Following a lawsuit by the losing provider DAZN, the awarding of rights package B will be carried out again by the DFL as part of the media rights tender.
In an arbitration procedure under the rules of the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS), an arbitration tribunal partially upheld the lawsuit filed by DAZN at the end of April against the award of rights package B in the media rights tender for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons.
The reasons for the decision will be announced to the parties in November. Against this background, the DFL is currently refraining from commenting further on the content. The DFL will announce details on the continuation of the awarding of media rights after further substantive coordination in the DFL Executive Committee.
How did the dispute over the TV rights come about?
The dispute concerns package B for live games on pay TV. It is the largest package with the matches on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and on Friday evening as well as the relegation matches. This package includes a total of 196 live games. The other live games are included in the pay TV packages C with the top games on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and the Supercup, and D with the Sunday games. In total, that is 113 live games.
The sales process for the audiovisual media rights for the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga was initially interrupted in April because a bank guarantee from DAZN was missing. The pay-TV broadcaster Sky was then awarded the lucrative TV rights package, having offered significantly less than DAZN. The entire process was then halted for the time being.
DAZN had bid around 400 million euros annually for Package B – around 1.6 billion euros for the rights period from 2025/26 to 2028/29. Over this four-year period, the offer was said to have been around 300 million euros higher than that of the competition. DAZN had complained that the required bank guarantee could not be obtained within 24 hours and submitted it a few days later. In the DFL’s view, this was too late: “Submitting documents after the award of a rights package in accordance with the auction rules has no effect.”
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Image source:
- Bundesliga_Sky_DAZN: © Bundesliga, DAZN, Sky
