DPG Media’s Videoland gains live sport for the first time, absorbing Viaplay’s Dutch business and its rights portfolio for €142m
Viaplay Group has agreed to sell its Dutch streaming and broadcasting business to Videoland, the platform owned by DPG Media, for €142m ($162m) on a cash and debt-free basis. The transaction is pending regulatory clearance and consent from Viaplay’s lenders, with completion expected in the coming months.
The deal represents the first move into live sport for DPG Media, after its Videoland platform has built its reputation on entertainment and Dutch-language productions, and the acquisition gives the platform a ready-made sports rights portfolio. DPG Media has described the expansion into live sport as a long-standing ambition for the business.
DPG Media is one of the largest media groups in the Benelux region, with newspaper, broadcast and streaming interests across Belgium and the Netherlands.
Adding live sport to Videoland fits a broader push to make the platform a fuller alternative to international streaming services, combining entertainment, Dutch-language originals and now major sports rights under one subscription.
Premier League and F1 headline the rights portfolio
The rights transferring to Videoland include Premier League football in the Netherlands, the Bundesliga, Formula 1 and PDC darts, along with the rest of Viaplay Netherlands’ sports programming.
For a platform with no prior live sport offering of note, it is a big addition to the schedule, arriving with an established Dutch sports audience already in place.
The contract lengths involved show how firmly Viaplay had committed to the Dutch market when the rights were secured.
Its Formula 1 agreement runs through 2029, and the Premier League deal extends through the 2027-28 season, both stretching years beyond the point of sale. DPG Media inherits those commitments largely intact, along with the subscriber relationships built around them.
Deal caps a broader financial reset
The sale continues a period of retrenchment for Viaplay, which began when its finances came under severe pressure in 2023, following years of rapid, debt-fuelled international expansion.
Businesses in the US, UK and Baltic states have already been sold as part of the same correction, and the Dutch disposal follows last year’s acquisition of the remaining 50% of Allente Group and a subsequent refinancing of the wider business.
Group President and CEO Jorgen Madsen Lindemann said: “The sale is in line with our strategic transformation and the priority to focus on the group’s operations in our core Nordic markets, where we have the greatest scale and synergies,” he said.
“The proceeds of the sale will enable us to accelerate the deleveraging and strengthening of the group’s financial profile.”
Nordic focus continues to sharpen
Viaplay’s Dutch business generated €149m in net sales in 2025, a measure of the scale DPG Media is taking on.
Viaplay says the sale will not alter its full-year 2026 financial targets or its longer-term ambitions, with the associated transaction and restructuring costs accounted for separately.
Once the deal closes, Viaplay’s remaining operations will sit almost entirely within the Nordics, alongside a portfolio of TV channels and radio stations in Sweden and Norway.
In late May, Viaplay extended its Nordic rights agreement with the NHL through the 2030-31 season, one of several long-term deals underpinning its home market.
With the Dutch business now departing, Viaplay’s sports rights presence outside the Nordics has narrowed to almost nothing, leaving the group’s broadcasting strategy concentrated squarely on the region where it started.
