SEOUL, Korea (January 18, 2017) - The WTF and SBS Sports, one of Korea’s “big three” terrestrial broadcasters, extended their Korean broadcasting partnership to 2020 with a signing ceremony at the WTF’s central Seoul headquarters today.

 

WTF President Chungwon Choue and SBS Sport CEO Gyehong Kim inked the contract, extending the two organizations’ previous 2015-2016 agreement for an additional four years.

 

Under the agreement, SBS Sports will film and broadcast the WTF’s Grand Prix series, World Championships and World Team Championships to viewers across Korea. The first event to be covered under the contract will be the Grand Prix Series 1 in August 2017; the last event will be the World Team Championships in December 2020.

 

“Some 400 million TV viewers in 17 nations watched Olympic taekwondo at Rio in 2016, which suggests a massive global appetite for televised taekwondo,” said Choue, quoting figures provided by ASOIF, an international TV monitoring body which audits viewership in 17 countries with credible data on audience figures. “Now, it is up to us in the WTF to deliver ever-better taekwondo events - in terms of fairness and transparency, dazzle and excitement - for the cameras of SBS Sport and our host broadcasters.”

 

“Since we started working with the WTF in 2015, we have witnessed tremendous development of content in the taekwondo space,” added Kim. “With the trust we have built up with the WTF, we are delighted to extend this partnership for another four years.”

 

SBS Sport’s credentials are impressive. In addition to covering WTF events since 2015, SBS Sport, as an OBS, or Olympic Broadcast Service team, also provided international signals for the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic taekwondo and archery competitions.

 

However, WTF events to be held in Korea will be put to a bid between SBS Sport and the nation’s other major terrestrial broadcasters.