The shared rights have allowed DAZN to consolidate its position in the market when it comes to broadcasting some of the major European football leagues. Now, it seems that problems have begun in Germany due to an auction of rights that he calls unfair.
DAZN It has become one of the streaming platforms for consuming sports content with the greatest presence on the European continent. In order to broadcast the most powerful football leagues, the company has opted for a rights sharing policy which, through collaborations with other operators, has been able to reach different top-level leagues. As is the case of LaLiga, lto the German Bundesliga or the Italian domestic league, among others.
Recently, however, DAZN has announced that it is ready to sue the Bundesliga for the television rights to the competition. The news comes as a result of the DFL (the German football league) having chosen Sky’s offer over DAZN’s, despite the fact that the latter’s was 20% higher.
Television rights
At the moment, Sky and DAZN They already share the television rights of the German domestic competition. A very similar scenario to what we find in Spain. However, for DAZN there have been irregularities when awarding these same rights for the four-year period that included between 2025 and 2029. The streaming platform has warned, via postal mail, that the German league is limiting the competition when awarding these rights.
The DFL has decided not to grant DAZN package B for the television rights. This package would be made up of a total of 196 matches live per season. In addition, those on Friday nights, those on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and the playoffs for promotion to the Bundesliga are included. For DAZN, their offer was the “more attractive and financially compelling”. Furthermore, he states that “We were led to believe that our offer was significantly higher than any other. We have no other explanation for this behavior than that the DFL management had already decided the outcome, awarding package B to its preferred bidder and depriving the clubs of their share of the additional revenue from the DAZN bid without making another bidding round”.
The normative
Although the exact amount that Sky offered is unknown, DAZN does assure that its proposal was a 20% higher than that of this operator. The bidding rules establish that an offer will be accepted when it exceeds the indicated minimum and if the second highest offer is more than 20% lower than the first. Therefore, it seems that the conditions for her to be directly chosen would be met.
DAZN details more irregularities during the process. Like, for example, the DFL requesting a bank guarantee within a period of 24 hours, which was not initially included in the rules. And, furthermore, it would only have been justified if DAZN had previously had a payment problem in the past, something that has never happened.
While the situation is resolved, DAZN states that “Given the lack of response from the DFL to our complaint regarding the illegitimate transfer of rights package B, DAZN will take legal action to obtain the transfer of the package”. The situation becomes more complex if we take into account that currently Sky and DAZN They have a combined offer to offer the german league matches to his viewers. Therefore, to a greater or lesser extent, they are condemned to understand each other.
