Bundesliga Rights Could Return to Premiere

FRANKFURT, July 6: German pay-TV platform Premiere is said
to be close to signing a deal with Arena to sub-license the broadcasting rights
to Bundesliga football matches.

According to wire reports, referencing Financial Times
Deutschland, Unity Media, the parent
company of sports network Arena, may also dissolve its Bundesliga editorial and
production staff and shut the channel down.

In 2005, Premiere lost out on the bidding for the Bundesliga
rights to Unity Media’s Arena, which sent its stock price plummeting. Last
year, the platform reached a deal for the non-exclusive satellite marketing
rights for the games. Unity Media, in return was to receive a 16.7 percent
stake in Premiere. That agreement was being investigated by the German Cartel
Office up until earlier this week, when the authority said it had received a
new proposal from Premiere. It is not clear what the proposal was.

Arena has struggled with cable distribution and has been
unable to ink carriage with Kabel Deutschland, the leading cable platform with
some 9.5 million subscribers in 13 German states. The Bundesliga rights,
meanwhile, are costing the company about $300 million per season.