Following the dispute regarding the free-to-air satellite transmission of German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, the IHF World Men’s Handball Championship 2017 will now be streamed online in Germany by a local bank and YouTube.
Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), the main sponsor of Germany’s domestic handball league Handball Bundesliga, has acquired the exclusive live broadcast rights from rights holder beIN Media Group and will show all games of the German team and other matches live. Financial details have not been disclosed.
The matches of the tournament taking place in France from January 11 to 29, 2017 will be made available on handball.dkb.de – geo-blocked and only available to internet users in Germany. The OTT streaming service will be set up with YouTube as technical partner.
ARD and ZDF would have liked to broadcast the Handball World Cup 2017 live, but the rights holder opposed their free-to-air satellite transmission. Through Astra (19.2° East) and Eutelsat Hotbird (13° East), viewers outside Germany are able to receive the signals. In some of these countries, beIN Media has allocated the rights to pay-TV broadcasters. ARD and ZDF reject the encryption of their DTH satellite distribution.
The same dispute preceded the TV coverage of the IHF World Men’s Handball Championship 2015. German pay-TV operator Sky Deutschland jumped in on short notice and transmitted the tournament live.
beIN Media, part of Qatar-based Al Jazeera group, acquired the TV rights for the Handball World Championships 2015 and 2017 from IHF in February 2014.
