With the Bundesliga’s current domestic broadcasting rights deal set to expire at the end of the 2024-25 season, the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) has begun the tender process for the next rights cycle.
The German football governing body has invited all interested broadcasters to register to the tender process “to conduct an open, transparent, and non-discriminatory tender process for the allocation of media exploitation rights”.
Broadcast rights for Bunesliga and 2. Bundesliga matches for the next four-year period – 2025 – 2029 – will be made available to be sold in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol, and East-Belgium.
Once the interested parties have registered for the tender process, the DFL will send out letters containing schedule and procedural rules pertaining to deadlines and criteria for admission, as well as the process guidelines for submitting bids and for the allocation of advertised rights packages.
The DFL confirmed that a decision on who will be allocated the rights will be made in the second quarter of 2024.
Sky Deutschland (200 matches), DAZN (106 matches) and ProSieben (3 matches) all share broadcast rights for the Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga under the current broadcast rights deal.
The first and second tier German football leagues are currently (combined) the second most valuable broadcast deals in European football at €1.079bn (£938m) per season, not including newly signed deals made recently by the English Premier League and Italian Serie A.
It almost seems a certainty that the DFL will aim to increase this number for its next rights cycle, considering the Premier League recently signed a record £6.7bn domestic deal until 2029, with its current incumbent broadcast partners also likely to renegotiate.
What was surprising about the Premier League deal however was the absence of a streaming broadcast partner, axing Amazon’s four-year coverage to give more games per season to domestic broadcasters Sky Sports and TNT Sports.
With the Bundesliga having a pre-existing deal currently in place with DAZN, as well as Serie A, La Liga and Ligue 1 all showcasing live games on streaming services, it remains to be seen whether the Premier League may be playing catch up when it comes to live football streaming come 2029, as it continues to grow throughout sports.
