Soccer rights: Premiere keeps Champions League and hopes for Bundesliga

In a few weeks, it will become clear whether the payTV channel will broadcast the German Soccer Bundesliga or not. That's what CEO Georg Kofler said in Munich. He describes the situation as open. Premiere has increased its operating result and made the leap into the profit zone. Premiere has agreed on a strategic cooperation with the sports broadcaster DSF for the next three years and was thus able to prevent the rights to the Champions League from reverting to the European Football Union Uefa. Under the Champions TV market, Premiere will present one match live and unencrypted on DSF on each of the 13 match days. Premiere describes Champions TV as a "nucleus for free TV activities. After acquiring the Champions League rights, Premiere had even briefly considered buying DSF in order to also own a station in the freeTV sector. Attractive offers from combined pay and freeTV packages were announced to advertising customers. In general, Premiere expects advertising revenues to rise. In the coming weeks, Premiere plans to present the results of negotiations with the holders of the Bundesliga rights. However, the chances are not good. The media company Arena, which was surprisingly awarded the rights instead of Premiere, had recently reported that it did not want to resell the rights, but to exploit them itself. According to a report in Spiegel, ex-ProSieben boss Dejan Jocic, who once gained sports experience at DSF, is to become head of production at Arena and put together the moderation and editorial team.