The German Bundesliga TV Rights Selling Model – Historical Study

Abstract

The tv rights income for each Bundesliga club for the 1999/00 season was approximately 6 million euro, while for the 2001-2003 period, a new tv rights deal almost doubled the league annual revenues from 212 to 383 million euro. The next deal, for the 2004-2009 period, valued 440 million euro per season, and the 2009-2013 period deal was slightly lower, at the level of 412 million euro per season. Βundesliga succeeded a spectacular increase in their tv rights income with the 2013-17 period deal, securing 628 million euro per season. The purpose of the study is to show how the German football authorities marketed the German football championship and applied selling and income distribution mechanisms, in order to increase the rights value and the clubs revenues in a spectacular way over the last 20 years. The study could be useful to any football league that wants to develop and sell their televised product.