No revolution after the dispute: There will be no major changes in the distribution of TV money in German football. This emerges from the new distribution key published on Monday, which was unanimously decided by the Presidium of German Football League (DFL). The hopes of currently second -class traditional clubs such as Hamburger SV and Schalke 04 also smashed more money.
In the case of national media proceeds, the previous factors “equal distribution, performance, interest and offspring with their previous weighting” and the ratio of 80:20 percent remain between first and second division teams.
Above all, the “interest” pillar had caused discussions in advance, since the traditional clubs from the lower house had demanded that the factor in public interest in the respective clubs should be weighted more in the future.
However, the total share is still three percent here, there are only slight changes. From the 2025/26 season, “In addition to the interest in each club, the national TV range and the number of the respective club members are taken into account in addition to the interest in every club”. The distributor key is “both the club and membership work and the attractiveness of the clubs for TV viewers”.
Watzke sees “very good signal for the league association”
“In constructive, concentrated discussions, a good further development of the proven key was achieved. To this end, the members of the Presidium have brought together a wide variety of interests as an overall perspective for German professional football and in the end achieved a unanimous result,” said Hans-Joachim Watzke, spokesman for the DFL Presidium: “This is another very good signal for the league association after the extremely successful right-wing tender.”
From the 2025/26 season, the 36 first and second division clubs receive a total of 1.1 billion euros per season. The new distribution key applies until the 2028/29 season.