The European Broadcasting Union (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 2023 Women’s World Cup. According to this agreement, all games and all goals of the soccer World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, which takes place from July 20th to August 20th, 2023, will be shown on ARD and ZDF.
“I’m very pleased that we can once again offer women’s football the stage that the players and the spectators deserve this year“, said ARD sports rights director Tom Buhrow on the agreement: “I would like to expressly thank DFB President Bernd Neuendorf for his trusting support during the negotiations over the past few weeks. The result is in the interests of the sport, the players and the fans, who will now be able to cheer on the German women’s national soccer team in front of television, radio and online in a month’s time.“
different Financial ideas prevent earlier agreement
The negotiations had previously failed for a long time due to different financial ideas. FIFA President Gianni Infantino had spoken about “disappointing and unacceptable“Complained about offers and brought up the possibility of not selling the rights – and not showing the World Cup in the relevant countries.
ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky, on the other hand, had talked about a “market-driven offer that would feature the upcoming Women’s World Cup prominently on ARD and ZDF, as usual” Spoken. The ZDF had already explained before Infantino’s statements at that time: “ZDF’s offers for the acquisition of sports rights are based, among other things, on the market price for the respective sports right. Under certain circumstances, the market value can deviate considerably from the price expectations of rights marketers.”
Relief at the DFB
The German Football Association accepted the assignment of the broadcasting rights “with relief“As announced by the association. DFB President Bernd Neuendorf is pleased with the agreement and the possibility of a broad visibility of the tournament. “A blackout could be prevented. This is of enormous importance for the further development of women’s football in Germany“, so Neuendorf.
National coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg also spoke of relief – and now wants to focus on the sporty: “I would like to thank everyone involved that an agreement has now been reached in terms of the development of women’s football, visibility, the millions of fans and the sporting value of the tournament. Now we can start the preparations and the World Cup with even more momentum and positive energy.“
Rights previously granted in 28 areas
The new agreement follows on from the EBU’s partnership with FIFA established to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 in France. FIFA had already awarded the free-to-air media rights for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 in 28 European territories to the EBU in October 2022 – now the aforementioned “Big Five” and Ukraine are joining them.
The agreement secure”enormous additional advertising opportunities and exposure for women’s football, which should further increase its commercial value‘ said FIFA President Infantino: ‘This is one of our main goals in promoting women’s football in the long term.”