ARD and ZDF show the women’s soccer World Cup
Dhe dispute over the live transmission of the games from the Women’s World Cup has been settled. As ARD and ZDF announced on Wednesday, the public broadcasters will also show the games from Australia and New Zealand, as in previous years. The agreement was reached after tough negotiations over several months. However, the contractual partners of the world football association Fifa are not the broadcasters, but the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
“The EBU has reached an agreement in principle with Fifa to include the markets of Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain in the existing contract for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. According to this agreement, all games and all goals of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, which takes place from July 20th to August 20th, 2023, can be seen on ARD and ZDF.
This means that an emergency solution that was recently discussed, according to which Fifa would offer the World Cup games as a stream on its own Internet platform, is also off the table. A FIFA spokesman had previously assured the German Press Agency that there would be “no blackout”. At the same time, he emphasized that there would be no tournament in Germany without moving pictures and explained: “We prefer broadcasts on public television, but we can also show the games on FIFA+.”
Extremely hardened fronts
Almost five weeks before the start of the tournament on July 20, Fifa had publicly confirmed for the first time that if the negotiations fail, the World Cup broadcast as a stream on its own channel is the alternative to traditional television broadcasting. Games have been streamed on FIFA+ since April last year.
Despite numerous appeals from politicians and mediation by DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, the fronts in the negotiations were extremely hardened. ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky recently said at the SpoBis congress: “In the normal world you would sit down and come to a solution. But both sides have to be ready for this.” Persons entrusted with the negotiations had recently stated several times that there was no progress and that there were no real negotiations. Thanks to the trick with the EBU, an agreement has now been reached.
So far, the transmissions of the big tournaments in Germany have always been on ARD and ZDF, which also submitted the best offer for the German TV market when it came to the tender for the 2022 World Cup, as those responsible for broadcasting emphasized. But the offer was too small for Fifa. President Gianni Infantino publicly demanded more money without giving specific figures. The only thing that was certain was that the amount involved was in the mid-single-digit millions.