Bundesliga plans its own streaming platform: The great media change begins!

Bundesliga plans its own streaming platform: The great media change begins!

The Austrian Bundesliga has big plans for the future: From 2026, a separate streaming platform is to be set up in order to manage the transmission of games themselves and to become independent of classic TV partners. This decision was made in a club conference with all twelve Bundesliga clubs, and preparations for change have been running for about 18 months. According to a profitability analysis, self -marketing could be more profitable in the long term, which causes the Bundesliga to develop the model as a full media company. A new society may be founded for this purpose, which is based on the successful model of the Dutch eredivisie, as reported.

In order to successfully build your own platform, considerable investments in technical infrastructure and personnel resources are necessary. Nevertheless, the league refrains from direct financial participation in the clubs in the new platform. Talks with potential investors are already underway, and in June a detailed business plan in cooperation with the clubs is to be developed. Numerous aspects such as legal framework conditions and financing issues must be taken into account. Bundesliga board member Christian Ebenbauer is optimistic and plans to provide specific information for fans by the end of the year.

fears and challenges in the streaming sector

The streaming sector is becoming increasingly important in the sports area. The sales in the streaming market worldwide are said to have doubled to around 54 billion euros by 2021, as Deutschlandfunk. The trend towards providing video and audio content "Over-the-top", that is, without Internet provider, is an important development. Markus Luer, founder of Total Sports Asia and Sportfix, sees the future of digital transmission.

Nevertheless, there are also concerns. A survey shows that 72 % of customers fear technical problems in streaming. These fears were confirmed by technical breakdowns, for example at the Eurosport player at the beginning of the Bundesliga season. However, the problems are often not in streaming itself, but when registering new customers.

market developments and strategies

DAZN acquired the live rights for the Champions League for a rained 600 million euros over three years. Kay Dammholz from DAZN emphasizes that the company would like to expand the market and do not want to suppress the competition. Cooperation with the media, print, online and even with free TV channels like Sport 1 are part of this strategy. The German Olympic Sports Association has launched its own streaming platform with Sportdeutschland.tv, and other sports associations, such as the European Handball Association, also develop its own offers.