Austrian Bundesliga clubs have agreed a new distribution of their media-rights revenue after several clubs showed dissatisfaction with how the new record deal with Sky was split.
Clubs from the top-tier football league in Austria agreed on Tuesday night a new model for the sharing of the money received from global media rights.
Unhappiness over the distribution of the rights first came to light in December last year when a request for change came from two of the clubs, Admira and LASK Linz.
This request was voted down by seven of the clubs (against five in favour), with Rapid Vienna the leading voice of those clubs against change. Rapid Vienna was the top earner from the media rights distribution in the league and this week threatened to pull away from the collective rights agreement if too many revisions were made.
The new distribution agreement, which includes a solidarity payment to the smaller clubs in the league along with a €500,000 per season payment to Austria’s second-tier football league, was approved unanimously.
The league signed a record-breaking exclusive global rights deal in October 2017 with pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland, from 2018-19 to 2025-26. The value of the new deal was on average about 70 per cent higher than the league was receiving in its previous deals with Sky and public-service broadcaster ORF.