German subscription broadcaster Sportdigital has rebranded itself as Sportdigital Fussball (‘Football’) to reflect a programming line-up now entirely focused on live coverage of different international football leagues.
The broadcaster revealed the channel’s new name and accompanying logo on Monday as it looks to better promote its positioning as the broadcaster of 14 different leagues and competitions around the world.
In recent years, Sportdigital has marketed its “Football Around The World” concept and promoted itself as “The Football Channel” but has now implemented a full renaming in order to better communicate its positioning.
The news follows the recent announcement that Sportdigital had secured rights to Poland’s Ekstraklasa in Germany, Austria and Poland in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Sportdigital Fussball also holds rights to the top-tier football leagues in Argentina, Australia, China, the Czech Republic, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal and Russia. The channel’s portfolio also comprises England’s second-tier Championship, the Copa Libertadores, Copa do Brasil and Concacaf Champions League.
Gisbert Wundram, managing director of Sportdigital Fussball, said: “With our new logo we connect the present and future and consequently place football as by far the most popular sport right in the middle.”
He added: “With the addition of Fussball we are showing what we offer to viewers who do not know the channel yet – and that is live football from all over the world around the clock.”
Sportdigital launched in 2007 as a joint venture between the Sportfive Germany agency and Sportainment, the German production and live streaming company headed by Wundram.
The channel was initially set up to produce and stream live coverage of Basketball Bundesliga, Handball Bundesliga and Volleyball Bundesliga as they struggled for mainstream broadcast exposure in Germany at the time.
However, Sportfive exited the venture in 2010 and, under Sportainment’s full ownership, it went on to focus on picking up rights to international football leagues and provide commentary in German. A high-definition virtual studio was introduced in 2011 to provide pre- and post-match analysis.
Wundram told dwdl.de recently: “It is not easy because practically every niche is occupied. The area that we occupied back then [in 2007] has in the intervening period been very well covered by Sportdeutschland.TV, for example.”
He insisted that the coverage of football continues to gain in popularity despite “many saying that the peak was reached a long time ago.”
The channel generates 85 per cent of its revenues from subscription income and reaches around 1.5 million pay-TV households in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The rebrand of the channel’s logo was carried out by freelance German designer Tom Druckrey.