The German football association DFL (Deutsche Fußball Liga) has opened a second bidding round for 19 packages of broadcast rights to its games.
Deutsche Telekom and Sky Deutschland now have to put in new bids for live coverage of the games starting with the 2013/14 season. The rights on sale are for four seasons, up to 2016/17.
At the moment, Sky D holds all the rights for ‘regular’ broadcasting, wile Telekom only has access to the IPTV distribution rights. When the new bidding opened, Telekom has made no secret it now wants to acquire all rights, both broadcast and IPTV.
Telekom’s ambitions have sparked some unrest, especially among cable operators who fear they might not get access to live games anymore. At the moment, most cable operators have distribution agreements with Sky D. Should Telekom acquire all the rights, the cablers fear the telecoms giant will use its exclusive access to its promote IPTV product.
The 19 different packages are subdivided between Broadcast (for pay and FTA broadcasters), Netcast 1 (for IPTV providers) and Netcast 2 (for mobile and live streaming on the internet).
The DFL has planned a press conference on Tuesday, April 17 to inform the public about the state of the bidding war.
