German professional Football has secured a jackpot of 4.484 billion euros in revenue from television rights for the German-speaking area over the period 2025-2029, or 1.121 billion euros per season, announced the German Football League ( DFL), Thursday December 5.
This is the third consecutive cycle of four seasons for which the DFL has obtained television rights in excess of one billion euros per season. From 2017 to 2021, they amounted to 1.16 billion euros (4.64 billion euros in total). For the following period from 2021 to 2025, the auction in spring 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the Bundesliga at a standstill, resulted in a slight drop to 1.1 billion euros ( 4.4 billion euros in total).
This agreement concerns Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Italian South Tyrol and the German-speaking part of eastern Belgium, and was presented on Thursday to the thirty-six clubs of first and second divisions. It rises above the billion euro mark so coveted throughout Europe, and constitutes a success for the DFL with a slight increase of 2% compared to the previous cycle.
More than double that of Ligue 1
This figure goes against the trends observed recently in the marketing of television rights to sporting events. FIFA struggled to find a buyer for its new Club World Cup (organized from June 15 to July 13), finally opting for DAZN after refusing several offers deemed too weak for the Women's World Cup in 2023. UEFA had also delayed in selling its rights for Euro 2024.
In France, Ligue 1 negotiated its television rights recently and saw its revenues collapse by almost a third, from 726.5 million euros between 2016 and 2020 to 500 million euros for the period 2024- 2029. In Italy, Serie A obtained 900 million euros per season between 2024 and 2029, down 8% compared to the 2018-2021 period.
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The 306 live matches of a Bundesliga season will be broadcast as in the previous cycle by the pay channels Sky and DAZN, with a few changes at the margins. DAZN, which has won rights for the second time, will broadcast the Saturday afternoon multiplex (and therefore that of the nine matches of the 34e and last day), which had belonged to Sky since its creation during the 2000-2001 season. Sky recovers the Sunday matches that DAZN had obtained between 2021 and 2025, the platform broadcasting the Bundesliga since 2019 when Eurosport sublicensed its rights from 2019 to 2021.
