For many third division clubs, this windfall is welcome in difficult times: A new TV contract will increase total club revenues from 15.65 to 26.2 million euros per season. This was announced by the German Football Association (DFB) on Wednesday.
ARD, ZDF, Sky and the streaming service DAZN have secured the rights to future highlight reporting. ARD and ZDF can show summaries of up to 18 minutes of each game. As in the Bundesliga and the 2nd league, the Monday game, which is unloved by the fans, will no longer be played in the 3rd league.
“This contract is a strong sign for the 3rd division“said the responsible DFB Vice President Peter Frymuth: “On this basis, the league can continue its positive development in terms of attractiveness and attention.”
Rules game day only over three days
With the new media rights contract, the 3rd division breaks the 100 million euro mark for the first time over a period of four years. Compared to the current rights period, this means an increase of around 67 percent. The 3rd division committee will discuss the exact distribution of the net proceeds to the clubs and submit a proposal to the DFB committees. Frymuth said “With the significant increase in revenue, the next step towards the necessary economic stabilization has been taken.” he hope “that the clubs use the improved conditions sensibly and in the best possible way”.
Starting in the coming season, the regular match day will extend over three days instead of the last four. One game will be played on Friday evening. The core time remains Saturday afternoon with six games, with the option of a game later in the afternoon or early evening.
The remaining three games are scheduled at three different times on Sundays. The appointments at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. are new. The latter kick-off time takes the place of the Monday game. Tom Eilers, chairman of the 3rd division committee, emphasized that the active fan scenes were involved in the waiver of the Monday game and thus “a signal and set standards” had been.
Only ten more games will be broadcast free-to-air
All games of the 3rd league will continue to be shown on MagentaSport. The Telekom channel secured the media rights for the four seasons from 2023/24 to 2026/27. All 380 games of the season have already been shown on MagentaSport. At the auction that has now ended, Telekom initially secured all live rights.
Since there will be talks about sub-licensing, numerous games should also be shown on free TV in the future. According to the contract, at least ten matches per season are to be broadcast free-to-air. Most recently, the rights for 86 live games on free-to-air television and the summaries were held by SportA, the agency of ARD and ZDF.
ARD will continue to provide summary reporting
ARD regrets that it will no longer be the direct live partner of the DFB in the 3rd division from the 2023/24 season: As part of an extensive tender, the DFB decided on another partner who, as a pay partner, acquired a comprehensive package – including the right to sublicense individual games to a free TV broadcaster. SportA/ARD will calmly explore the extent to which there will be opportunities to continue to have individual rights to live games via sub-licensing in the future.
This is also against the background that the ARD with its third programs has already been a very reliable and wide-ranging partner for the clubs in the 3rd league. What the ARD emphasizes in a statement from the sports coordination after their command: As before, from the 2023/24 season there will also be comprehensive, comprehensive reporting of the games in the 3rd division in all programs and offers of the ARD, which can be made promptly after the end of the respective game and on all matchdays in the 3rd division .