Bundesliga auction of TV rights: The billion-dollar poker starts
The sale of the TV rights is entering the decisive phase. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
The DFL’s most important working days begin. The league is selling its television rights and wants to raise as much money as possible. The auction lasts almost two weeks. The questions and answers about it.
The Bundesliga sells its media rights every four years. The auction for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons starts this week at a secret location outside the DFL headquarters. Day after day, a total of 15 TV packages are awarded to the highest bidders and media companies.
What are the most important packages?
Packages A, B, C and D are particularly important for the league. They contain the pay-TV rights for the live broadcasts of the 1st league. To date, more than 80 percent of revenue comes from audiovisual marketing in the paid area. These rights currently lie with Sky and DAZN.- A contains the conferences.- B is the largest package with the games on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and on Friday evening as well as the relegation games. This package contains a total of 196 live games. – C is the package with the top games on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and the Supercup. It is the smallest with 34 games, but very popular thanks to the top games. – D includes the Sunday games. With a total of 79 live games, it includes the option of showing games several times on free TV.
What will become of the “Sportschau”?
The DFL offer contains a few complicated details, which ARD in particular is putting under pressure with its “Sportschau”. Package I is available in two versions, called Compact and Classic.
At Kompakt, the highlights could be seen on freely accessible television on Saturday between 7:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Pay providers can even indirectly help finance the end of the “Sportschau” by making an additional payment.
The Classic model allows summaries between 6:00 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. You would receive the “Sportschau” in its current form. A short version from 7:15 p.m. is out of the question for ARD, according to broadcaster circles.
What other free TV offers are there?
Of the 617 games per season, only nine can be seen on free TV. Package E contains three first division games, one second division game, the relegation with four matches and the Supercup. This package is currently available from ProSiebenSat.1.
Package G with 33 games on Saturday evening could – as is currently the case on Sky and Sport1 – be broadcast in parallel on free and pay TV in the future. The DFL is also selling six additional highlight rights packages for freely accessible channels. There are further rights packages for audio and digital outdoor advertising.
What is the expected revenue from the auction?
The DFL wants to generate revenue that at least maintains the level of the previous tender four years ago, in which the league earned an average of around 1.1 billion euros per season. “We are going into the auctions with confidence,” said DFL managing director Steffen Merkel, without giving specific figures. Are rates of increase of up to 80 percent to be expected as before the corona crisis, which recently caused the league to decline? “No, of course not. Everyone knows that,” said Merkel. Former Sky board member Holger Enßlin said at the SpoBis congress: “We are in a time when media revenues tend to stagnate.”
Which companies are offering?
Little changes are expected in the free TV packages. ARD and ZDF are likely to want to acquire rights for “Sportschau” and “Sportstudio” again. When it comes to pay rights, Sky and DAZN are once again considered very interested, although both are having difficulty recouping the current costs of the expensive rights from their subscribers.
Which new competitors are being discussed? Among other things, the RTL Group, which currently has no Bundesliga rights, has signaled general interest. In addition to Telekom, Amazon in particular is repeatedly mentioned as interested in pay rights. Rights dealer Enßlin, now with Commercial Sports Media, said: “Amazon is someone to be reckoned with.”
What impact can the auction have on fans?
The football classic “Sportschau” could be omitted from free TV, even if that is not considered very likely. Several variants are possible in pay TV, especially since the so-called “no single buyer rule” was deleted by the cartel office. This regulation stated that not one single pay-TV provider was allowed to buy all the live rights, but at least two had to be involved.
At the auction, a single broadcaster could now acquire all pay-TV rights – fans would only need a subscription. But there are also other options. Because in the tender there are four different packages available for pay TV: A, B, C and D. It could also be the case that from 2025 fans will need even more subscriptions than they currently do in order to see all live games in the 1st Bundesliga on TV.
How is the auction going?
The DFL sets a minimum amount for each package. In the simplest case, it works like this: whoever offers the most money gets the contract and receives a message on the same day. A special and complicated case only occurs when the next best bid is 20 percent or less lower than that of the highest bidder. Then there is a second round and finally a decision by the DFL if the difference remains the same.
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