The DFL has to restart the sale of its television rights. An expert explains what impact this will have.
The restart of the TV rights sale leads to a very special starting point. “The same bidding round has never been repeated before,” said sports marketing expert Marco Klewenhagen. The managing director of the company SpoBis explained: “DAZN and Sky now know what the other was prepared to offer. It’s like poker, where half of the other’s cards are face up on the table.”
Following an arbitration ruling, the German Football League must restart the auction of TV rights for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons. This means that Package B with 196 live games, which was already awarded in April, will be put on the market for a second time. According to dpa information, DAZN had offered around 1.6 billion euros for the four-year rights period. Over this period, the offer is said to be around 320 million euros higher than that of its competitor Sky.
Push competitors out of the market
“The significantly higher offer from DAZN can also be interpreted as meaning that the company is very willing to make strategic investments in order to establish itself in Germany and at the same time push its direct and strongest competitor out of the market,” said Klewenhagen. The international media company had already outbid Sky for the Champions League and secured the majority of the rights.
The pay-TV broadcaster must now ask itself to what extent it “wants to – and can – counter the Bundesliga,” said the expert. The company must clarify “how much Bundesliga football it needs in order to remain sufficiently attractive for the German TV subscriber market in the future.”
Package B, the original award of which to Sky triggered the DFL-DAZN dispute, is the largest in the auction. But packages A, C and D also contain pay-TV rights for live broadcasts of the 1st division. A includes the conferences, C the top games on Saturday at 6.30 p.m. and the Supercup. D contains the Sunday games.
Source: Stern
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