German pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland will continue to distribute in public establishments Bundesliga matches that have been recently acquired by streaming service DAZN, until a longer-term deal can be signed.
Since DAZN sublicensed 45 Bundesliga matches from US media group Discovery in July as part of a multi-faceted deal, it has yet to agree a deal for those matches to be distributed in public establishments.
Discovery, which initially acquired the Bundesliga rights from the Deutsche Fußball Liga for four-seasons, from 2017-18 to 2020-21, had previously agreed a deal with pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland in order to allow those matches to be shown by public establishments with a Sky subscription.
Until a longer term agreement is struck by DAZN, Sky will continue to show Bundesliga matches via the Eurosport 2HD Xtra channel. DAZN has said it is continuing to work on a new deal.
DAZN’s coverage of the Bundesliga began on Friday between Bayern Munich and Hertha BSC in a match also broadcast domestically by public broadcaster ZDF. The game attracted an average of 7.7m viewers on ZDF (and a 29.2-per-cent market share), a rise of around 700,000 viewers on last season’s opener (between Bayern Munich and TSG Hoffenheim).
The ‘Sportschau’ Saturday evening free-to-air highlights programme on ARD was watched by an average of 4.4m viewers (a 19.4-per-cent share), an increase of around 400,000 viewers on last season’s opening programme.