Unterföhring, 26 July 2022 - The new hybrid world of work, driven by the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic, has further accelerated the global trend towards greater fitness and health. The demand for sports and wellness offers is greater than ever, and corporate sports and health management have come into focus, especially for companies. A potential that ProSiebenSat.1 has recognised: With a combination of capital and media volume, the digital group took a stake in Urban Sports Club, the fastest growing sports and wellness platform in Europe, through its investment vehicle SevenGrowth in June 2021.

Value-creating cooperation between Urban Sports Club and ProSiebenSat.1

The goal of the investment was and is to increase Urban Sports Club's brand awareness in the German-speaking region through advertising on ProSiebenSat.1 platforms and to continue to support the company's strong growth. The results of the collaboration to date underline the impact of TV as a medium and the expertise of ProSiebenSat.1 as a strategic investor: supported brand awareness increases from 23% to 39% from July 2021 to July 2022 through TV.

Growth shows desire for an active and healthy lifestyle

The Urban Sports Club group, which includes OneFit in the Netherlands, offers its members a flexible sports and wellness membership with over 50 sports including online classes. The platform has a partner network of over 10,000 locations in six European countries. It thus brings together a wide range of sports and wellness offers with demand from companies and private individuals. Urban Sports Club's active membership increased significantly by 51% from 1 June 2021 to 1 June 2022. The upward trend in 2022 shows: In the first half of the year, Urban Sports Club has already recorded almost as many new registrations as in the whole of 2021.

Members' sporting activity on the rise

Members' on-site visits to the studio or live online classes are on the rise. Monthly check-ins, i.e. visits per member, increased by 43% year-on-year in 2022 for corporate clients (B2B), and by 23% for B2C. On the one hand, members were motivated to train with online courses offered by partners, and on the other hand, after the studio closures due to the pandemic, they were inspired by marketing measures to try out different types of sports in studios or outdoor training such as fitness in the park, padel or climbing. Fitness, yoga, functional training, climbing, dancing and swimming - currently the most popular sports categories - reflect the upward curve and the desire to train in a holistic and diverse way.

New Work and Individualisation: Demand for Hybrid Sports Grows

2021 and 2022 were very eventful for Urban Sports Club and the team in Europe. Mega trends such as individualisation and new work with hybrid work models increased the demand for flexible, hybrid sports and mindfulness offers. Urban Sports Club adapted its diverse offer to the new requirements and focused on the expansion of live online and on-demand courses in addition to indoor and outdoor training. Especially for corporate clients, physical training and meditation are a healthy change from sitting in the office. In addition, the high fluctuation on the labour market makes high-quality benefits such as company fitness offers an important means of retaining talent in the company. This is also reflected in the growing number of new B2B members at Urban Sports Club. This increased by over 50% in June and July 2022 compared to the same months last year. Meanwhile, 47 % of the members are corporate clients and 53 % are private individuals.

Friedrich Thoma, CEO of the Commerce & Ventures segment of ProSiebenSat.1: "The COVID 19 pandemic has accelerated the global trend towards more fitness and wellbeing and the demand for suitable sports offers has been correspondingly high since then. Urban Sports Club has recognised this social need. To reach new customers and continue the dynamic growth of the company, we invested in the platform early on and already at the end of the first year of our cooperation, the results speak for themselves. Our channels and attractive advertising spaces provide the perfect environment to target a mass market and have clearly helped to increase brand awareness of Urban Sports Club since our investment a year ago. The successful development underlines the value and effectiveness of the TV medium and the attractiveness of ProSiebenSat.1 as a strategic investor in emerging growth companies. We look forward to continuing to support the Urban Sports Club team in achieving their business goals with our expertise in marketing and targeting."

Moritz Kreppel, CEO and co-founder of Urban Sports Club: "With ProSiebenSat.1 Group and its investment vehicle SevenGrowth, we have found the right partner to motivate even more people to lead an active, healthy lifestyle. In a hybrid working world, people need flexible sports offers that adapt to their individual needs and are fun. Shortly after launching in June 2021, we successfully launched the first campaign: thanks to the multi-million reach of the ProSiebenSat.1 channels, we were able to increase our brand awareness and already record more new registrations in the first campaign period between September and October 2021 than in the comparable months of 2019 before the pandemic. This trend continues in 2022 and even under new conditions in the late phase of the pandemic, we benefit from the advertising and reach of ProSiebenSat.1. It is our goal to bring even more people back to the studios via the flexible Urban Sports Club membership and thus further promote health. Together with ProSiebenSat.1 as a partner, we want to get especially those who are not yet active excited about sports and wellness."

TV campaign on air

The current TV campaign "And, what are we doing tomorrow?", which will be broadcast on the ProSiebenSat.1 Group channels, will put the partners in the spotlight and motivate people to try new things and enjoy sports together to be fit and relaxed.