Football: Why and how the DFL is launching its own TV channel

The worst times are over. However, the football league’s international marketing is still not really successful. In any case, the sale of media rights outside of German-speaking countries does not bring in as much money as clubs and the German Football League (DFL) would like. The league is therefore currently preparing to operate its own TV channel.

The DFL recently announced the “further development of the internationalization offensive”. DFL Managing Director Steffen Merkel said: “International growth will not be a sprint, but at least a middle-distance race. At least we have left the starting blocks.” A very important component of this offensive is to be the “establishment of an OTT market offer in foreign markets”, as the DFL puts it. The technical term refers to a video signal distributed over the Internet that is aimed directly at customers.

“A few difficult years”

There is no doubt that the Bundesliga has some catching up to do. It is only slowly recovering from the slump in revenue, which was mainly marked by the loss of business in China and expiring contracts in the Middle East. In 2021/22, there was only 167 million euros from foreign marketing. The lamentations among the clubs were great. “We have certainly gone through a few difficult years,” said DFL manager Peer Naubert, who is responsible for foreign marketing.

Meanwhile, revenues have risen to 214 million euros for the current season. However, this is still a long way from the expected revenues, which former Bayern boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had stated at the “SpoBis” congress last year at 800 million euros per season. Stuttgart marketing director Rouven Kasper is not the only one who thinks: “Internationally, there is still a lot of room for improvement.”

The Premier League has run away

The domestic league is definitely a long way behind the English Premier League, which earns the equivalent of around 2.2 billion euros abroad. And the Bundesliga is also well behind the Spanish La Liga, which still earns more than three times as much. According to Merkel, the aim is to “shorten the gap to La Liga in the medium term”. Catching up with the Premier League is considered completely unrealistic.

An essential prerequisite for a TV station of its own has been in place for years. The DFL subsidiary Sportcast already produces the moving images that domestic fans see in the “Sportschau” or on Sky and DAZN. In addition, Bundesliga International is already producing finished programs. Finished previews for the global market have been available since 2006. The DFL now also offers a conference that runs in the USA as “Goal Arena” on ESPN. An “export hit”, as foreign head Naubert said.

The necessary investment capital is missing

The only thing missing for an own offer is a technical platform to be able to sell the league directly to the customer rather than via existing broadcasters. “The fact is that we do not have the necessary investment capital for this,” said DFL Managing Director Marc Lenz. This is due to the investor process that failed twice.

Therefore, a company already active in the market is now to make its internet-based platform available and receive “a kind of revenue share” in return, as Lenz explained. According to reports, the partner could be the Berlin-based company OneFootball, in which several large football clubs such as Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund as well as the German Football Association (DFB) are involved – the DFL does not want to comment on this.

Offer delayed

Even if its own TV offering is in place, the league wants to continue to sell directly to foreign broadcasters, according to Lenz. But there are “media partners who no longer want to pay the rights fees that we consider to be right.” The league could then make its own offering “available directly to consumers and fans on site abroad,” explained the managing director.

The same argument could also apply to the domestic market. For example, if providers such as Sky or DAZN do not want to pay enough. However, Merkel and Lenz do not want to talk about that yet. That would be “not the right time,” Merkel told foreign journalists on the sidelines of the Supercup.

At least in the first step, the project will go abroad. “We are confident that we will be able to present an OTT offering in a few weeks,” said Lenz in mid-July. However, it is not happening as quickly as desired. The project has been postponed until at least the end of September. The DFL says that the arbitration court’s ruling in the dispute with DAZN over rights for the German market will first be awaited.