The DFL has suspended the auction of media rights to professional football – something that has never happened before. The reason for this is a complaint from the streaming provider DAZN. What does this mean for the Bundesliga?
What happens to the media rights for the Bundesliga? Just shortly after the start of the auction for the football broadcast rights for games in the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons, the German Football League (DFL) stopped the bidding process for the time being – for the first time in its history. The proceedings were abruptly ended yesterday due to a dispute with the internet broadcaster DAZN. Now there is a risk of lengthy legal disputes. When and how things will continue is currently completely unclear.
dispute over Financial guarantees
The background is the sale of the DFL’s media rights, which takes place every four years. The league currently earns an average of around 1.1 billion euros per season. The auction for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons started this week. The affected package B is the largest in the Bundesliga and includes a total of 196 live games – including the games on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and on Friday evening as well as the relegation games.
The dispute between the DFL and DAZN, currently the league’s second-largest partner, arose after the first round of the auction on Monday. DAZN feels discriminated against because its offer for rights package B was rejected, even though it was “the most financially attractive and convincing.” The amount of the bid is unknown. If an interested party meets the DFL minimum requirement at the auction and is at the same time 20 percent higher than the second best offer, he or she will be awarded the contract immediately.
Apparently the DFL did not accept the financial guarantees provided by DAZN, as stated in a letter sent to the DFL management and the 36 clubs via the Frankfurt law firm Gleiss Lutz. As with the last tender, the company then submitted “a tough letter of comfort”. A parent company can issue a letter of comfort for a subsidiary in order to improve its creditworthiness – i.e. creditworthiness. However, according to its own statements, the group should provide a bank guarantee in the short term.
The cartel office confirms this confrontation
The fact that DAZN did not win the bidding against the television channel Sky on Monday despite what the company considered to be a “financially superior offer” violated German and European antitrust law, the provider wrote in the letter from which it was first published the picture” and the “Frankfurter Rundschau” quoted, further. According to its own information, the streaming company therefore contacted the Federal Cartel Office, which approved the tender and is also monitoring it.
The DFL, led by the two managing directors Marc Lenz and Steffen Merkel, stopped the auction yesterday and informed the clubs about the interruption in order to “protect the process”. “The allegations and accusations made are inaccurate, baseless and we reject them very clearly,” it said in the evening. “The letter from DAZN Group Limited also contains a number of incorrect representations and shortenings of facts.”
“DFL GmbH will of course carry out the procedure in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner in accordance with the tender procedures presented to the Federal Cartel Office and the regulations of the tender documents,” wrote the DFL managing directors. The Federal Cartel Office is “currently not taking a position”, but confirmed this tagesschau.de the argument. “Those involved have contacted us about the matter.”
Neither side gives any details
Today DAZN expressed reservations about the self-initiated auction stop. “DAZN has concerns about certain elements of the award process and has raised these issues directly with the DFL. DAZN remains committed to creating added value for the Bundesliga, its clubs and its fans,” the group said in a statement tagesschau.de with. In addition, the company will not comment further on the issue at this time.
The DFL also simply announced again today: “The allegations from DAZN are incorrect and are rejected by the DFL.” There were no formal errors in the allocation of rights. “The DFL will not be commenting on any further details of the process at this time, taking into account the binding confidentiality rules agreed upon by all parties – including DAZN.”
TV contracts expire at the end of the season
The Bundesliga is now under enormous time pressure because the current contracts expire at the end of the coming season. The billion-dollar poker game was actually supposed to be completed at the end of April. “Protracted legal disputes would be fatal and counterproductive for the entire tender process, because both the broadcasters and the DFL need planning security quickly,” said media scientist Michael Schaffrath to the dpa news agency. He also sees other problems. “After the investor deal collapsed, the DFL is once again producing strangely irritating headlines.”
“Beyond the question of whether the DFL or DAZN are right with their respective representations, I can’t imagine that the 36 professional clubs for which the DFL is negotiating the rights really like this,” said the professor at the Technical University of Munich. And the fact that this is now being discussed in public is certainly not evidence of professional communication management and undoubtedly damages the image.”
With information from Till Bücker, ARD financial editorial team.