The Deutsche Fussball Liga, the German football league, may relax restrictions on advertising during its live and highlights programming to build interest in its domestic rights among commercial broadcasters.
“We have discussed the subject of special forms of advertising,” said Christian Seifert, the DFL’s chief executive, speaking at the SpoBis conference in Dusseldorf. “You cannot on one hand expect more competitive bidding from the private sector and then on the other hand impose strong limitations.”
Seifert said a significant increase in domestic rights income in the next cycle was not an “automatic” guarantee. The league earns €412 million ($544 million) per year in the current four-year cycle, from 2009-10 to 2012-13.
The league outlined the rights packages for the 2013-14 to 2016-17 cycle last week. The sales process is expected to be complete by May.
Yahoo! Germany chief executive Heiko Genzlinger, also speaking at SpoBis, said his company was not planning to bid for the internet-only Saturday-evening free-to-air highlights rights that the league has offered for the first time. Genzlinger said Yahoo would be unable to refinance the cost of the rights.
The league offered the package based on the long-held theory in the German market that the free-to-air television highlights, traditionally shown at 6:30pm on Saturdays, limited pay-television subscriber growth in Germany. The league hopes that pay-television operators will pay more if the early-evening highlights are only available online.
Public-service broadcaster ARD is the current holder of the Saturday-evening highlights rights. According to German newspaper Die Welt, ARD pays €75 million per year for the package.
Yahoo is still interested in some of the other internet rights on offer in the tender, including rights that would allow it to offer highlights on a paid-for basis from 7:15pm on Saturdays, and for free from midnight after the matches.
Seifert said the league is unlikely to launch its own television channel due to the financial risks involved. He said that previous examples of leagues launching their own channels in Europe had been done “out of desperation”.