Presently, we can find a central marketing of the TV rights for the games of the German Football Bundesliga. The marketing rights are held by the German Football League LLC (DFL) which has taken over the rights from the German Football Association (DFB) since the season 2001/2002. The DFL was founded on the initiative of the big clubs to bring in more influence in the assertion of their own interests.
Meanwhile the Federal Cartel Office is checking the situation. Should they see the open competition in danger, the games could be marketed separately in the near future. Lars Schauer, general manager of the Football Club Energie Cottbus, considers the central marketing as essential for the smaller clubs. Thomas Rottgermann, general manager of the agency Sportfive believes as well that due to the individual marketing the smaller teams will be worse off. Sportfive is an international sports marketing agency which merchandises among others the TV and marketing rights of 30 Football Clubs.
With the central marketing, the DFL negotiates about the rights for the broad casting of the games of the German Football Bundesliga, inherent the TV rights for live board casting and all additional summaries. The resultant revenues from the different stations will be divided percental to the clubs, depending on different factors. With the individual marketing each club will negotiate about their home games itself. It is in their own option which station they want to offer their rights. Besides they can decide if they want the game to be transmitted regional or nationwide.
The risk using this system is a division of the league into a two class society due to financial disparity since the interest in the games from the lower ranged clubs won't be high. They wouldn't be able to keep up with the big teams of the league anymore. In order for to that there will developed an unbalance in the league. Due to the stronger vary financial power the performance difference between the teams will be much bigger. Due to that the championship and the individual games will be less fascinating. The top clubs consider this as a chance to become more competitive in the football world, because they could buy the best players and better equipment with the extra money. Besides; they say the smaller clubs could benefit from marketing for the games against the bigger teams if they have a home game.
While the German Football takes the individual marketing into consideration, Italy will turn its back to it at the beginning of the season 2010/2011 since they already experienced an unbalance in the upper Serie A. Therefore they decided last year that the TV right should be merchandised centrally from the league. The resultant revenues will be divided as follows: 40 percent of the total amount will go in equal shares to the clubs, 30 percent will be assigned according to the sportive importance including the success story of the club, the position in the past years and the state of the last season table. Besides there will be 30 percent divided depending on the spectators potential.
The actual status in Europe shows the following: In the season 2005/2006 the English Premier League collected in total 1,994 million Euro, Italian's Serie A collected 1,240 million Euro, Spain by practicing the individual marketing collected about 1,158 million Euro, Germany 987 million Euro and France 819 million Euro.
