horses, and 500,000 spectators from more than 70 countries are expected to attend. Tickets to the event have already been sold to people from all 50 U.S. states and 31 countries. The Games is projected to be the highest-attended sporting event in the United States in 2018.
Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA will present more than 50 hours of coverage, while NBC and NBCSN will combine for nearly 15 hours of live coverage from Tryon International Equestrian Center. All coverage will be streamed live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app – NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs. Coverage on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA will also be streamed on OlympicChannel.com and the Olympic Channel app.
“We’re excited to expand our coverage, and will now present more of the FEI World Equestrian Games™ to the U.S. audience than ever before,” said Jon Miller, President of Programming for NBC Sports Group.
“Our vision is to broaden the reach of equestrian sport to an audience of horse enthusiasts around the country, and we appreciate NBC Sports Group’s partnership as we deliver the most televised equestrian sports coverage in history,” said Mark Bellissimo, Founder and CEO of Tryon International Equestrian Center. “The 2014 Games in France attracted a cumulative global broadcast audience of 350 million, so this partnership with NBC will be an important factor in boosting numbers for Tryon 2018.”
The inaugural FEI World Equestrian Games™ were hosted in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1990, and were most recently held in Normandy, France in 2014. The 2014 Games in Normandy attracted more than 500,000 on-site spectators.
In addition to its state-of-the-art competition facilities, the 1,600-acre Tryon International Equestrian Center is an equestrian lifestyle destination complete with lodging, shops, restaurants, and amenities.
Over the last two years NBC Sports Group has presented numerous equestrian events, including the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping Final 2017 in Omaha and the Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping North American League, events in New York and Kentucky, and the equestrian competitions at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
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