MUMBAI: The football season for Europe’s top leagues kicked off Saturday with little media noise in the Indian market. And slipped in under the radar as it were was a change of baton for the India broadcast rights of Germany’s Bundesliga.
So quiet has been the “handover” in fact, that even the German football league’s official website has a “No broadcaster in India” message to offer if anyone tries checking back on this.
On to the facts of the matter. Just before Bundesliga’s season 2021-22 “kick-off”, Dream Sports’ subscription-based sports streaming platform FanCode exercised the “opt-out” clause in its three-year media rights contract, after having completed just one year of the rights cycle.
Fortunately for Indian football fans though, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has “picked up the slack” as it were, securing a two-year agreement with Bundesliga International for the India subcontinent media rights.
As for the price agreed, it is $2.2 million over the two years the deal runs, SportzPower is given to understand.
As per what industry sources have told SportzPower, Star was earlier paying $1.5 million per year as part of a global agreement negotiated by then parent Fox. And what of FanCode? This website has been told that the sports streaming platform paid Bundesliga $600,000 for its broadcast of the 2020-21 season’s football action.
Coming back to Sony, it is still to “pump up any volume” on its latest football rights acquisition. That will probably have to wait till India’s ongoing Test series in England is done and dusted. More so with India’s thrilling come-from-behind victory against hosts England on the last day of the match Monday, all the attention would no doubt be on the cricketing action around Virat Kohli’s team in England.
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