Eurosport and DFL Sports Enterprises announced signing a new agreement on broadcasting matches of the German Football Championship in seasons 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
The information message states that the transaction provides for transfering exclusive TV and digital rights to Eurosport, as well as conveying to the channel sub-license rights to cover all the matches of Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 in 22 territories of the North, Central and Eastern Europe.
In practice, it turns out that Bundesliga matches on Eurosport 2 TV channel can be available to viewers from the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.
Thus, the new agreement safely excluded Russia, Ukraine and some other CIS countries.
According to Sporttvnews, previous seasons from 2012 to 2015 the Ukrainian and Russian audience was able to watch on a special version of Eurosport channel, i.e. Eurosport 2 North East, which replaced Eurosport 2 International. Apparently now the audience expects a reversed shift with replacing channel’s version, although it is not ruled out the creation of a fully new version for that region.
The Sporttvnews portal’s journalists also affirm that Bundesliga matches can be seen now in the Russian Federation on the TV channel Sport 1.
As for Ukraine, the Bundesliga may be broadcast on the sports channels Football 1 and Football 2, incorporated into the Media Group Ukraine. But users of specialized forums claim that the games of the German Football Championship will not be shown in Ukraine.
If we talk about other CIS countries, so the main favorite for showing Bundesliga matches is the channel Setanta Sports Eurasia.
We shall recall that Eurosport 2 started showing matches of the German Football League first in 2009. Then in 2011 Eurosport and DFL Sports Enterprises extended the contract.
