Germany’s professional football league Bundesliga has agreed multiple broadcast partnerships across subscription, free-to-air, and digital channels in the UK & Ireland market, including a first-of-its-kind deal with YouTube content creators to air games.
Under a new strategy, existing partner Sky Sports will continue to exclusively screen the league’s prime Saturday match, which kicks off at 17:30 BST, alongside a highlights package and other shoulder programming throughout the week.
New partner Prime Video has taken exclusive rights to all Sunday matches on a single pay-per-view basis for the UK only, with no long-term commitments required. This agreement also includes the promotion/relegation play-off games and the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup next year to begin the 2026-27 season.
Friday night games, meanwhile, will be screened free-to-air across multiple platforms in the UK and Ireland as part of a new Bundesliga audience-building strategy.
The BBC will stream all Friday night games via its on-demand platform BBC iPlayer, as well as the BBC Sport website and app.
The Bundesliga free-to-air strategy will be bolstered by a partnership with leading YouTube football channels, which will live-stream matches on their platforms in a watch-along format.
The Overlap football podcast series will show 20 Bundesliga games in 2025-26, starting with the season opener on Friday 22 August 2025 to its 1.5 million subscribers, while Mark Goldbridge’s That’s Football channel with 1.3 million subscribers will also stream 20 matches.
This will be the first time ever that a top league has granted live coverage rights for an extensive package of matches to content creators in Europe.
The Bundesliga’s own YouTube channel will also broadcast all Friday evening matches from the top tier of the German league and Bundesliga 2 games next season.
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Peer Naubert, Chief Executive of Bundesliga International, said: “Our approach is as diverse as our supporters: by combining established broadcasters with digital platforms and content creators, we are taking a progressive step in how top-level football can be experienced.
“This multi-layered strategy allows us to connect with more audiences across the UK and Ireland, giving every supporter the chance to engage with [the brand’s UK campaign,] Football As It’s Meant To Be in the way that suits them best.”
RTL Group recently announced it would acquire Sky Deutschland for €150m, combining Sky’s sports rights – including Bundesliga, Premier League and Formula 1 – with RTL’s entertainment and news brands in the region across RTL+, free-to-air and pay TV. Discover more here.
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