Germany: the competition authority to end the Sky monopoly on broadcasting the Bundesliga

The Bundeskartellamt (German federal office of competition, the anti-monopoly authority) supports the introduction, into the bidding for the 2017-2021 domestic TV rights for German professional football, of a rule prohibiting a single broadcaster from acquiring all the broadcasting rights to the Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga, according to the German newspapers FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Handelsblatt on 23 and 25/01/2016.

The introduction of this "no single buyer rule" was requested to the Bundeskartellamt in early December 2015, by a delegation of different multiple media and telecom operators and the club FC Bayern Munich. Led by Dieter Hahn, the chairman of the supervisory board of Constantin Medien (group owning Bild newspaper and Sport1 television), the delegation notably includes representatives from Deutsche Telekom and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of the board of of the Bavarian club.

Germany is the only country in the Top 5 European leagues (along with Spain in 2015-16), where all of the rights to broadcast the first division, on pay-TV, are controlled by a…