Sky D has secured the live rights to all Bundesliga games at the expense of Deutsche Telekom, which has lost its IPTV rights. On average Sky will pay a licence fee of €485.7 million per season.
The German Football League (DFL) has granted Sky Deutschland the exclusive pay-TV rights for all live Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga matches from the 2013/14 season through to 2016/17. The award covers the rights for all platforms, including those currently held across satellite, cable and web, and adds IPTV and mobile.
By adding the IPTV and mobile rights, Sky D has dealt a serious blow to Deutsche Telekom, which until now has distributed the live Bundesliga games via its Liga Total package on its IPTV service Entertain.
For the DFL, the new contract means an increase in its revenue from TV rights of around 50%. For Sky D the deal will almost double its current costs, on average €250 million per season.
Public broadcaster ARD acquired the rights to continue to show clips on its Bundesliga highlights show on Saturday evenings. The Sportschau programme is something of an institution among German football fans. ARD also won the rights to broadcast seven live matches per season on its free-to-air network.
Private broadcaster Sport 1 and pubcaster ZDF secured some minor highlight and Bundesliga 2 rights.
Publisher Axel Springer got rights for the first time, it will show clips on web-TV and via mobile. It plans to make these clips part of the online and mobile presence of its Bild newspaper, the country’s biggest selling tabloid.
Brian Sullivan, CEO of Sky Deutschland, in a statement: “Today’s announcement is good news for Sky customers. This new agreement means Sky will continue to offer all matches of the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga, the most exciting competitions in Europe, live and in HD. In addition the extended rights provide business certainty for the next five years, and will open exciting new opportunities for growth and innovation. The DFL is an important partner for Sky and we are delighted to extend our long-standing relationship.”
Broadband TV Views. The winners of this year’s Bundesliga auction are the clubs. Because of the bidding war between Sky and Telekom they will see their revenue increase by more than 50%. They clearly benefited from the bidding war between the two rivals.
Sky D is also a winner, but it will pay a hefty price. Not only does it hold the broadcast rights, but is free to distribute the live games on all the platforms. This includes live streaming to all devices and allows the pay-TV broadcaster to offer an all-encompassing package of football products.
Deutsche Telekom lost the IPTV rights and will also not be able to offer a mobile football service. Its offer helped to push up the price paid by Sky, but according to local reports, their best offer was still 20% below Sky’s.
