MUMBAI: The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has set up a new advisory panel to assist it in the creation of new events and make decisions on hosting that will improve its television exposure worldwide.

The broad ambit of the panel, comprising industry experts, is to advise it on how to make the sport more commercially viable and expand television coverage of its events.

Ten Sports vice president programming Peter Hutton is a member of the panel that includes former Octagon CEO Karl Bistany and the English Cricket Board’s David Collier.

The first meeting will be at Lords on 14 May, where the group will make initial recommendations to the FIH. Ten Sports hold the television rights for FIH events in the Indian sub-continent and Middle East including the upcoming mens and womens hockey World Cups.

The panel will also include members of the FIH’s existing marketing and events committees of which Collier is already a member.

FIH marketing director Steve Morris, who will also feature on the panel, was quoted by Sportcal.com as saying that that the FIH had reviewed its events calendar over the past six months and concluded that its strategy could be improved.

Sportcal.com further reports that the FIH is in negotiations over the renewal of sponsorship deals with its four global partners – BDO International, Radobank, Sahara India, Samsung Electronics – which expire at the end of 2006.