The television was there when they won the DFB Cup. It’s unthinkable when Alexandra Popp also receives a trophy in Australia and nobody at home is watching.
Photo: imago/Weis
Only 37 days remained before an agreement was finally reached. For so long, television stations and the world association Fifa had made fans of the soccer players from Germany, England, France, Spain and Italy tremble as to whether they would see TV pictures of the World Cup Down Under. As of June 14, there had been no television contract for those countries. Imagine that at a men’s World Cup. Well, some boycotted the tournament in Qatar. But with current hosts Australia and New Zealand less controversial, many want to see goals, celebrations and tears again. A hitherto unique rights poker had threatened that for a long time, and as is so often the case, it was all about money.
Fifa President Gianni Infantino would never openly admit that, after all the association is an association with tax privileges in his Swiss homeland. According to him, the fact that it took so long to award the rights was only due to the TV stations, which were not willing to contribute “to promoting women’s football more quickly”. Infantino complained that the bids were too low, which would have been more than a hundred times lower than those for the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar. That is unacceptable.
Women and men no longer in the same package
“Of course we’re interested in the rights,” ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky countered, but an acquisition must be “economically viable.” The advertising revenue to be expected is far lower than in men’s tournaments. The fact that Fifa was not only concerned with promoting women was shown by the fact that it had already signed a contract with 28 smaller areas with the European Broadcasting Union in autumn 2022. However, the five nations that always pay the most money were excluded. And Fifa now openly threatened not to sell the rights in those core markets at all.
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But how did the escalation come about? For a long time, women’s tournaments were a subsidy business for Fifa. Only with the 2019 World Cup and the 2022 European Championship did TV ratings skyrocket. So the association decided, for the first time, to no longer sell the TV licenses as an add-on in the package with the men, but to negotiate them separately. Infantino’s comparison with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is inaccurate in that the package, which is said to have cost ARD and ZDF 214 million euros, also included a women’s World Cup (2019).
But how much is that worth alone? Allegedly, ARD and ZDF offered up to 15 million euros, which was never confirmed. Infantino wanted more. In the course of the higher quotas and the debate about equal pay, Fifa had tripled the World Cup bonuses to a good 150 million US dollars – a welcome step. However, the major TV broadcasters should take on the refinancing.
Not at prime time in Europe
Only they didn’t play along. A World Cup so far from home increases production costs, it said. In addition, the transmission times are unfavorable. The three German group games, for example, do not start at prime time in the evening, but between 8.30 and 10 a.m. in the morning. Record quotas are therefore illusory, which is why private broadcasters apparently did not even start bidding.
After the growing criticism of Fifa around the men’s World Cup in Qatar, ARD and ZDF apparently felt encouraged to stop turning every turn of the payment screw. Even if this now threatened the transmission of a women’s tournament, of all things, many fee-payers had been demanding exactly that for a long time. Opponents of this strategy argued that the State Media Treaty stipulates that major events such as the Olympics and the World Cup should be broadcast free of charge. No distinction is made between men and women here. While that is correct, there is no obligation to transfer at all. The contract merely states a ban on only sending out encrypted offers. But since that doesn’t exist at the Women’s World Cup, there was actually a threat of a TV blackout.
Luckily for the footballers and their fans, it has still been averted. For how much money is unclear. Although fee-financed, ARD and ZDF never release the exact numbers – officially, because they are part of a contract. And of course Fifa doesn’t say how many millions they stole from the broadcasters. Please don’t paint any more on the picture of the money machine.
