The Swiss Football League will launch an invitation to tender for domestic and international media rights, from the 2021-22 season, on September 14.
The tender is for rights to all matches from the top-tier Super League and second-tier Challenge League, including relegation playoffs.
In April, the SFL announced that the invitation to tender from the 2021-22 season onward was “imminent” after clubs voted to maintain the current 10-team model in the top-tier Super League.
Currently, pay-television broadcaster Teleclub holds domestic live rights to all matches in a four-season deal with the SFL, from 2017-18 to 2020-21, worth just over CHF30m (€27.9m/$30.9m). Teleclub sublicences non-exclusive rights to public-service broadcaster SRG SSR, which shows 36 Super League matches per season taking place on a Sunday.
International rights over the same period were acquired by the Sportfive (previously Lagardère Sports) agency. The SFL was advised by the Profile Partners agency on the tender for the 2017-21 cycle, which was launched in 2016.
At the time, the SFL also sealed a four-year sponsorship rights sales contract with the InfrontRingier agency. The sale of the domestic and international broadcast and sponsorship rights brought in a total of CHF40m per year.
Last month, Swiss telecoms operators Swisscom reached a landmark distribution agreement for Teleclub with rival UPC, which will also see the latter’s MySports pay-television platform distributed by Swisscom.
Swisscom and UPC have fiercely battled for sports rights in recent years, and Swiss market experts spoken to by SportBusiness Media have predicted tough sales conditions following the cross-carriage agreement.
The SFL will be the first major rightsholder to go to market following the deal.
It has invited all interested parties in the new tender to request the documents via the tender@sfl.ch email address.