German football association DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga has started the tender process for the Bundesliga TV rights in German-speaking markets.
The rights allocation, which covers Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol, and East-Belgium, refers to the four seasons 2025/2026, 2026/2027, 2027/2028 and 2028/2029.
In a statement, DFL announced to conduct “an open, transparent, and non-discriminatory tender process for the allocation of media exploitation rights for the matches of the DFL competitions”.
All companies interested in acquiring the rights can register to participate in the invitation to tender starting today. The registration form is available at dfl.de/de/aktuelles/ausschreibung2024.
DFL will send the registered companies a procedure letter within the coming weeks. The letter will include the schedule and procedural rules, especially the deadlines and criteria for admission to the invitation to tender, the procedure for submitting bids, and the criteria and procedure for the allocation of the advertised rights packages.
In a next step, the invitation to tender documentation will be sent to all admitted companies. It will include the final structure of the rights packages and the other contractual provisions. The allocation decision is expected to be made in Q2 2024.
In the previous tender four years ago, Sky Deutschland and DAZN secured the largest rights packages for their subscription services while the free-TV rights were acquired by ProSiebenSat.1 (for Sat.1), ARD, ZDF, Sport1 and Axel Springer (for BILD). Overall, the rights holders agreed to pay an average of €1.1 billion per season.
The question is whether DFL can top the figure this year, possibly through new contenders like Amazon or more exclusivity granted to subscription services.