2024-09-26 15:55:35
Second attempt: The league sells its television rights and wants to make as much money as possible. But will that work?
Following an arbitration ruling, the German Football League (DFL) must restart the auction of TV rights. The billion-dollar poker game should start again as soon as possible. With a delay of around five months, a total of 15 TV packages are up for grabs, which are to be awarded to the highest-bidding broadcasters and media companies.
t-online answers the most important questions about the TV dispute.
Due to the delay in the auction, fans will not know which subscriptions they will need in the coming season. Theoretically, it may be that only one contract will be necessary in the future. However, it is still possible that more than two subscriptions will be required from 2025. The delay will have no immediate consequences for the current Bundesliga season. Football fans’ contracts with Sky and/or DAZN will continue to apply. DAZN will broadcast on Fridays and Sundays, and Sky on Saturdays. However, a possible horror scenario, namely that from 25/26 the individual games on Saturday (package B) and the conference on Saturday (package A) will be broadcast by different providers, is still a reality.
The DFL is starting the aborted auction process from the beginning. This means that the already awarded package B is being re-launched. It contains the individual games on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and on Friday evening as well as the relegation games. That is a total of 196 live games. The dispute between the DFL and DAZN was sparked by the awarding of package B.
To date, more than 80 percent of the revenue of around 1.1 billion euros per season has come from the marketing of the pay-TV sector – and this ratio to free TV is unlikely to change much after the new auction. Package B is the largest pay package and is therefore likely to have the largest share of total revenue.
Packages A, C and D are also valuable. They include additional pay-TV rights for live broadcasts of the 1st division.
Both companies now know how much Package B is worth to their competitor. This has never happened before. According to information from dpa and t-online, DAZN had offered around 400 million euros annually for Package B – i.e. around 1.6 billion euros for the four-year rights period. Over this period of four seasons, the offer was said to have been around 320 million euros more than that of competitor Sky. These figures should help Sky in particular when calculating a new offer. The competitor now knows that a bank guarantee is necessary and can meet all the formal requirements in time to be successful with a higher offer.
The DFL did not look good when the auction was canceled. The arbitration tribunal noticed a procedural error and “partially upheld the lawsuit against the awarding of rights package B in the media rights tender for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons,” as the league put it. It remains to be seen whether the new start will pay off for the league. If competitors bid more in the new auction than they did the first time, the league could generate higher revenues than it would have in the first attempt. According to information from t-online, the interest of streaming provider DAZN has at least waned somewhat. There are doubts within the company as to whether the individual games on Saturday are really worth around 400 million. Sky, on the other hand, would have to make major improvements if the company wants to maintain its status quo and continue to have the upper hand on Saturday. The DFL currently earns an average of 1.1 billion euros per season. Experts fear that the league’s revenues will decline slightly.
In the pay-TV area, the DFL offers 275 games from the 2nd division. This also includes 98 conferences. On free-TV, the summaries on Saturday, which are currently shown on “Sportschau”, are the most valuable package. There is only a small live offer for free-to-air television. Package E contains three first division games, one second division match, the relegation with four matches and the Supercup. The 33 games on Saturday evening from package G could also be broadcast in parallel on free and pay-TV in the future – as is currently the case with Sky and Sport1. The DFL is also selling six other highlight rights packages for freely accessible channels. There are further rights packages for audio and digital outdoor advertising.