Retail giant Amazon has reached an agreement for its Prime Video service to provide live coverage of two more German Bundesliga matches this weekend for subscribers in Germany and Austria.
Amazon will cover the derby match between Hertha Berlin and Union Berlin tonight as well as Schalke 04’s home match against Augsburg on Sunday at 1.30pm (CET). Prime customers in Germany and Austria will receive access to the matches as part of their existing subscriptions.
The coverage will be non-exclusive given the league’s recently-signed deal with subscription OTT service DAZN.
The Bundesliga returned last weekend following its suspension due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and Amazon broadcast Bayer Leverkusen’s 4-1 win at Werder Bremen on Monday night.
Subscribers to Amazon Prime have previously had access to Bundesliga matches, as rights-holder Discovery had a distribution agreement with the online retailer that gave its customers access to its Eurosport content.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the German Football League (DFL) has been able to renegotiate all of its domestic contracts, including its radio rights deal with Amazon, apart from its agreement with Discovery. The media group is seeking to terminate its media-rights contract with the league, utilising a reported ‘special termination’ clause.
As a result, DAZN has had to go directly to the DFL to acquire the rights it was due to broadcast through its own sublicensing agreement with Discovery.
Like Amazon, DAZN agreed a deal with the DFL to broadcast the Werder Bremen vs Bayer Leverkusen match on Monday night, and yesterday (Thursday) the platform extended its Bundesliga coverage in Germany and Switzerland until the end of the season. The deal covers nine live matches from the top-tier Bundesliga and four relegation matches between Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.