The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), the governing body of German soccer, has confirmed a 2% increase in media rights value with its new broadcast deals for the next four-year cycle. Despite facing several challenges, the league has once again surpassed the €1 billion mark in awarding German-language rights.
For seasons spanning from 2025-26 to 2028-29, revenues totaling €1.121 billion per season are expected for the top-flight Bundesliga and second-tier 2. Bundesliga's combined total of 36 clubs. The total revenue across these four years will amount to just under €4.5 billion.
With these new rights deals, Bundesliga maintains its position as having the second-largest domestic broadcast contract among all major leagues worldwide, trailing only behind England's Premier League.
Key broadcast partners
Sky Deutschland and DAZN have been reaffirmed as primary broadcast partners by DFL. Additionally, free-to-air commercial broadcaster Sat.1 secured an extensive live free-to-air (FTA) rights package that includes season openings of both leagues, relegation matches and Supercup games.
Steffen Merkel, DFL co-CEO, said:
“The result of the tender underlines the unbroken popularity of German professional football in economically challenging times. Trust and unity in the league association have paid off.
“At the end of an intensive process, we now have a very good and extensively secured economic result. The clubs therefore have planning security at a high financial level for four more years. For the fans, the future partners in the pay and free areas mean a high degree of consistency.”
Germany's two leading public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF have retained highlight rights packages while Sport1 also holds broadcasting rights for highlights from both leagues' games. The DFL emphasized that all these rights were awarded through an open, transparent and non-discriminatory tender process agreed upon with Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.
Package details
DAZN secured Package A which includes coverage of simultaneous matches played at Saturday afternoons’ ‘Konferenz’ slot along with Package D which gives it broadcasting privileges for Sunday games each season. Sky Deutschland retains controversial Package B comprising Friday evening and Saturday afternoon matches along with relegation Bundesliga play-off matches; it also secured Package C including Saturday evening's top match and all games from 2. Bundesliga.
ARD and ZDF secured rights for early Saturday evening, Friday and Sunday evening highlights of both leagues' games while Sport1 has the right to broadcast highlights on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. Commercial broadcaster RTL acquired pay rights for highlight clips of matches available on demand immediately after the game ends. The newly introduced short clip rights from Monday were snapped up by German publishing giant Axel Springer. Audio rights were also awarded in the tender with ARD winning in both areas (FM and web/mobile).
The current cycle’s domestic live TV rights to Bundesliga action are shared between Sky Deutschland, DAZN, ProSiebenSat.1, Sport1 with ARD holding FTA highlights rights. These deals are worth around €1.1 billion annually; a value that the league has successfully retained for its new agreements. This announcement concludes a protracted tender process which was delayed due to a legal dispute with DAZN over Package B's awarding to Sky Deutschland. After resuming auctions on November 25 following a court ruling in favor of DAZN, the DFL moved swiftly to award domestic rights before year-end.
