Bundesliga weighing up options on archive channel

The DFL acquired a television licence last year and is considering all possibilities, including getting carriage fees from cable companies, going to its existing broadcast partners and agreeing add-on deals or keeping it as a web-based subscription model. Christian Seifert, DFL chief executive, told TV Sports Markets that acquiring the licence opens up a “huge number of opportunities”.

Seifert said: “There's a lot of demand for football content, but not all of it has to be for live. We have the world’s biggest digitalised football archive of over 35,000 hours of Bundesliga footage going back to 1963. There are target groups that have a lot of buying power and a taste for the past that will have some demand for this.”

The archive “is not just a fancy technical toy. This is about expanding the offer and is something very real on the ground”. The recent deal in Africa with pay-broadcaster Supersport, for example, included select archive coverage of former African Bundesliga players.