Bundesliga: Now Available in 51% More of the World!

The German Bundesliga season kicks off tomorrow, when current champions Bayern Munich host 2008/9 champions Wolfsburg (who will be managed by none other than Steve McClaren). Things are looking pretty rosy for the league, with a mix of big names and exciting young talent, a shiny new logo and now – kerching – a more lucrative international broadcasting deal.

Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira may have jumped from the Bundesliga boat and climbed aboard the Real Madrid yacht, but the ship will keep sailing just fine without them. Arjen Roben and Franck Ribery are still at Bayern, Michael Ballack is back, and will play for Bayer Leverkusen, while Raul has famously joined Schalke. Factor in youngsters like Werder Bremen’s Marko Marin (officially the fastest dribbler in Germany) and Bayern’s Toni Kroos, plus the buzz around a youthful Germany’s exciting World Cup run, and you can see why the world is paying a little more attention to German domestic football this year, and bringing the Bundesliga a little more money, apparently 10% more than last season:

“Internationally we have boosted our activities,” German football league CEO Christian Seifert told Reuters in an interview the day before the new season kicks off. “For 2010-11 we will have (international TV rights revenues) of over 40 million euros (£35m).”

“So definitely a double-digit increase,” he said, adding they had also more territories buying the rights worldwide this season, up from 138 to 208.
“The Bundesliga is a very attractive product. We had the largest number of World Cup players after the Premiership,” he said, adding that Germany’s World Cup run and big-name Bundesliga signings had contributed to that.”

Obviously that €40 million figure is way way short of the English Premier League’s international broadcasting deal, worth £1.4 billion over the next three seasons. However, adding 70 new territories can only be a good thing for domestic German football. From 138 to 208 territories is a 51% increase and quite an expansion. So the future of the Bundesliga as a business seems bright, especially while things like the 50+1 rule and low ticket prices (in comparison to other major European leagues) suggest the Bundesliga’s slow and steady growth will continue, while other leagues are wobbling with debt.

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Category: Bundesliga